The city of Ocean Shores announced Tuesday it had reached an agreement to pay former fire chief David Bathke $725,000 in damages awarded him by a federal court for breach of contract when he was terminated by Mayor Crystal Dingler in March 2019.

The total amount of the settlement — which included the dismissal of Bathke’s separate lawsuit against Fire Capt. Corey Kuhl in Grays Harbor County Superior Court — was $725,000, including $690,000 from the city and $35,000 from the city’s insurance carrier.

“We are taking a significant step,” said Dingler. “We can finally put this behind us and move our focus toward further developing our fire department and strengthening our EMS and fire service.”

Bathke’s breach of contract suit, filed the month after he was fired, asked for no less than $1.4 million. U.S. Western District Court Judge Benjamin J. Settle found in favor of Bathke’s argument that his termination by Dingler instituted breach of contract. But the judge trimmed the settlement amount to just under $750,000.

In his decision, Settle took exception with Dingler’s decision to place Bathke on paid administrative leave a few days after a November 2018 no-confidence vote taken by the city’s union firefighters, who had said Bathke’s management style was abusive and disrespectful. Dingler had said prior to his termination that Bathke had shown poor judgement in decision making and failed to comply with personnel policies and legal requirements.

Settle’s decision concluded that Dingler’s investigation didn’t include a chance for Bathke to give his side of the story prior to his pretermination hearing in March 2019, and that Dingler “did not do anything more before the (pretermination) hearing than rely on what turned out to be, in many cases, the firefighters’ inaccurate, misleading, or incomplete reports and allegations.”

The city has recorded the settlement amount in its June 2021 financial report, which was issued Tuesday. The City Council may consider reallocating the damages payment from the settlement agreement to another fund; that action remained outstanding while the parties were engaged in settlement negotiations, read a city statement.

In response to the settlement, the federal court has issued a “Satisfaction of Judgment” and the state court has issued a dismissal of the Kuhl case. That defamation, libel and slander case was filed by Bathke against Kuhl in Grays Harbor Superior Court in December 2019.

According to the city statement, the agreement Tuesday includes a release of all previous and future claims related to the case, and a mutual release and waiver of all appeal rights in the federal case.