This Tuesday, the board of directors of the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District will vote to part ways with Chief Michael Mingee. His last day with the department will be July 31, a year and five months before his employment contract is scheduled to end.
The vote, all but preordained and quietly scheduled for the end of next week’s regular board meeting, will be to formally accept Mingee's request for early retirement, and it comes just a few days after a lawsuit against him was settled out of court. The exact terms of the settlement are not clear, but what is clear is the chief will leave his post early as a direct result of that litigation. Mingee, 59, has headed the department since 2007.
The back-channel legal drama is also unfolding just as Carpinteria-Summerland voters rejected a $10.65 million bond measure for the district. Measure Z would have funded the construction of a new Summerland fire station and major renovations of the existing Carpinteria station. Critics said the measure was too costly and poorly contrived. The district serves 23,000 South Coast residents in a 40-square-mile area. It has an annual operating budget of $8 million.