STATter911 REPORTED YESTERDAY (HERE, then scroll down) ON THE FEUD RUNNING SINCE EARLY DECEMBER between the Belle Rive, Illinois, mayor and the town’s fire chief. If you have read it, then you know it has to do with the fire chief’s business providing off-street parking directly across from the mayor’s restaurant.
Knowing that the Firegeezer would always be curious about a fire chief who owns a beauty salon, Dave tossed the story off to us. And we have found…….. the rest of the story.
[photopress:belle_rive_downtown.jpg,full,centered]
Belle Rive, Illinois (downtown)
population: 380
You know by now that the mayor threatened to fire the chief because his hair salon business restricted its off-street parking to its own customers. Relevance of this to his duties as fire chief was never quite spelled out. Fire Chief Lance Thackey, wishing the to spare the town council the headache of this, handed in his resignation.
Since Mayor Don Wilkey has no authority to fire anybody, the town council met Monday night and affirmed its desire to keep Thackey on as fire chief by a 4-0 vote. They asked him to reconsider his resignation and gave him 24 hrs. to decide. Yesterday he told the council that he will remain on as fire chief.
Still puzzled about what the parking dispute has to do with the operation of the fire department, the council has given the mayor until its next meeting on Feb. 11 to provide documentation of any misconduct on Thackey’s part.
It was noted that Chief Thackey and his wife are the only two FD members that are EMT certified and thus able to provide care for accident victims.
Reading between the lines, it looks like the mayor was miffed because Thackey wouldn’t let the mayor’s cafe customers park in Thackey’s private lot which is reserved for his own customers. The mayor is claiming that the lot is on city property and that anybody can use it. So it’s going to be settled by having the right-of-way surveyed. The town will have to pay for that, of course.
In addition, it was discovered during the dispute that all parking places on the city streets are required to be painted at 60-degree angles instead of head-on. So the town will also have to pay to have all the city streets re-painted with the proper configuration for the parking slots.
By Firegeezer’s count, the score is:
Fire Chief – 3
Mayor – 0
KFVS Ch. 12 has a VIDEO REPORT on the whole mess.
The Centralia Morning Sentinal has more on the background of the feud HERE.
Recent Comments