Orthodontia bills, unpaid fees: Lawsuit claims ex-Salida fire chief misappropriated funds
A former fire chief used district money to pay for his children’s orthodontia and let family and friends skip out on paying fire service fees, a lawsuit claims.
Former Salida Fire Protection District Chief Rick Weigele made the accusations about his predecessor, Dale Skiles, in a complaint filed in Stanislaus Superior Court last month. Weigele claims he was fired last summer by the board in retaliation for whistleblowing after reporting the alleged misappropriations of public funds to the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office.
During his two years at the district, Weigele also fired Skiles’ brother, accusing him of falsifying documents, nepotism and more; and allegedly discovered that board members were using fire district property for personal use.
The District objected to the claims in a demurrer filed in court last Thursday, saying the actions described in Weigele’s complaint did not meet the definition of “protected activity” under California’s whistleblower law. Furthermore, the district says the allegations in the complaint occurred a year and a half or more before Weigele’s termination.
The California Labor code pertaining to whistleblowing protections prohibits employers from retaliating against an employee for acts including disclosing a violation of the law to a government or law enforcement agency.
“The Complaint does not state that Plaintiff believed that he had disclosed a violation of law; does not state what laws Plaintiff believed the former chief violated; and does not sufficiently describe the nature of the communication, other than stating that he ‘informed’ the investigator ‘of this information,’” the Demurrer reads.
Skiles investigation
Skiles was the Salida Fire Chief from 2002 to 2017. When Salida for a three-year period became part of the Modesto Regional Fire Authority in the early 2010s, Skiles took on the role of County Fire Warden but, through a contract with the county, continued working part-time as Salida’s Fire Chief after the authority dissolved.
In 2017 the fire board approved lifetime medical benefits for Skiles and his dependents, which could cost the district $16,000 a year for a retiree and spouse.
The board’s decision drew criticism from people who said the benefit was only supposed to apply to full-time employees. Skiles was employed full time by the County as fire Warden and Salida reimbursed the county up to $25,000 a year for Skiles’ part-time contracted work as chief.
Later in 2017, the county terminated the shared management contract with Salida. Skiles retired a few months later in December 2017.
Weigele, hired in July 2018, quickly became aware of district checks that had been used to pay for the orthodontia, according to the complaint.
Weigele declined to comment for this story but his Oakland-based attorney, Jane Brunner, said the district’s manager and board clerk, Danielle Denczek, found the checks and brought them to Weigele’s attention.
A few months later, “Weigele learned that former Chief Skiles had not been enforcing the Community Facilities District fee requirement for his family members, friends, business associates, members of his church, and other associates who were otherwise required to pay,” according to the complaint.
Brunner said she did not yet know how much the orthodontia bills for Skiles’ children amounted to but estimates the lost revenue from the unpaid fees was in excess of $100,000 over a span of about 10 years.
Salida Battalion Chief Pat Burns, who took over administrative duties when Weigele was let go, said neither he nor Denczek could comment on the alleged orthodontia bills as they involve confidential personnel matters.
Burns did say the fee – for fire suppression services – only applies to development after 2010. He said it ranges from an annual flat rate of $523.47 for residential property to anywhere from $2,040 to $500,000 annually for commercial depending on square footage.
Burns said he couldn’t comment on whether some people were knowingly skirting the fee but, “we believe most of it was a lack of communication with the previous administration and the county.”
He said the district was not always notified by the county of new development so some residences and businesses were not informed they had to enter into the district and pay the annual fee. Since the problem was discovered, Burns said entering into the district is now a condition of getting a building permit.
He said they are still going through the process of annexing some properties that were missed.
Brunner said Weigele sent out about 180 letters to businesses and residents that were not paying. Burns said he could not confirm that figure.
Weigele gave all evidence of his findings to two district attorney’s office investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation later got involved in the case, according to the complaint.
District Attorney Birgit Fladager said in an email that she does not comment on investigations and a spokesperson for the FBI said the bureau cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. Brunner said she believed the criminal investigation is ongoing.
Skiles has not been charged with any crime either on a state or federal level. He did not respond to multiple attempts by The Bee to reach him.
State discipline
Weigele updated investigators at the DAs office as he continued to find more troubling issues within the district, according to the complaint.
In September 2018, Weigele discovered that board members were using Fire District equipment, including vehicles and radios purchased with federal funds, for personal use on their farms, Brunner said.
Weigele also investigated Skiles’ brother, Gary Skiles, who was a captain with the department. According to the complaint, Weigele fired Gary Skiles in August 2019 for allegedly using district resources for personal gain, falsifying records to pay his firefighter son a higher salary than his counterparts, and other alleged violations. He has not been charged with any crime.
