COLUMBUS, Miss. — City council officials fired a firefighter Tuesday because he married a family member of a fellow firefighter.
The Columbus Dispatch reported that firefighter Jonathan Goodman, 25, was fired for violating the city’s nepotism policy. He has been employed with Columbus Fire and Rescue since April 2013.
His wife’s uncle, Herbert Tedford, holds the same rank as Goodman, but they work at separate firehouses on different shifts.
Goodman said when he and his now-wife, Nicole, got engaged he was told if they got married he would be fired, according to the report. He subsequently filed a grievance with the city.
“I was told I could date her, I could live with her, but I couldn’t marry her,” Goodman said.
The matter went before the city council Tuesday night. Councilmen told Goodman he could either transfer to the city police department or be terminated, according to the report. Goodman declined to change departments.
Councilmen voted unanimously to fire him.
According to the city’s policy, “nepotism occurs when any person employed by the City shall occupy a position in which he/she will be directly working for or supervising a relative or person with whom he/she is in a dating relationship.”
It continues by saying, “In cases where a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest arises because of the relationship between employees, even if there is no authority or line of reporting involved, the employees may be separated by reassignment or terminated from employment to avoid personal conflicts to be carried over in the day-to-day working relationships and to avoid the appearance of impropriety, favoritism or a negative effect on morale.”
Currently, several Columbus Fire and Rescue employees are related by blood and marriage, according to the report. Fire Chief Martin Andrews said those employees were grandfathered in when the nepotism policy went into effect in May 2008.
“I told (Goodman) that according to city policy in nepotism he could be terminated,” Chief Andrews said. “It’s all left up to the mayor and council. He terminated himself. He was a good firefighter, of course, but he just made the choice to get married, which violated our nepotism policy. He can no longer work for the fire department.”
Councilman Kabir Karriem said he feels the city’s hands were tied.
“Nobody wanted to see him go. He’s a good fireman,” Karriem said. “Everybody was sympathetic to his position but we have a policy to go by. But we came up with a lateral transfer. That was the only option that the mayor and council had for him without going against our own policy.”
Goodman, explaining his decision to not transfer departments, said that while he respects what law enforcement does, being a firefighter is who he is, according to the report.
“That’s my passion, my career and what I love to do,” he said. “If I had any interest in being a police officer I would have pursued that a long time ago.”
Karriem said he asked for the mayor and council to review the nepotism policy.
“I think the policy needs to be looked at,” he said. “Where the policy has some good provisions in it, I think it has good intentions, but I think in today’s time we need to revisit the policy.”