Excerpts from the Dailyherald.com:
With a state-mandated retirement age looming, Barrington Fire Chief Jim Arie will retire March 6 under an agreement that was approved by the village board Monday night. The agreement calls for Arie, who started in Barrington in 2003, to receive a $30,000 lump-sum payment along with cash compensation for all earned and accrued vacation and personal time.
The village is working with GovHR USA in seeking applicants for his replacement through Jan. 22. Arie will turn 65 on Aug. 3 and by state law he would have had to retire the day before. Instead, he chose to exit five months early.
Barrington officials credited Arie for his leadership in public safety and promoting the need for a Northwest Highway underpass at the Canadian National Railway tracks near Lake Zurich Road. He stressed how the underpass would eliminate train blockages for ambulances trying to reach Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital from Barrington’s southeast side.
Arie was the Frankfort Fire Protection District’s deputy chief when Barrington hired him in 2003. He started his career as a firefighter and paramedic in Urbana in 1976 and shifted to Champaign in 1979. In 1987, he became the first director of the ambulance service for Champaign’s city hospital. In 1995, Arie became deputy fire administrator of the New Lenox Fire Protection District and deputy chief of the Frankfort Fire District in 1998.
He was a regional leader during his time in Barrington, working with other suburban fire chiefs on the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. He most recently has been Barrington’s emergency operations coordinator on top of his fire chief duties, which village records show paid a base salary of roughly $132,000.
Arie, who was married over the weekend, said in retirement he plans to travel, “play bad golf” and keep up with his son who is in the military.
