Robinson — who has served as chief since 2006 and has been with the fire department since 1996 — said Tuesday that he plans to take a part-time job doing “consulting” work with the Consumer Financial Education Foundation of America, a non-profit organization that trains individuals on money management.
Robinson says he intends to remain with the fire department as a shift captain.
“They (CFEFA) pressed me to take a more active role,” Robinson said. “It’s reached the point where I can’t ignore it.”
The resignation met with the approval of the council, save for member Paul Johnson, who said Tuesday that he believes Robinson’s resignation and demotion may be against city policy.
“I don’t know the policies and procedures manual will even allow him to do that (move back to captain),” Johnson said. “(City attorney) Bill Weathington said he would look into it.”
Reached for comment Tuesday afternoon, Weathington said he had yet to review the policy in the city manual, but that he was “pretty sure” the city is perfectly within its authority to allow Robinson to move back down.
Johnson said further that he believes Robinson’s resignation is a sham.
“(His resignation is) not about him going into the private sector,” Johnson said. “It’s not about that at all. I don’t want to get sued, so I’m not giving out any more information than that. … I found it appalling that we would allow somebody to lie and tell everybody he’s going into the private sector; I couldn’t believe that.”
The councilman declined to comment any further on the matter, and said he did not speak up during the meeting because he was trying to save the city from any embarrassment.
“I’m pretty much about truth … and I’m just about fed up with it, to be honest with you,” he said. “I think what happened last night was a lie to the citizens. One time, I would love to hear the truth.”
Moody mayor Joe Lee said he left Monday’s council meeting believing Johnson had voted in favor of the measure, even saying “we have unanimous consent” following the vote (Lynn Taylor, the council member over the fire department, was absent from the meeting).
“I called on him (Johnson) personally for a ‘yes’ vote and turned around to the city clerk and said we have a unanimous vote,” said Lee. “The minutes will reflect that at the next council meeting (tentatively scheduled for Monday, Feb. 8); if he has a problem with that, he’ll need to challenge it at that time.
“Paul has a vendetta against the chief for some reason; I don’t know why that is.”
Reached for comment Tuesday, council members Phillip Deason and Bobby Clements, along with mayor pro tem Linda Crowe, echoed the mayor’s comments — that the council approved Robinson’s resignation unanimously.
“I sit right next to (Johnson),” Clements said. “He voted ‘aye’ just like the rest of us, and Joe even said, ‘we have unanimous consent.’”
Johnson said he had no idea Robinson intended to enter the private sector until Monday’s meeting; he says he believed Robinson was resigning from the department for personal reasons.
“There were three or four council members in a closed-door meeting with the fire chief, because I guess they decided the agreement didn’t look good,” he said. “They were afraid of a lawsuit, I guess, so they took the easy way out.
“I called (city clerk Patsy Beard) this morning, because I wanted to make sure they knew I was against it. I think his (Robinson’s) actions deserve termination.”
Lee said that Robinson did come into the mayor’s office to meet with the mayor and council prior to the regular meeting, and that the door was shut. But, he said, the door was unlocked, and it was shut for no more than a minute or two.
“There was not a quorum in the council meeting,” Lee said. “I was there along with (council members) Bobby Clements and Linda Crowe. The chief came into that meeting.
“Nobody was shut out; the door was closed but the door was unlocked. I was sitting in the office. James came in and closed the door.
“I will address all this myself personally. … He’s (Robinson) a good fireman and a good paramedic, and we don’t want to lose those kinds of people.”
Robinson declined to respond to any of Johnson’s allegations, except to say he stands on what he told the council.
“One way or the other, I won’t say,” he said. “I’ve been doing some consulting work with this firm for a while, and it is what it is. A financial opportunity presented itself, and it’s too lucrative to ignore.
“In politics and the business of a city, everybody has a job to do. Sometimes the job gets done in a fashion that not everybody agrees with. The decision (to resign) was made without regard to anything else. I talked with the mayor and several council people at length about it.
”It’s just one of those lifetime transitions.”
In Robinson’s stead, much of the administrative duty will fall to fire marshal Joe Nobles, Sr., who has served as chief on two different occasions (from 1983-1992 and 1999-2002). He has served as fire marshal since 2005.
“Each department officer will run their respective shifts,” Nobles said. “If they’ve got any problems, they’ll bring it to me. They’re competent people, so they can pretty much take care of their own shifts.
“We’ll continue to give the citizens the service they’re entitled to and came to know and love.”
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