A crowd of 100 attended a special city council meeting on Thursday, May 4, which was originally called to determine whether the council would appoint a councilman to fill the Ward IV seat left vacant by the resignation of Dan Kirby or hold a special election to let the voters decide.
However, the meeting took on a different tone with the sudden unexpected resignation of Police Chief Mark Goodwin on Wednesday, May 3.
While many of those present were there because of the Ward IV issue, many others that filled the meeting room were there to show support for Goodwin, who has been head of the police department for four years.
Goodwin met with City Manager Jeb Jones and after the meeting he typed his letter of recommendation.
“Jeb and I had a difference of opinion on how a police department should be run,” Goodwin said. “He just doesn’t like my leadership style.”
Jones said it was a personnel matter and declined to comment on the resignation.
However, Goodwin was open about what happened.
“There was no issue between us. I thought we worked well together. But out of the blue I got a call to come see him in his office on Tuesday (May 2). He told me he wasn’t satisfied with my performance. He said I wasn’t the leader he wanted for the police department.”
Goodwin said he wasn’t fired, but he couldn’t agree with the changes Jones demanded and so he turned in his resignation.
He posted his issues on Facebook, which spread quickly throughout the community and resulted in a large turnout at the meeting that was called to discuss only the Ward IV vacancy.
Goodwin spoke to the crowd before the meeting started and urged calm, asking everyone to not do anything to get them ejected.
In an earlier interview he said he initially was not going to attend the meeting but decided he needed to be there.
“I didn’t want anyone to think I was leading this protest,” he said. “My only position will be to explain to them that the council can’t answer questions (about the resignation). They can’t discuss this issue because it’s not on the agenda. They can listen. But they can’t discuss it.”
True to his word he told his supporters, many of them carrying signs, that they should not disrupt the meeting.
Goodwin said he has always had the support of the council members and he doesn’t believe they had anything to do with his leaving.
“I believe it was 100 percent Jeb,” he said. Goodwin left the door open to returning, “If some changes are made.”
But he left little hope that anything would change.
Meanwhile, the day after the special meeting, he was on a plane headed for Hawaii for a week’s vacation.
“It had been planned for a long time,” he said.
His wife, Diana, has been working in Hawaii for a year as a curriculum coordinator for a charter school.
“She loves it there,” he said. They have been married 37 years, together for 41. The distance in the living arrangement has been difficult for both of them, but they have adjusted to the arrangement.
He visits her several times a year.
But he says he could never live there. “This is my Hawaii,” he said of Eufaula. Since he has resigned, he says he doesn’t have to stay for only a week.
“I can trade my ticket in on an open-ended one,” he said.
At the time of the meeting Goodwin said Jones told him to go on the vacation and decide when he returns what he wants to do.
“I told him I would prefer to get it done before I left on vacation. But I thought about it overnight. I talked with my wife for hours. I said I have to stand by my word. When a police chief and the city council or city manager don’t get along, it hurts the whole community. There’s no need to make everyone suffer for me to try to keep my job.”
He decided it was best to resign. He will miss his men. “We have an excellent department. He doesn’t realize the excellent officers we have hired. The officers here are sought after by other departments. They are recruited all the time.”
