The Riverdale City Council on Tuesday fired its longtime city manager, E. Scott Wood, just weeks shy of his 10th anniversary with the city.
Riverdale Mayor Evelyn Wynn-Dixon on Wednesday confirmed Wood’s dismissal, saying that the decision by a 4-0 vote of the council was announced after executive session of a special-called meeting to discuss the city’s fiscal 2025 budget.
“I will miss him dearly,” said Wynn-Dixon, who did not vote in the matter because the mayor only votes in cases of a tie. “He was a hell of a worker. I wish him the best.”
Neither Wood nor the council members could immediately be reached for comment.
Wood most recently was the subject of heated criticism in April after residents pushed back on a proposal by Riverdale to merge its fire department with Clayton County.
Wood and other backers of the merger argued that the county’s fire department has an industry-best Insurance Services Office rating (ISO) of 1, compared to Riverdale’s ISO 3 rating. Merging, he and others said, would improve the quality of fire services for Riverdale citizens.
But residents filled into the council chambers to disagreed. They argued that the proposal was a money grab in which Clayton County Fire would be tasked with fighting Riverdale fires while the city continued to collect taxes on a service that they no longer offered.
The city ultimately approved the merger days later.
Wood’s last official day is Monday, Wynn-Dixon said. Nathaniel Mingo, Riverdale’s Court Services director, will step in as interim city manager, the mayor said.
