Beleaguered Gwinnett County Commissioner Tommy Hunter left Tuesday night’s board meeting hours early, missing several key votes and further raising the ire of those who continue to call for his resignation.
Asked via text message about Hunter’s departure, Hunter’s spokesman, Seth Weathers, said only that the commissioner was “gone for the day.” Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash later said Hunter told her he was sick.
Hunter — who has been the target of backlash since calling U.S. Rep. John Lewis a "racist pig" on Facebook — left his board's 7 p.m. meeting around 8:30 p.m. By the time the business part of the meeting ended nearly two hours later, the commissioner had missed votes on a dozen agenda items, including several significant development projects and a permitting issue in his own district.
The two dozen or so protesters that had gathered for the meeting took notice.
“Excuse me,” one regular protester, Art Smith, said during the public comment period that followed the meeting’s regular business. “But I’m mad as hell tonight. Because this is ridiculous.”
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Hunter’s now-infamous post about Lewis was made Jan. 14, amid a headline-grabbing feud between Lewis and then-president-elect Donald Trump. Lewis sparked the feud by saying he didn’t view Trump as a legitimate president.
Hunter has apologized for his "choice of words" in his Facebook post but, through Weathers, has repeatedly said he won't step down from his District 3 commission seat.
Protesters have been at every board meeting since Hunter's Facebook posts were published by The AJC on Jan. 16. For weeks, Hunter sat through the hours-long protests at several meetings before leaving a Feb. 21 gathering early to avoid the public comment periods where the opposition has used to speak against him.
He did the same at several subsequent meetings —and missed one week's meetings altogether — before remaining in his seat for the open public comment period that followed last week's meeting. Neither Hunter nor Weathers have commented on that decision.
Whatever the reason for Tuesday’s earlier-than-usual departure, it riled up the ever-present protesters.
“Where’s Hunter?” they shouted as commissioners voted, sans Hunter, to approve a special use permit for an auto shop in his district.
Later, during the public comment period, Lawrenceville resident William Moore called Hunter an “embarrassment to this community.”
“And he's allowed not to be here,” Moore said. “That really bothers me.”
Among the zoning matters the Board of Commissioners addressed in Hunter's absence were two proposals to bring large townhome developments to the county. Both were approved.
One of the projects would bring about 190 senior-targeted townhomes to a 35-acre property near Brown Road and I-85 in Buford. The second would bring as many as 118 townhomes for a property near the Lawrenceville-area intersection of Ga. 20 and Russell Road.
