Residents plan to confront Kenerly at remaining meetings

Angry residents confronted Gwinnett County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly Tuesday, demanding he resign in the wake of bribery and other charges.

Several people used the public comment period of Tuesday night’s commission meeting to seek Kenerly’s resignation. They vowed to attend every meeting until he does.

“We think the citizens of Gwinnett County would feel much better about their Board of Commissioners and the decisions they’re making if they don’t have an indicted member,” Sabrina Smith of Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government told the commission.

Kenerly attended Tuesday’s meeting and sat quietly as people asked him to resign. He left without comment before the meeting ended.

The commissioner has denied any wrongdoing.

A handful of members from three groups – FreedomWorks Gwinnett County, Gwinnett Tea Party Patriots and Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government – also denounced Kenerly at a news conference before Tuesday’s meeting.

“We find it appalling that we have to call for him to resign,” said Debbie Dooley of FreedomWorks said at the news conference.

“We are going to be in his face at every commission meeting,” Dooley said.

Tuesday’s comments were the latest sign that many Gwinnett residents are unhappy with commissioners generally and with Kenerly in particular.

At the meeting Commissioner Shirley Lasseter asked residents to be patient with the commission.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to be positive,” Lasseter said.”We’ve got to be as positive as we can.”

That prompted an angry response from one resident.

“How dare you ask the people of this county to look the other way,” one resident said. “You should be ashamed.”

“I did not say that,” Lasseter responded. “I would never ask you to look the other way. We are right here. Everything we do is open. We can’t even go the bathroom that it’s not open.”

Kenerly, who did not seek re-election this year after 16 years on the commission, has said he will not resign before his term ends Dec. 31.

The Board of Commissioners has consolidated its meeting schedule for the rest of this year because of holidays. It plans three meetings each on Nov. 16 and Dec. 14.

Some Gwinnett residents don’t want Kenerly to be there for those last meetings.

Even if Kenerly’s innocent, “there is no way he can be putting the interests of Gwinnett County residents first” while defending himself in a criminal case, said Heather Alvarez of Loganville.

The three citizen groups have urged some 10,000 members to call Gov. Sonny Perdue to demand he remove Kenerly from office.

Under state law, the governor must appoint a commission to review a felony indictment of a public official. The commission would determine if the indictment relates to and adversely affects the public official’s duties.