The Gazette
BLACK FOREST, Colo. — Bob Harvey, the former chief of the Black Forest Fire Rescue Protection District, has sued the fire district for $1 million on the grounds of defamation, emotional harm and that he was wrongfully terminated in 2014.
The beleaguered chief’s departure in June 2014 was mysterious. By Harvey’s account last summer, he resigned after a prolonged sick leave due to post-traumatic stress disorder after the Black Forest Fire in 2013.
The Black Forest fire board said in an Aug. 20, 2014, meeting that it had not heard from Harvey in 11 weeks and his refusal to communicate amounted to a public resignation. Despite the lack of communication, the board said it had not fired Harvey, but was searching for a new chief.
The lawsuit claims Harvey was fired after he sought to use employee benefits, such as vacation and sick leave.
“The district terminated the chief without due cause, in retaliation for the chief acting in accordance with his legal duties, in violation of public policy, and without due process or affording any actual notice or protections to the chief,” Harvey’s lawyers stated in a lawsuit filed June 18.
The Black Forest fire district claims that Harvey missed his legal window in which to file a lawsuit, 180 days after “injury” was done to Harvey. The response to Harvey’s lawsuit, filed Sept. 21, asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Court documents reveal an extended and bitter battle between Harvey and members of the fire district board, which oversees hiring and the budget.
Harvey was investigated and cleared of allegations from the board that he misused fire department funds when he used a credit card to pay a psychiatrist and replace lost equipment and manuals. But in court documents, Harvey digs up three-year-old internal squabbles, rumor-mongering and disagreements with former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, who Harvey says Maketa made “statements and assertions concerning the Black Forest fire and the leadership” of Harvey, resulting in interference in Harvey’s employment relationship with the fire district.
The lawsuit names the Black Forest fire department, the Black Forest Volunteer Fire Rescue Members Association, Maketa and “John/Jane Doe” as defendants. Lawyers for Maketa requested an extension until Oct. 1 for filing a response. In an email to The Gazette on Thursday, Harvey declined to comment.
The lawsuit begins by invoking a 2012 dispute between Harvey and the “significant other” of Rick McMorran, the fire district chairman and a sheriff’s lieutenant, and goes on to describe struggles with accountability over the 2013 Black Forest fire, which ignited while Harvey was chief.
In his allegations against the board, Harvey claims that during the early days of the Black Forest fire, El Paso County Deputy Fire Marshal Scott Campbell used fire to help curb the spread of flames - a common practice in firefighting - but that the tactic ignored “proper procedures” and resulted in the loss of one home.
Harvey’s accusations go unanswered in the fire department’s response. Instead, the motion for dismissal simply sites Harvey’s own timeline of grievances as proof that he missed the statutory window for filing a suit. For his part, Harvey asks that he be awarded compensation for his legal and medical costs.
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