More than a week after Moody fire chief James Robinson’s resignation from that position was approved by the city council, questions still remain about the circumstances surrounding the matter.

Robinson, who served as chief since 2006, resigned officially at the council meeting of Monday, Jan. 25, with the intention of taking a more active role in the private sector. Specifically, Robinson says he intends to take a more full-time role with the Consumer Financial Education Foundation of America, a Birmingham-based non-profit that provides “consumer credit counseling and financial education,” according to its Web site.

Having been with the Moody Fire Department in some capacity since 1996, Robinson asked to remain with the department as a shift commander, and the city council approved a motion to that effect.

“The idea that my decision to resign is based on anything other than a financial and business decision is just ludicrous,” Robinson said Thursday. “It’s just not accurate.”

Some in the city aren’t as convinced. Councilman Paul Johnson, who said following the council meeting that Robinson’s resignation is “not about him going into the private sector,” spoke Friday to better clarify his position and reasons for speaking out.

“If he (Robinson) would’ve resigned and said, ‘I’m doing it for personal reasons,’ and walked out, it would’ve been a different story,” Johnson said. “But citizens in that audience knew the reasons he was resigning, and I knew it wasn’t true.”

Johnson provided a copy of an agreement drafted by Moody city attorney Bill Weathington, which the city councilman said he believed would be made public at the meeting of Jan. 25. According to the timestamp on the original email containing the drafted agreement, mayor Joe Lee sent it to Johnson and other city council members at 9:40 a.m. Monday.

The agreement contains allegations of the presence of “magazines, pictures, videotapes and other materials containing nudity and explicit sexual content” in the fire chief’s office at the Moody fire station, and documents three separate occasions — August 2008, November 2008 and “recently” — that the presence of such materials was reported to the city.

In the agreement, Robinson would agree that his appointment as fire chief “be terminated by the city council on Monday, January 25, 2010. The City agrees that, effective upon his termination as Fire Chief, Robinson will be employed by the City as a fire fighter/paramedic in the rank of captain.”

The agreement goes on to say that Robinson would agree not to possess such materials on city property, or access anything of the kind while working for the city or while on city property. The city amended its policies and procedures in June of 2009 to expressly forbid any such activity.

The council did not act upon the agreement at the meeting and made no mention of it.

“The resolution that was sent to me was obviously never signed and presented,” Johnson said. “I asked Bill Weathington (Monday), ‘Where is the resolution that he’s supposed to sign?’ ‘Oh, we did away with that.’ And I said, ‘Because you didn’t want the media or the public to find out about it?’ And he said, ‘No, we’re just not gonna do that.’

“That was my whole deal — why would I vote and support that?”

Following the meeting, Lee and the other council members said they believed Johnson had voted to allow Robinson to resign, without any such agreement in place. Johnson says the issue is immaterial.

“My feelings are … the whole stink of voting, not voting, whatever — that is not the reason he’s resigning,” he said. “They’re too afraid to let that come out — I don’t know why, I can’t tell you why. … (P)ornography is not illegal if it’s in your home. Bring it into the workplace „ we’ve got policies against that now.”

Upon seeing the agreement, Robinson acknowledged the incidents in question, but says they were and are a non-issue.

“There was a report to the mayor and council about the presence of some inappropriate material on the premises,” he said Thursday. “I went to the (mayor’s) office and was asked about it „ the mayor and Paul Johnson and Bill Weathington came and looked around. They told me to get rid of it, and that’s what we did.

“As for additional allegations, they were looked into and there was nothing else to it. It was looked into by the city and settled by the city, and that was that.”

Johnson’s comments paint a much different picture.

“It was brought to my attention, … and they had asked Joe and the other council people about getting the computer from his (Robinson’s) office and having it investigated, and they did, through Jefferson County,” he said. “They gave him (Robinson) an opportunity to get it out of there, and when they brought back the information from (his) computer, it had it on there. That’s when they wrote that, that’s in his personnel file.

“Then a year later, there was more stuff found up there. Joe (Lee) actually has a flash drive with a bunch of pictures on there. Where those are, I don’t know. It was then written up, and he signed this document saying that ‘you’ve done all this, and it doesn’t need to happen again.’”

Robinson says he did sign a document, but that it is no way an admission of personal guilt.

“The document that is being referred to was a memorandum that served to document a conversation between myself and the Mayor relating to the incident,” he said Monday. “The memorandum identified the complaint, the result and the directive given by the Mayor that such magazines, etc should be prohibited from the premises.

“That document did not constitute any admission of guilt or participation — it was and is simply a documentation of an employee counseling session, which was entered into my personnel file.”

No documentation of any such incident was present in Robinson’s personnel file, which was provided by the city.

No other members of the city council offered any comment. Lynn Taylor, who has served as city councilman over the fire department since his election in 2008, said Monday that he needs to discuss more with other councilmen before he could comment publicly.

“I need to sit down and talk with Paul before I can make any comment to the press,” he said.

Police chief Bobby Breed, who Johnson says was involved in an investigation at the fire station, said he would refer any comment on the matter to the mayor’s office. Lee, through Weathington, said he had “no comment beyond the action taken at the council meeting.”

“The city accepted his (Robinson’s) resignation and he was allowed to roll back to his previous position as captain and paramedic,” he said.

A second agreement between Robinson and the city was also provided to the Times, stating that the chief was stepping down at his own request.

“At Robinson’s request, Robinson’s temporary appointment as Fire Chief will be terminated by the City Monday, January 25, 2010,” it reads in part. “The City agrees that, effective upon termination of his temporary appointment as Fire Chief, Robinson will be employed by the City as a Fire captain/paramedic.”

This version also was never acted upon by the council „ the agreement to allow Robinson to resign and be demoted was a verbal one.

“I’d imagine the agreements were drawn up to establish the transition from one position to another,” Robinson said. “And to establish what my continued responsibilities would be with the city.”

Robinson says he did retain an attorney through the process, John Saxson, of Birmingham.

“If you’re going to negotiate some legal agreement, I’m not an attorney myself,” Robinson said. “Bill (Weathington) does a good job; the city is his client. I wanted somebody to look over everything and make sure it’s appropriate. It’s just kind of covering your bases.”

Saxson echoed what Robinson said.

“We weren’t sure whether in the course of him stepping down, there would be any need for anything to be drafted,” he said Monday. “He wasn’t terminated; he didn’t resign, he was simply relinquishing his position and there were some questions about pay and benefits, so I’ve advised him about that situation.”

With regard to any other allegations, Saxson said he believed they were “ancient history.”

“I’m assuming that this thing is basically over,” he said. “And my services aren’t needed anymore.”

As to whether Johnson or others might have “a vendetta against (Robinson),” as Lee remarked last week, Johnson says he’s concerned only with doing what’s right.

“Right’s right, and moral is moral,” he said. “That’s wrong. For those guys up there (at the fire station) to have to deal with that all the time, knowing that nobody’s gonna do anything about it „ they don’t want that going on up there.

“They’ve talked about it. It’s fallen on deaf ears, I guess.”

Robinson said he also has no concerns about anyone’s agenda.

“I don’t look over my shoulder,” he said. “It’s not a concern of mine.”