Despite public support, airport manager is out

COEUR d'ALENE - About 75 people attended Tuesday's County Commissioners meeting, and only two opposed reinstating Greg Delavan as the airport manager.

Those two - Commissioners Todd Tondee and Dan Green - have the only votes that count.

Commissioner Jai Nelson opened the meeting asking to reconsider Delavan's unexpected termination and to consider reinstating him. That went nowhere.

Tondee, chairman of the board, said the agenda listed only one topic and technically that was all that could be discussed. The agenda item was to discuss the hiring process for Delavan's position.

Tondee offered Nelson an opportunity to amend the agenda and open the reinstatement up as an issue, but Nelson declined, saying the topic was already broad enough to include the discussion.

After the meeting Nelson said she didn't have the votes to amend the agenda anyway, so it would have been a moot point. That's why she went to plan B.

"At the very least we need to slow down the hiring process," she said. "And the decision on who to hire should be made by the new board of commissioners."

Tondee and Green said they would welcome input from the new commissioners, but ultimately they agreed that they would make the hiring decision for the new airport manager.

"We have important issues at the airport right now, and putting those off are not in the best interest of the county," Green said.

Airport Advisory Board member Jim Thorpe said the commissioners' time frame to replace Delavan in three weeks doesn't make any sense. The commissioners want to hire the replacement by Nov. 21.

Thorpe said the county has advertised the position in several aviation publications nationally, but there is a problem in that many of those publications are monthly, so the commissioners will have hired a new manager before some of the ads even run.

Considering that, Green was willing to extend the hiring process to Dec. 12, but he and Tondee were adamant that they fill the position before the newly elected commissioners are sworn in.

AAB Chairman John Adams said his board unanimously favors the reinstatement of Delavan, and at the very least much more say in the selection of the new manager.

"Greg has kept you out of trouble for the last 20 years, and he should be applauded for that," Adams said, adding that the reason for his termination is suspect. "Glenn Miles (director of Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization) has an inflexible position on his theoretical freeway, and the city of Hayden is exaggerating the airport's impacts on Hayden."

Tondee and Green asked Adams to stick to the agenda item and asked him to come up with a proposal for the advisory involvement in the hiring process.

Commissioners also asked the AAB to come up with some interview questions.

"I don't think you can go wrong if you just follow Greg's resume," said AAB member Jerry Rose to a loud burst of applause.

That concluded the discussion on the process for now, and the meeting was opened to public comment.

"Well I hope you never take up skydiving because you folks can't tell the difference between a parachute and a knapsack," said Gene Soper, a pilot who got up abruptly and left.

The first public commenter was Republican candidate for county commissioner Dave Stewart, who was speaking three hours before the voting polls closed.

"The one thing I would like to say is, I heard these guys make a recommendation to the board to reinstate Greg Delavan and that is why we have an advisory board," Stewart said. "I will give you the benefit of the doubt because I don't have all of the facts."

However, he said, if Tondee and Green hire a manager before the new commissioners are sworn in, it would only be fair to advise the new manager that if Stewart won, he planned to reinstate Delavan.

Republican county commissioner candidate Marc Eberlein echoed those comments, saying the commissioners should feel obligated to inform the new manager that he intends to do the same thing if elected.

"You should inform the new manager of this as a common courtesy so they don't move their families out here," Eberlein said.

Democratic County Commissioner candidate Jerry Shriner reminded the commissioners that they have heard from all ends of the political spectrum to reinstate Delavan, and they should honor the consensus.

"My second request is to put this off until the middle of January, when the new commission is seated," he said.

Former state legislator Gary Ingram said none of this is necessary because in his opinion, Greg Delavan is still employed. Ingram is the author of Idaho's Open Meeting Law, and he said the process used to terminate Delavan blatantly violated that law.

He said the commissioners admit they made the decision to terminate Delavan in executive session, which is not allowed by law.

"Mr. Delavan may very well still have a job at the airport," Ingram said.

Green said the board's legal counsel has advised them that it was an administrative decision that didn't require a vote in an open meeting.

"I think the decision was made outside of the law," Ingram responded.

Former School Board trustee Brent Regan agreed with Ingram. He read a quote from Tuesday's edition of The Press, where Green admitted making the decision in executive session.

"That is against Idaho code," he said, adding that in the few months he sat as a trustee, the open meeting law was drilled into him.

He said the proper procedure for the elected body to terminate an employee is to deliberate the details of the action in executive session, and then come to an open meeting and make a motion to terminate "employee A."

He said violation is clear-cut in his opinion, and therefore the commissioners' action is now rendered null and void.

"Mr. Delavan still has a job," Regan said. "And now Mr. Delavan still has standing to sue us."

After the meeting Tondee again confirmed that the decision was made in executive session and he was going to have the county's staff attorney look into the legality of the action.

"If we were wrong," he said, "we will fix it."