RICHMOND COUNTY, N.C. — A county commissioner’s suspension has been lifted, but his colleagues still want him out.
Jamie Gathings received several complaints of creating a hostile work environment.
Commissioner Gathings, however, told Channel 9 reporter Gina Esposito that he is frustrated he can’t represent the people who elected him.
Gathings said that while the county commissioners meeting is happening Tuesday night, he will be sitting outside the building.
“They’re still silencing me, is what it boils down to,” said Gathings.
Gathings won over voters in November. However, he only spent two months on the Richmond County Board of Commissioners before the board voted to suspend him for 90 days over complaints that he created a hostile work environment.
He said he wasn’t allowed to go to the county meetings or enter county buildings.
“As we sit here right now in a county building, I wasn’t even allowed to come here and pay my water bill,” said Gathings. “I didn’t understand how you can suspend an elected official.”
Kristina Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Public Law and Government at the UNC School of Government. She is considered an expert on this topic and said board members are legally required to vote unless there is a conflict of interest.
“Based on that, there does not seem to be legal authority for an elected board to strip the right to vote from one of their members,” said Wilson.
Gathings said the board voted on Monday to start amotion proceedings, which is a process to remove him from office. It included stipulations, like he could only participate in county meetings virtually. Gathings said he can only go inside to a county commissioners meeting if he’s asked to break a tie vote.
Esposito asked Wilson if county commissioners can be forced to attend meetings virtually and what the voting implications would be.
Wilson said, “I don’t think there’s authority to bar members from meetings. And recently, the Court of Appeals ruled that members who participate virtually or who are not physically present don’t count toward quorum, so arguably, they can’t vote, which means sort of putting a member on virtual participation only really, sort of, legally takes them out of the meeting because they can’t count toward quorum and they can’t vote.”
Wilson referenced a case out of Anson County.
“The court there held that if you’re not physically present, you don’t count toward quorum. And so my analysis is, don’t count toward quorum. You can’t vote, because quorum is the way that we deem you legally present. And if you’re not legally present, then how can we say that you’re voting?” said Wilson.
Gathings said the two resolutions he presented to the board to move past this were rejected.
“I was willing to sit down and talk to every employee that they said I harassed or complained to or intimidated, to sit down and say, ‘Hey, I apologize. Let’s work through this,’” he said.
A court hearing regarding one of the lawsuits Gathings filed against commissioners is expected to be held on Friday. He alleged that they violated the open meeting law and failed to post about the February 3rd meeting that led to his suspension.
Channel 9 has reached out to the other county commissioners and tried to contact the county attorney multiple times for a statement, but has not heard back.
VIDEO: Meck County magistrate suspended over misconduct charges
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