Also, “as result of Chief Weigele’s investigations of Captain Skiles, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) took disciplinary action against the Fire District after finding that it violated State Fire Training Division regulations and policies,” according to the complaint.
Gary Skiles – who could not be reached for comment – was the registered primary instructor for the district in 2015 and 2016 for firefighter driver training courses, according to the report by CAL FIRE’s Office of the State Fire Marshal. Firefighters who took the course during that time reported completing only 24 of the required 40 hours.
Burns said the district got off probation in late summer of 2020 after the 10 to 15 affected firefighters retook the class and the district put new policies in place to ensure state mandated procedures are followed.
Board chairman Mark Stone said, “The district now compared to where we were four years ago is like night and day.”
He took office in January 2018. Over the next few years, three incumbents left and three new people were appointed, including two women who helped change the dynamic of the previous all male board.
“The board has changed; it’s no longer the good old boys club and we actively sought women for the new board,” Stone said.
He said the old board was all former Salida firefighters and three of them lived on the same street in Salida.
Now the board better represents the entire district in terms of their professional experience and where they live. One board member lives in Salida, one in Del Rio and the other three in the rural east, west and central areas of the district. There are two retired firefighters, a retired manager, a registered nurse, and an administrator at the ambulance company AMR.
Stone and Burns said the district is also much better off financially. Burns said this current fiscal year is the first time the district isn’t operating in a deficit since the Modesto Regional Fire Authority disbanded in 2014 and Salida began operating on its own again. Recouping the lost revenue from the Community Facilities District fee played a major role, as well as leasing out two fire stations that were not being used, Stone said.
The board in place now is the same board that voted unanimously not to renew Weigele’s contract. Stone said he could not discuss the confidential personnel matter and other board members declined to comment or could not be reached.
Weigele’s departure
“Throughout 2019 and 2020, Chief Weigele updated the Fire District Board, in Closed Sessions, that he was working with the County District Attorney’s Office and the FBI Task Force in Ripon regarding the investigation into the financial issues with the previous administration and the possible misuse of Homeland Security funds and equipment purchased by Homeland Security funding,” according to the complaint.
The demurrer by the defense states Weigele’s complaint fails to go into specifics about any of the allegations.
“In addition, Plaintiff took these actions in the course and scope of his duties as Fire Chief, and thus did not blow the whistle; he was doing his job as Fire Chief,” the demurrer reads. “Doing your job – including dismissing subordinates and discussing internal personnel matters – is not protected activity.”
Weigele had 26 years in the fire service in Arizona and the Redding area when he came to Stanislaus County in 2017 for a job as fire chief at Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District.
Amid objection by dozens of people, including top fire officials around the county and city officials within the fire district, the board there forced him out after only five months on the job.
Stanislaus Consolidated’s board never publicly said what led to the decision but Brunner said Weigele had refused the board’s direction to fire three employees. She said all three employees were in a “protected class” and none of them had any negative comments in their personnel files.
Brunner said the Salida Fire board not only knew about why Weigele was fired from Stanislaus Consolidated but it was one of the reasons they hired him.
Brunner said Weigele was “excited to come to Salida. He was shocked at what he found and if he didn’t report it, it would mean his reputation.”
“He got a lot of push back and we contend that he was basically terminated based on him exposing these problems which, under a California labor code, is retaliation for whistleblowing,” said Brunner, Weigele’s attorney.
The demurrer states the complaint, “fails to plead a single factual allegation demonstrating how the non-renewal of his contract was in any way connected to the purported protected activity.”
Weigele never received a formal performance evaluation but, during closed session meetings each month, board members “always told he was doing a great job and to keep doing what he was doing,” Brunner said.
He was told this up to one week before he was put on leave in March 2020, pending an investigation into an allegation by a 52-year-old white firefighter who claimed he was discriminated against when he wasn’t promoted. According to the complaint, chiefs from outside agencies gave the firefighter low scores on a promotional test.
Brunner said her client never got to see the report into that claim before or after he was fired. She said his termination letter included allegations separate from the discrimination claim, which he was never interviewed about or even made aware of until he was fired in July 2020.
Brunner wouldn’t disclose the reasons the district gave for firing Weigele but said, “He believes those allegations that were put in the termination letter are false.”
Weigele, 67, is currently managing a COVID-19 vaccination center in Modesto, Brunner said, but he continues to look for full time employment.
The damages Weigele will seek through the lawsuit will depend on how negatively his termination from Salida affects his ability to find another job, Brunner said. “He would work for many more years; he did not plan to retire,” she said.
He will also seek damages for emotional distress and attorney’s fees.
There is a hearing on the demurrer in Stanislaus Superior Court on April 27.
This story was originally published April 1, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
