Fired Coeur d’Alene airport manager rehired

After an unexpected 15-week break from his job, Greg Delavan is back in charge of the Coeur d’Alene Airport.

Delavan was reinstated Thursday as manager of the Kootenai County-owned airport in Hayden. The county Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 to give him his job back after he had been fired in October for reasons that were not made public.

Delavan was rehired with his same annual salary of $76,673 and the same benefits, and he will be paid for the 15 weeks since he was terminated, the county said. He did not receive a financial settlement, but for two years Delavan will have an extra layer of job security in that he can be fired only for cause, not “at will” like other county employees, board Chairman David Stewart said.

Stewart and Marc Eberlein, new commissioners who were elected in November, voted at a special meeting Thursday morning to rehire Delavan. Commissioner Dan Green opposed the move and said the special contract for Delavan sets a bad precedent.

Delavan, manager of the general aviation airport for about 20 years, and several of his supporters attended the brief meeting.

“I’d like to thank you very much for bringing me back,” he said after the vote.

As candidates last fall, Eberlein and Stewart indicated they would reconsider the decision to terminate the airport manager. Stewart said Thursday he carefully reviewed Delavan’s personnel file and talked with airport advisory board members, past elected officials and others with a stake in airport operations.

“For me there was no smoking gun” that justified firing Delavan in the first place, he said.

He also noted the county faced a liability risk over Delavan’s termination, which also makes the reinstatement prudent.

Green and former Commissioner Todd Tondee supported terminating Delavan in late October.