Three months after placing embattled Jackson County Fire District 5 Chief Charles Hanley on administrative leave, district board members voted Tuesday night to terminate his contract with cause due to allegations, which an investigation sustained, of covering up sexual harassment, bullying and interfering with a governmental promotion board.

The call for a vote came during a special board meeting after a more than two-and-a-half-hour executive session called “to consider dismissal or discipline of, or to hear charges or complaints against an officer, employee, staff member, or agent, if the individual does not request an open meeting.”

Board Chair Greg Costanzo made the motion just before 9 p.m. “for the board to consider the termination of Chief Charles Hanley immediately for cause.” Costanzo and board members Derek Volkart, John Karns and Chris Luz voted “yes.” Board member Sam Pare-Miller was absent.

Tuesday’s decision marks the latest in a wave of administrative changes to the district since February, when International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2596 Union President Captain Brady Graham declared a loss of confidence in Hanley over allegations the chief tolerated and participated in bullying and harassment of district employees.

Costanzo, a retired Oregon State Police bomb technician and owner of ETHOS Training Academy in Phoenix, and two other board members — Karns, chief of the Medford airport fire department, and Chris Luz, the former Phoenix mayor — were appointed to the District 5 board in April after three board members resigned en masse. 

The new board, in addition to placing Hanley on leave in early May, has navigated a slew of issues, from budgetary concerns and staffing shortages to a pair of internal investigations.

Hanley has repeatedly declined to comment to the Rogue Valley Times.

The investigation that led to Hanley’s firing was initiated May 15 with a board decision to look into union complaints pertaining to the chief’s alleged bullying and harassment. District officials say an earlier investigation, conducted in 2022 but discontinued just prior to completion, is being revisited.

Costanzo said it had been the board’s role, since new members first convened May 7, to facilitate the investigation of “a whole myriad of allegations.”

“The concept of public trust is something that not only the public, but I have personally been held accountable for 30 years. The allegations are, in this situation, egregious. They’ve never been allowed in any type of public service, to include fire, police or anything in private or public,” Costanzo said.

“Sexual harassment against anybody will not be tolerated, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s never been okay to bully or harass, for anybody. The last 90 days have been difficult for the public, but I want to recognize people in the fire service of Fire District 5 that have had to live through this.”

Costanzo said “everybody involved in this district deserves better than what we’ve had to investigate” and that he hoped the board decision would “allow healing to begin.”

“Going forward, I would ask the public to get involved in our Aug. 13 meeting. This is just the beginning, and we are going to get Fire District 5 back to a relevant fire district in the state of Oregon,” Costanzo said.

After the meeting, Costanzo said that calling for Hanley’s termination was difficult but necessary. In addition to facing serious allegations, Hanley “was not transparent and was found to be not credible” when interviewed by an investigator, Costanzo said.

“Nobody deserves to be in charge of people or in leadership positions that can’t create a culture of accountability and being safe,” Costanzo said.

“I did the motion because I think that there’s people that work at the fire district that deserve to work in a safe place and understand that accountability and honor and integrity are not something that we just have on challenge coins and on our badges or the walls of our firehouse … that we actually live them.”

Hanley’s termination, Costanzo said, symbolizes “a next chapter” for the district employees.

“The emotions are high. … The stress level that we are putting people through at fire to survive as this continues — they needed to know that tonight they have people to support them. I think the public has always supported the fire district here, but they needed to start healing tonight.”

Interim Fire Chief Aaron Bustard said he hoped morale in the district could begin to improve.

“Morale has been suffering for a long time, and I think, by the board making a decision tonight, it gives a place to restart from, and gives a bit of a foundation,” Bustard said.

“We know that employee wellness matters — that an environment that’s safe for us matters — and I’m hoping that that’ll start improving.”

Bustard said he hopes for swift progress on a proposed intergovernmental agreement with Fire District 3. On July 25, District 3 board members agreed to move forward with plans to minimize duplication of services and help District 5 after months of financial, personnel and administrative challenges.

“With any relationship like that, we want to go in as stable as possible, and we want to go in with as little cloud hanging over us as possible,” Bustard said.

“I think by resolving this, the things that will come out in the next weeks about other issues we’re facing — and resolving those or at least being open about them — will help that process take place. This district has gone through a lot, but I think we have a very, very bright future ahead of us. I’m glad that we can start rebuilding that and hopefully rebuilding that trust in the community, that they know what we stand for.”

Graham said Tuesday’s decision, nearly six months after he raised concerns to board members, was a step in the right direction.

“It’s been a long road to get here. There’s no doubt about that. We started fielding complaints back in November of last year — and the things we started receiving were heartbreaking at best, things like harassment, sexual harassment — and then to know that those things were being covered up,” Graham said.

“Then you fast-forward to tonight and what we’ve gone through to get here. … I won’t even call it a win. I think it’s a win for the people that were affected greatly by it, but I think it is a beginning to us rebuilding from just the absolute brokenness caused by mismanagement of an organization and mismanagement to an extreme extent. It’s really hard to even articulate what one person has done to an organization that once was strong.”

Graham said the district, in his 21 years as an employee, had experienced ups and downs before, but that “we’ve never been this low.” Graham said district employees’ ongoing concerns include short staffing and waiting to see what comes of an agreement with District 3.

“To hear the decision that the board bravely made tonight … feels like a massive weight lifted off the shoulders of everyone who works here,” Graham said.

“I can confidently speak for the people that I represent, the union members of Local 2596. This was a big day.”

Jackson County Fire District 5 Chief Charles Hanley, whose contract was terminated Tuesday night by a board vote during a special meeting, has been the subject of union complaints and at least two investigations since February.

Hanley was removed due to sustained allegations of covering up sexual harassment, bullying and interfering with a governmental promotion board. District officials confirmed Tuesday that several additional allegations are still under review by a third-party investigator.

On administrative leave since May 7, Hanley was hired by the district in May 2017. Prior to coming to the Rogue Valley, Hanley worked for the Rodeo-Hercules Fire Protection District in Rodeo, California, from October 2010 to May 2016, according to his LinkedIn page.

Hanley announced his resignation in August 2016, according to news reports at the time, “to spend more time with family and pursue unspecified other opportunities.”

A year prior, in 2015, a Contra Costa County grand jury had issued a report on concerns raised during Hanley’s 2014 contract renegotiations with the Rodeo-Hercules District board.

The report stated that approval of Hanley’s contract renewal, by a vote of four to one, raised concerns that language added by Hanley “would substantially diminish the elected board’s power and responsibility to oversee and supervise the chief.”

As one example, Hanley’s 2010 contract called for “no termination within six months of (the) November election, except for grave misconduct,” while changes added in 2014 allowed “no termination within 14 months of (the) November election, except for gross misconduct.”

Reports in the Marin Independent Journal at the time noted that a grand jury found that the five-member Rodeo-Hercules board “approved a sweetheart deal for Hanley” and that the board had “surrendered its oversight with practically no review.”

“More troubling to the grand jury,” the Journal reported, “the contract included a provision that Hanley would ‘not be subject to undue oversight’ and that ‘open hostility or other forms of harassment by any board member shall constitute a termination without cause.”

During his time at Rodeo-Hercules, Hanley also served as the chief of Pinole Fire Department, a small municipal department in Contra Costa County.

Prior to serving for the two departments in Contra Costa County, Hanley spent nearly 27 years at the Santa Rosa Fire Department, retiring as deputy fire chief in December 2008. He taught fire technology at Santa Rosa Junior College from 1994 to 2011.