Fairhope police chief Joseph Petties retires, then un-retires at City Council meeting
Fairhope Police Chief Joseph Petties announced his retirement at Monday’s City Council meeting, only to rescind his retirement minutes later. Petties received a standing ovation from the council and meeting attendees before his announcement. Petties followed the applaud by making a statement on why he was retiring; saying Mayor Karin Wilson bullied him and made false accusations against him. “There are times when you don’t always see eye to eye with your supervisor,” Petties told the council, WKRG reported. “But the treatment that I’ve been subjected to as grown to the point that it can’t be ignored.” According to WKRG, he became so emotional during the reading of his statement, his wife had to finish reading it for him. Then, in an unanticipated turn of events, council members emphatically tore up Petties’s resignation letter, refusing to accept his resignation. They said they would look into whether or not the council could pursue efforts to pry police supervisory power from Wilson. Wilson denied Petties allegations, saying they have a great relationship, “It’s not true, at all,” Wilson told WKRG. “Absolutely not true. The Chief is a great person. We have gotten along fine. Turning this into a political thing about me is unfortunate.” But Wilson has a history of being at odds with both Petties and other members of the City Council. In February, she announced the hiring of Tony Goubil, the city’s new police sergeant and public safety director at a council meeting without first informing the council or Petties, both of whom were shocked to receive the news as Goubil was apparently sent to investigate a complaint filed against Wilson by the Alabama Ethics Commission sent, according to The Courier. Petties then sent the mayor an e-mail expressing his apprehensions and thoughts about Goubil, and the uproar it caused within his department. Wilson later retracted the hire at the March 20 City Council meeting, saying although she believed the city did need a public safety director, and Goubil was a great choice for the position, she understood other people wanted input in the decision. One of those people, was Petties. Wilson again came under fire in May with Fairhope’s Financial Advisory Committee (FAC), after sending an e-mail to committee chairman Chuck Zunk telling him the city budget was ultimately her responsibility, and that she would let the committee know if and when she needed their input. For now, Wilson remains Fairhope’s mayor and Petties remains police chief. When asked to comment on the mayor by WKRG, Petties replied “I still work for her. So I don’t want to talk down about her.” WKRG was live on Facebook during the entire council meeting, which you can watch below:
Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson creates another point of contention
Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson has yet again created conflict within her city’s leadership. In late April, she sent an email to Fairhope’s Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) chairman Chuck Zunk saying the city budget was ultimately her responsibility, and that she would let the committee know if she needed there input. Now, the FAC is at a standstill, waiting for Wilson to “need” them. “As far as I can tell, the mayor has changed her position on the budget preparation, and my impression of the contents of her email is that she wants us to butt out and not be involved at all,” Zunk told the Courier. “When they finish it, she’ll distribute it to us and with six days of review, she expects us to be able to discuss it at the July meeting.” Zunk and other committee members felt the mayor was attempting to not have the FAC be involved in the process at all, and that the reasons she gave for not including them were “trivial” and “foolish.” During the May 15 city council meeting, Zunk was given an opportunity to voice his concerns. “Our interpretation of the email was that: No. 1 – it changed the relationship between the committee and city staff from collaborative and cooperative, which it had been up until that point, to adversarial; and No. 2 – it restricted our access to acquiring facts from city staff, so much as to be essentially cut off,” Zunk said. “Under those circumstances, we are unable to function as you had requested and so we suspended consideration of all of our active projects, pending discussion with city council.” “She made a comment to me … that now that she’s been through the preparation of two budgets, she’s an expert, that she doesn’t need anybody’s opinion,” Zunk told the Courier. “Well, I guess the 120-some years of experience that the four of us have doesn’t mean jack to the two years of experience that she has. That’s her attitude. It seems to me that if that’s her attitude, we’re kind of swimming upstream.” And his assumptions might be correct. During a phone conversation with Courier reporter, Cliff McCollum; wilson said she thought the council was confusing their role in the administration. “I don’t need advice there,” Wilson told him. “What I need is help communicating with the council. I’ve always made myself available and want to find ways to make this a better process.” This is not the first time Wilson has been under fire from city leadership. In March, Wilson received an email from Fairhope Police Chief Joseph Petties, after a controversial hiring decision she made in February. Wilson announced the hiring of Tony Goubil, the city’s new police sergeant and public safety director, at a council meeting on February 26, without informing the council or Petties, both of whom were shocked to receive the news, especially since, according to The Courier, the Alabama Ethics Commission sent Goubil to investigate a complaint filed against Wilson. Although the complaint was dismissed, “those who filed the claims questioned how Goubil’s investigations into those claims could be trusted in the light of his hiring by Wilson.” Wilson later retracted the hire at the March 20 City Council meeting, saying that although she believed the city did need a public safety director, and Goubil was a great choice for the position, that she understood other people wanted input in the decision.
Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson retracts contentious police hire
Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson announced during a March 20 City Council meeting she would be retracting the controversial hire of new police sergeant and public safety director Tony Goubil. Wilson’s hiring of Goubil in February caused an uproar from several city council members and current Fairhope Police Chief Joseph Petties. “I was inundated with phone calls that night about something that I had no knowledge of. I am not understanding how someone can be hired under my Department without my knowledge and without any input from me,” said Petties in an email to Wilson. The reason everyone was shocked and perplexed by the hire was because the Alabama Ethics Commission sent Goubil to investigate a complaint filed against Wilson, and although the complaint was dismissed, “those who filed the claims questioned how Goubil’s investigations into those claims could be trusted in the light of his hiring by Wilson.” Since then, Wilson has met with several city council members and Petties to discuss the new position, and the hiring process for it. “I believe there is a need for a public safety director, and Goubil is a great choice for this position,” Wilson told The Courier. “But, I do understand other people would like to have input and I want to hear them out and come to a mutually agreed upon decision. I am withdrawing Mr. Goubil’s name until a new organizational chart can be developed and approved with council.” “I think it’s appropriate that we stay or pause any new public safety position until a time the council and mayor have had time to collaborate on what everyone’s primary concerns are,” said councilman Jay Robinson in the same report. “It’s also imperative we discuss those concerns with our chief of police and make sure we are giving him all the resources he needs to do his job to the best of his ability. I think the way we’re handling this right now is the best way to move the city forward.”
Fairhope’s hiring of new police sergeant making waves in local government
Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson is under fire regarding an appointment she made in late February. Wilson announced the hiring of Tony Goubil, the city’s new police sergeant and public safety director, at a council meeting on February 26. The council and Fairhope Police Chief Joseph Petties, who were not informed of Goubil’s hiring prior to her announcing the decision, were both astonished at the announcement. Wilson shared her reasonings and excitement for the announcement in a Facebook post: “The hiring of Tony Goubil is a point of pride for me and for this City. His passion for safety is going to help catapult our incredible police department to far greater heights. When you have an opportunity to hire someone with this amount of experience to meet a great and growing city need, you take it. Some are casting the filling of this need in a negative light. I can assure you it is not. When a position opens up in any department, under my administration, we will make it available to all deserving and qualified individuals.” However, questions have arisen about Goubil’s hiring after baldwin county local paper, The Courier, discovered that he met with multiple sources in Fairhope concerning ethics claims filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission commission against Wilson. According to The Courier, the Alabama Ethics Commission sent Goubil to investigate a complaint filed against Wilson, and although the complaint was dismissed, “those who filed the claims questioned how Goubil’s investigations into those claims could be trusted in the light of his hiring by Wilson.” The Alabama Ethics Commission has policies in place to prevent this kind of ethical delimma. A memo released in 2017 from the commission’s Executive Director Thomas Albritton said, “once you leave your public employer, for two years you may not go to work for a private business or an individual you audited or investigated while you were a public employee.” The Courier, obtained an e-mail sent to Wilson from Petties. The e-mail, dated March 6, Petties expressed his apprehensions and thoughts about Goubil: I wanted to inform you of the conditions of my department. My Department has been in an uproar ever since Monday, February 26, the night you announced the hiring of Tony Goubil. I was inundated with phone calls that night about something that I had no knowledge of. I am not understanding how someone can be hired under my Department without my knowledge and without any input from me. This has been handled totally different than any hires in the past. I have been a police officer with Fairhope for 27 years and a Sergeant has never been brought in from outside. My officers feel as though they weren’t given an opportunity to apply for the promotion and those that have gone through the process for promotion feel slighted. They feel that it’s not what you do, but who you know. Where’s their motivation to work hard knowing that they do not have an opportunity for promotion. This has caused not one, but all 35 officers to be upset, not to mention my non-sworn employees. The chain-of-command has been completely undermined, thus making it nonexistent. We’ve had two officer involved shootings within the last 6 months. My officers need to be focused on their safety and training and not concerned about which channel their command comes from. I need my employees to stand behind me and support me and in return, I support them. This can’t happen if I am being undermined. I understand that you are authorized to hire and fire, but these decisions need to be carefully considered. The morale and motivation within my Department is the lowest I’ve ever seen at a time when they need to be galvanized behind their leader. I do not need their focus misplaced with worry as to the state of our Department. We’ve got officers that have been off probation for over a year and a half and have not received the standard increase. I am in danger of losing these officers. Due to the lack of qualified applications being received it would be hard to replace these officers. We used to be able to attract officers from surrounding agencies, but with the perceived turmoil within the City, we are no longer attracting those applicants. I’m not sure how we have the money in the budget to award such a position that has been given to Mr. Goubil. Petties isn’t the only Fairhope official in an “uproar” over the unexpected hiring. “This stinks to high heaven,” Councilman Kevin Boone told The Courier. “To me, this seems almost the same as Gov. Bentley offering Luther Strange the Senate seat to end the investigation into him. This just seems incredibly wrong.” “This doesn’t pass the smell test, It’s highly disheartening that our city is once again in the news for missteps taken by the mayor,” Council President Jack Burrell said in the same report. Wilson said in a statement to The Lagniappe; “He (Burrell) was involved in some of the complaints, investigations and complaints are two totally different things. People file frivolous complaints all day long, I can assure you. I’m sure that by upsetting the apple cart there’s a lot of tit for tat and there’s a lot of complaints against me.” Councilman Robert Brown and Boone are questioning Wilson’s authority to create what they feel is a new position. “There is no such position nor is one budgeted,” Brown told The Courier. “Mr. Goubil could fill Officer Bishop’s position; however, that is another issue. There is no full time SRO position, much less two. There was no communication with council, who is the funding authority. A position is not funded or created until council has approved the position.” “There was nothing done inappropriately, if anything, it’s the best hire we’ve made as far as doing proper procedures in that department than has been made. This is an all-encompassing person that’s going to really help plan for Fairhope’s future. Citizens should applaud,” Wilson told The Lagniappe.
