Politics & Government

Nash Easily Wins Gwinnett BOC Chair

The Dacula resident and former county administrator gets 55 percent in a four-person race.

Dacula native Charlotte Nash easily won election Tuesday as the new chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners. Nash, a Republican, comfortably defeated three rivals.

Nash got 55.99 percent of the 19,099 votes cast with all 156 precints reporting, defeating Libertarian Will Costa of Lilburn, Republican Duane Kissel of Snellville and Republican Larry Gause of Tucker.

A former county adminisrator, Nash will fill out the remaining term of former chairman Charles Bannister, who resigned in October to avoid a possible grand-jury indictment on a perjury charge related to county land deals.

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“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Nash said Tuesday night to a large crowd of friends, family, volunteers and supporters at Stars and Strikes in Dacula. “Everyone in this room played a role in this election.”

Nash waited well into the evening to claim victory. She said she was humbled by the amount of support she received, and she credited her campaign team for her success.

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“I just have to give all the credit to the wonderful folks who worked with me on this campaign. They have been just fabulous, such a great group of volunteers,” Nash said. “It was in their hands and they helped me get to this point.

 “I am just so excited for them and so excited for myself too,” she added.

Since 2005, Nash has been a government consultant. From 1995-2004, she was the county administrator.

Following the resignation of Bannister and the indictment of former commissioner Kevin Kenerly, the message from all four candidates was the need to restore the public's trust.

Nash currently is partner in NASHILL Inc., a governmental and public relations consulting firm that she founded with former Gwinnett commission chair Wayne Hill of Suwanee.

The unexpired term will run through December 2012. Results will be certified Friday, March 18. A swearing-in ceremony likely will be held the week of March 28, according to a Gwinnett elections spokesperson Tuesday.

Gause, a former U.S. Naval officer who now manages an airport hangar at Peachtree-DeKalb airport, got 26.06 percent of the votes. Costa, who is involved with a family-owned business, got 8.85 percent, and Kissel, a retired Gwinnett County Police assistant chief, 8.92 percent.

Vote totals: Nash, 10,693; Gause, 4,977; Kissel, 1,704; and Costa, 1,690.

Nash led comfortably when votes starting coming in after the 7 p.m. poll closing. Her percentage of votes cast never dropped below 54 percent in the four-person race. Nash's dominance extended to most areas of the county. Gause's 14 precinct victories chiefly came in western Gwinnett near his Tucker base. Kissel won one precinct. Two were tied.

There were 35 write-in votes.

Turnout was low on a rainy election day; just 4.98 percent of the 384,000 registered voters cast ballots.

Kissel was disappointed by the low turnout. "I think it's unfortunate," Kissel said. "The only real loser tonight was Gwinnett County. I offered the folks here an opportunity to create change. They decided to go the way they went, and that's the way it is," he said.

For results by precinct, click here.

(Kristi Reed of Dacula Patch, Scott Bernarde of Lilburn-Mountain Park Patch and Leslie Johnson of Snellville Patch contributed to this report.)

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