Boxer quits after second DUI charge

Spokane County CEO Francine Boxer has resigned her post, a little more than a week after she was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence.

It’s the second DUI charge against Boxer in three years.

In a short public meeting Monday, Spokane County commissioners unanimously accepted Boxer’s resignation, while praising Boxer for her 30 years of service to the county.

“It’s one of the hardest I’ve ever accepted, but I guess life goes on,” said commission Chairman Phil Harris, who later said the commissioners did not request Boxer’s resignation.

“I’m disappointed we’re going to lose a great chief executive officer. Fran’s done a great job for the county,” Harris said.

County Administrative Services Director Marshall Farnell will now serve as the county’s acting CEO.

Boxer, 53, will leave her job this week, but will remain on the county’s payroll on administrative leave until May 16, 2005, as she uses up sick leave and vacation time she has accrued over the years. After that, Boxer will retire.

Boxer, who earns $93,500 per year, won’t receive her $550 per month car allowance while on leave.

She is also entering an alcohol treatment relapse program.

Boxer appeared calm as she announced her resignation, and commissioners voted to accept it.

The meeting was short and to the point. After the announcement, Boxer was reluctant to answer questions, saying that it was a very emotional day for her.

“I have no bitter feelings about all this,” Boxer said.

“I take responsibility for what I did and what happened. I’m looking at it as a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to take a second look at my life,” she added.

Boxer said working as the county’s CEO has been a demanding and difficult job, particularly for the past few months as she’s served as the CEO and the interim director of the county’s Geiger Correctional Facility. Since March, she has put in more than 250 hours of overtime, she said.

“It was starting to take its toll. I was absolutely exhausted,” she explained.

Boxer has denied she was driving Aug. 7 when she was charged with DUI.

“Until the legal settlement is reached, I’m not guilty. The truth will come out,” Boxer said.

Commissioners said they are still waiting to see what the judicial process reveals about the incident.

“We don’t know what the court is going to find. The whole thing could get thrown out,” Harris said.

Boxer, Spokane County’s highest-ranking nonelected official, was arrested Aug. 7 with a blood-alcohol level of .15, about twice the legal limit.

According to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, Boxer was found alone and asleep in the back seat of a Jeep Cherokee, which had been driven off the road and into a tree near Newman Lake.

Spokane County sheriff’s spokesman Dave Reagan said Boxer’s denial that she was driving contradicts what she told officers at the scene of the accident, but he refused to elaborate.

“We don’t generally discuss confessions,” Reagan said last week.

Boxer was given deferred prosecution for an Oct. 12, 2001, incident in which she was arrested on her way home from a family function with a blood-alcohol level of .22 percent.

At that time, she paid for counseling and had a breath-monitoring device in her car for one year. The DUI charge would have been dismissed if she had not been arrested or convicted over the next five years for an alcohol-related charge.

Monday’s resignation announcement followed two closed-door sessions in which commissioners discussed Boxer.

Several options were examined, said Commissioner John Roskelley, who refused to discuss what was said during the meetings.

“She’s never given any indication, to us at least, that she had a problem,” Roskelley said, adding that she’s given her “heart and soul” to the county.

“I think it’s an appropriate outcome,” said Commissioner Kate McCaslin, adding, “Bad things happen.”

Using up the sick leave and vacation time will end up costing Boxer more than $5,000 a year in retirement income, McCaslin said.

Just last week, Boxer was fighting to retain her position.

In an Aug. 11 letter to the commissioners, Boxer wrote, “Please know, Board, that for almost 30 years, I have given the county 150 percent. If the board so chooses, I will continue to do so through the upcoming proceedings. The most important matter to me now is that the Board and the citizens know how fully aware I am of their shock and dismay with my circumstances. However, I would hope that I would be given the benefit of the doubt until such time that Justice prevails.”

But Boxer also apologized to commissioners.

“You stood by me three years ago under similar circumstances and I have let you down. This, I will regret for the rest of my life,” she wrote.

Boxer said she decided to resign only after days of self-reflection.

“I just did a re-evaluation of my life. The county has been my life for 30 years,” she said. “At this point in my mid-50s, I need to think about me.”