News Briefs

City settles wrongful termination lawsuit

Boulder City has paid a former utilities department employee nearly $60,000 to settle a wrongful termination suit filed in December, according to a city administrator.

James Petrie, who worked in the utility department as a billing and collection supervisor starting in 2011, was fired in December after a third-party audit found $50,000 missing from the city’s bank accounts.

Petrie was fired for failing to properly complete his work commitments and sued the city for wrongful termination. He was supposed to enter into arbitration in April, but Petrie’s attorney said in March that the city, Teamsters Local 14 and Petrie reached a “mutually agreeable resolution.”

The city disclosed May 24 that it spent $58,408, more than the amount of money that went missing, to settle the suit.

City discloses salary of new police chief

Boulder City’s newly minted police chief, Timothy Shea, will make $122,713 in his first year in office, according to city administrator Bryce Boldt.

Shea was announced as the new police chief May 17 and will take office June 1, replacing former Police Chief Bill Conger, who pleaded guilty to failure to perform duty after he chose not to pursue a criminal case against former animal control supervisor Mary Jo Frazier.

Conger’s salary in 2015, which was paid through a contractor, was $121,476, Boldt said. Sgt. John Glenn, who took over for Conger in January as interim police chief, made $168,580 in 2015, the website shows.

Shea has more than 40 years of law enforcement experience and is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves. Before working in the Las Vegas Court System Shea was bureau chief of field operations for Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office in Washington.