Gainesville City Commissioner Gail Johnson resigns

To keep up with the latest local news subscribe to our TV20 newsletter HERE and receive news straight to your email every morning.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - Gainesville City Commissioner Gail Johnson announced she is resigning at a special meeting earlier today.

Johnson said she’s resigning for a lot of reasons, but the main reason is the city manager, Lee Feldman.

She said the issues surrounding Feldman have been going on for a while.

“The cost of this type of disfunction is just too high. I’m resigning because people often don’t remember the individual contributions a commissioner makes to the body, they remember the decisions of the entire body. I no longer wish to be associated with the majority voice of this body I no longer wish to be associated with the decisions of the city manager,” said Johnson.

After she made the announcement, Commissioner Duncan-Walker made a motion to terminate the city manager.

Duncan-Walker said while none of her colleagues chose to second her motion to terminate Feldman, she hopes they were listening to what she had to say.

“Hopefully the motion that I made earlier today has got people thinking and certainly willing to come back to the table to not only have a discussion, but to make the necessary steps so that we can begin to operate in a way that does not push employees or commissioners out of the city,” said Duncan-Walker.

She said while she’s sad to see Commissioner Johnson leave, she understands why she’s making this decision.

“Before I got to the commission, there were some rather severe accusations that had been made, complaints that had been filed, and a number of other issues that have arisen that I don’t believe we should ignore,” Duncan-Walker said.

In the meeting, Johnson said her last meeting will be September 23rd when the commissioners vote on the budget.

Her last day in city hall will be one week later.

Copyright 2021 WCJB. All rights reserved. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.