Riverdale city manager fired after unanimous city council vote
RIVERDALE, Ga. - Riverdale’s city manager is now out of a job following a surprise vote by members of city council on Tuesday night. Riverdale Mayor Evelyn Wynn-Dixon tells Fox 5 city leaders met for a special called meeting to vote on and pass a budget. When that meeting ended, they went into executive session and on the agenda was a vote to terminate City Manager E. Scott Wood.
Wynn-Dixon says council members cited an April 8th meeting he walked out of after hundreds of residents voiced strong opposition to plans to merge the city’s fire department with Clayton County.
"The council members came and said they wanted him terminated for abandoning his job and some of the things he said…it was a total shock," she said. "It was effective immediately."
Former Riverdale City Council Manager E. Scott Wood. (FOX 5)
An’Cel Davis, a resident and former member of council who was at Tuesday night’s meeting, says he remembered the tense moments the now-ousted city manager stormed out of the room.
Wood later apologized for the abrupt departure, saying he’d fallen ill.
"As a resident and taxpayer, he owed us to stay there and take the tough shots…that’s what you get paid the big bucks for, and I guess he just couldn’t take it, and he left," Davis told Fox 5.
Riverdale City Council members cite as a cause for termination a meeting that City Manager E. Scott Wood walked out of after hundreds of residents voiced strong opposition to plans to merge the city’s fire department with Clayton County on April 8, 2 (FOX 5)
It was a unanimous decision to fire Wood, but the mayor says she had no part in it. While she thought his actions were inappropriate, she says she didn’t believe it was a fire-able offense.
"He acknowledged that he was wrong…he let his anger and emotion take over him," she explained. "I can’t override the board."
Nate Mingo, the city’s Director of Court Services, will take on his responsibilities as interim city manager.
The City of Riverdale (FOX 5)
FOX 5 reached out to Wood for comment. He shared a statement that reads in-part:
"…I was summarily relieved of my professional duties but now find myself personally relieved as a result. There has been entirely too much negativity and tension since the vote to merge the fire department with the county a couple of months ago, and as the primary developer and advocate of that initiative I have been heavily criticized as a result. Ten years in one place is a long time for any city manager anywhere. I take no issue with the end result of the council action, and in some ways even welcome it. Although obviously I would have preferred to have retired on a high note, I have primarily enjoyed my time in Riverdale, and am now perfectly happy with the prospect of putting petty politics and critics in my rear-view mirror…"