Greg Robinson is trained to scour.

During his eight years in the U.S. Army, Robinson’s highest profile assignment was as an interpreter with an inspections team that scoured the countryside of the Soviet Union searching for illegal nuclear warheads.

The way Robinson sees it, the experience was good training to become a Lawrence city commissioner. Robinson said voters needed someone ready and willing to scour the city’s budget and operations for waste.

“I really believe in accountability,” Robinson said. “You watch every dollar and it had better have a purpose and it had better meet a goal that serves the whole community. I’m not going to pander to any group. You either agree with me or you don’t. But if you want somebody who is going to dig through the budget and save every dollar we can, then I’m your guy.”

Robinson is one of nine candidates seeking three at-large seats on the Lawrence City Commission.

If Robinson lands a seat in City Hall, it won’t be a totally new experience to him. He has a regular seat at the table in Lansing’s city government. Robinson, who is an attorney and owns his own legal practice, is the city attorney for Lansing. The job requires him to write contracts, represent the city in lawsuits and generally advise council and staff members of what’s legal and what’s not.

“If I’m elected, I can walk in and begin work immediately,” Robinson said. “I know there is always a learning curve, but when it comes to the legal issues of running a city, I know those issues.”

Robinson also is not a stranger to the city of Lawrence’s payroll. He served as a Lawrence police officer for about two years in the mid-1990s. After leaving the army as a sergeant in 1992 — he spent most of his time as a Russian interpreter for military intelligence units — he started his own import-export business. The business mainly shipped handmade Russian dolls — many of them dressed to look like Kansas University football players — into the United States. But a bloody coup that installed Boris Yeltsin into power in the former Soviet Union crimped Robinson’s ability to continue that business.

So, he and his wife both joined the Lawrence Police Department. Robinson, though, realized that he ultimately wanted to be involved in a different part of the justice system. He left the department shortly after enrolling in law school at KU. He has been an attorney since 1998 and represents a variety of cases — including murder cases — in addition to his work with the city of Lansing.

Robinson, though, said his time on the police department had given him valuable insight into Lawrence city government. For example, he frequently criticizes the city for recently spending more than $50,000 for a consultant to study the police department. He said the report mainly recommended items the police department has long been addressing.

But Robinson said his No. 1 example of wasteful spending, or “luxury items” as he calls them, is the city’s current practice of installing roundabouts in older neighborhoods. Robinson said he didn’t have a problem with roundabouts in new areas where developers would pay for their installation, but he doesn’t think they fit in older areas where the city often spends upwards of a half-million dollars to construct the devices.

“It would be cheaper to hire one officer whose only job is to sit at that intersection and scare every motorist who comes through the intersection,” Robinson said. “Do that for a year and it is $45,000 with benefits.”

On other issues, Robinson said he:

• Would be open to changing the city’s current smoking ban. He said businesses should be granted a variance from the indoor smoking ban if they can show through certified public accounting documents that their businesses have been hurt, and if they agree to install equipment to mechanically remove secondhand smoke from their businesses.

City candidate discusses issues online (02-16-05) Finance report for Greg Robinson (.pdf) J-W candidate questionnaire — Greg Robinson More in Election 2005

• Believes Lawrence has become a destination for many homeless individuals. “When I was a cop, I heard from homeless people myself who said the word gets out nationally about Lawrence. The community treats them so nice that they want to come here. I believe in hand-ups, not handouts. I believe there has to be accountability of everything in life. The homeless have to be accountable, and that means you have to put rules on them.”

Robinson said he was sure some folks would disagree with him on those positions, but he said that was one of the qualities of the community that he has grown to love.

“Lawrence is unique to me in that you have lots of diverse people,” Robinson said. “It is almost like living in different cultures. You have people who are extreme left, you have people who are extreme right.

“You have people in this town who are willing to sit in a tree. You don’t have that in every community. A lot of communities it is just about how fast you can cut it down. What better place can you be but in a community of ideas, whether you agree with all of them or not?”