SKOWHEGAN — Charles Robbins III has announced he is leaving the Skowhegan Board of Selectmen, citing his responsibilities as a father and business owner.

Charles Robbins III

Robbins, who is vice chairman of the board, is more than a year into his second three-year term as a selectman.

His resignation is effective Tuesday, Oct. 1, according to his resignation letter, which the other four selectmen accepted Tuesday at the board’s meeting.

“Time is precious and life is short,” Robbins, 41, wrote in his letter. “Being a father to three growing children, as well as running a growing family business is challenging.

“I have done well to juggle it all over the past four and a half years while on the board, but as my children are getting older, their activities are getting busier and it’s becoming more of a challenge to find time to fit it all in. The stress of trying to find the time to fulfill all my obligations is starting to get the best of me which has ultimately brought me here to this decision.”

To fill Robbins’ seat, the Board of Selectmen can call a special election or wait until regular municipal elections in June, Town Manager Dawn DiBlasi said Wednesday. The board cannot make an appointment to fill the position, she said.

A lifelong Skowhegan resident, Robbins, owns Charlie & Son Sales and Service Inc., a third-generation trailer and used car dealership and 24-hour towing company at 466 Lakewood Road in Madison. His children are 14 and 6 years old. Robbins is also an auctioneer, for which he often travels out of state, he said.

Reached by telephone Wednesday morning, Robbins said he was in Connecticut for an auction. He left in the middle of the night to get there from Skowhegan, he said.

While serving for more than four years on the Board of Selectmen, Robbins rarely hesitated to share his opinion — and it was often blunt.

Robbins was a frequent critic of the town’s new public safety building on East Madison Road, saying multiple times he has had problems with the project since its early stages. This summer, his top complaint about the building was that the lawn looked like “crap.”

He called the expansion of the Skowhegan Community Center Athletic Complex, in the works since 2006, a “black eye on this town.” After bids came in for part of the project in May, Robbins took aim at plans for what he dubbed “a $400,000 hot dog stand.”

Earlier this year, Robbins resigned as a Board of Selectmen representative to the town’s Recreation Advisory Committee, citing dysfunction and last-minute meeting time changes that prevented him from attending.

And after a lengthy annual town meeting in June, Robbins said at the selectmen’s meeting the next day that he was disappointed in voters who complain about increasing property taxes, yet failed to reduce the proposed budget in any significant way.

At Board of Selectmen meetings, Robbins also frequently praised people who organized events and activities in town, and offered remembrances for certain community members who had died.

Board Chairman Paul York said at Tuesday’s meeting he had previously discussed Robbins’ resignation with him and understood his reasoning.

“It’s been 4 1/2 years of us not necessarily always agreeing,” York said. “But at the end of the day, when we leave, we can still talk and be amicable.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Robbins said he went back and forth for several months when deciding whether to leave the Board of Selectmen.

“It’s been a tough juggling,” Robbins told the other members of the board. “I’ll say it’s been a privilege. I’m hoping that someday, when I’m a little bit older, and hopefully things slow down a little bit, that I can take another stab at this table.

“But for right now, I think the best interest in my family and my health is to step aside. I love Skowhegan.”