After a contentious incident last Thursday between Undersheriff Mike Dominick and Sheriff Mike McMeekin, Dominick is no longer in office. And on Monday, McMeekin announced that he was taking a week off from work to rest after working a month straight.
The events are closely related, and came to a head Monday morning after another run-in between McMeekin and Dominick, who had returned to his previous position as a patrol sergeant after the Thursday dispute, which occurred after a meeting about the Black Cat fire. According to sources familiar with the incident, Dominick encountered the sheriff early Monday, a day he planned to clean out his undersheriff office.
Dominick refused. By midmorning, County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg and the county's chief administrative officer, Ann Mary Dussault, had an “intervention” under way with the sheriff. That intervention ended with a cryptic, late-afternoon statement from McMeekin, a statement released by Van Valkenburg, who acted as the county's sole spokesman on Monday.
The statement said: “Public safety in an emergency response situation requires that incident leadership take periodic breaks to recover physically and mentally from the demands placed on them by the 24/7 demands of an emergency response.
“After more than 30 days on duty since the outbreak of the Sawmill fire in Rock Creek and with the change for the better in the weather, I believe that it is appropriate for me to take the break required of all incident managers and firefighters. In addition, Undersheriff Mike Dominick is presently unavailable. Therefore, accordingly, I am temporarily appointing Captain Carl Ibsen as the Acting Missoula County Undersheriff in charge of all Sheriff's Office operations for a period of one week until Tuesday, August 28, 2007, while I take the required rest break effective at 3 P.M. today, August 20, 2007.”
Van Valkenburg said the overarching issue was that McMeekin had grown exhausted by Missoula County's ongoing summer of fire. That created stressful situations that might otherwise not have occurred, Van Valkenburg said.
“People just need to understand that situations like these create problems and we need to sort of let the dust settle before we make any more decisions,” the county attorney said.
Missoula County has had major fires burning now for at least a month. McMeekin has been extremely hands-on during that time, orchestrating evacuations, briefing incident commanders and generally being everywhere at all times.
Sources said the sheriff had taken very little time for sleep, and no actual days off.
Last Thursday, as the Black Cat fire burning between Frenchtown and Evaro heated up, Undersheriff Dominick was in charge while McMeekin was at the Jocko Lakes fire in Seeley Lake.
It's not entirely clear why, but McMeekin left Seeley and came to the Black Cat on Thursday.
“Essentially, Black Cat was more high-profile than Seeley, and the sheriff felt like he needed to be there,” one source said. “And for some reason that put him into conflict with Dominick. I don't think anybody believes Mike did anything wrong. It's just a tough situation.”
After a meeting with affected residents, McMeekin and Dominick apparently had a heated exchange. Sources told the Missoulian that Dominick resigned as undersheriff right then, but Van Valkenburg said he talked with both men Monday and wouldn't hazard a guess about what exactly was said that night.
“It's actually pretty hard to figure out, and I've talked to both of them,” the county attorney said.
Either way, fired or resigned, Dominick was out as undersheriff.
Neither McMeekin nor Dominick returned calls on Monday.
In Montana, the undersheriff serves at the pleasure of the sheriff. When an undersheriff leaves the job, he returns to his previous position in the department. In Dominick's case, that job was patrol sergeant. Dominick apparently worked at least one shift over the weekend on patrol, and had plans to clean out his office Monday before again encountering the sheriff.
Van Valkenburg said he wouldn't comment on the Monday incident.
“As far as I'm concerned, (Dominick's) still a deputy sheriff working for Missoula County,” Van Valkenburg said.
The sheriff will return to work next Tuesday.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com
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