The controversy surrounding Gwinnett County Commissioner Tommy Hunter, who last month called civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis a “racist pig” on Facebook, now has a new player: Kasim Reed.

Atlanta’s mayor sent a threatening letter this week to Hunter’s employer, United Consulting. Hunter is a vice president of business development for the Norcross-based engineering firm, which does business with the city of Atlanta.

“As Mayor, I am writing personally to let you know that the City of Atlanta finds Mr. Hunter’s toxic remark to be insulting, reprehensible and unacceptable to this administration,” Reed wrote in his letter, addressed to United Consulting CEO Reza Abree. “Please let me know by close of business Monday, February 27 how you plan to resolve this matter.”

Reed’s letter comes about three weeks after members of 18 different organizations — including the Georgia NAACP, the Georgia AFL-CIO and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights — sent their own letter to the mayor asking him to share his “displeasure and concern” over Hunter’s comments with United Consulting.

“... [We] are confident that your voice and leadership on this matter will do much to restore the reputation of our regiona as a welcoming, global epicenter for the Southeast,” the letter, dated Jan. 31, said. Messages left with United

Consulting on Friday were not immediately returned, but the company has previously condemned Hunter’s comments.

On Jan. 17, one day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published screenshots of Hunter’s controversial Facebook post — in which he also referred to Democrats as “Demonrats” and a “bunch of idiots” — the company issued a statement calling the comments “abhorrent.” The company also sent a letter directly to Lewis, whose congressional district covers much of Atlanta.

“Our company has a long and diverse history of action and commitment in the minority community that is reflected by our personnel and our work within the community that is reflected in every employee from myself to every team member,” the letter, signed by Abree said. “Again please accept my sincerest apologies for Commissioner Hunter’s post.”

Hunter has apologized for his “choice of words” in his post about Lewis but has repeatedly said he won’t resign. Protesters have turned out at each of the four Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners meetings since his social media activity came to light.

At the most recent meeting on Tuesday, Hunter left just as protesters were beginning to speak. A spokesman for Hunter has said the commissioner also plans to skip out on the public comment periods of board meetings for “the foreseeable future.”

Hunter is also the subject of an ethics complaint filed by two local attorneys.

On Friday morning, the commissioner’s spokesman, Seth Weathers, sent The AJC a scathing response to Reed’s letter.

“I know Kasim Reed would love to divert attention away from himself and his corruption scandal in the city of Atlanta,” Weathers wrote in a text message. “Unfortunately, this will probably be added to the growing stack of files the

FBI is reviewing in their investigation against his corrupt administration. I’m curious if this threatening letter is a blueprint for the shakedown tactics he used as Mayor to get his friends lucrative city contracts?”

In a subsequent message, Weathers wrote this: "I just read the letter again — holy [expletive]. I had heard about Reed's mob style politics but never witnessed it until now."
Weathers statements referred to the federal bribery investigation currently rocking Atlanta City Hall. Two contractors have pleaded guilty to paying bribes to get city contracts, and Atlanta's chief procurement officer was fired Tuesday as federal agents seized items from his office.

Reed has not been implicated in the ongoing investigation.

A spokeswoman for the mayor did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Weathers’ statements.

According to United Consulting’s website, its work for the city of Atlanta has included nearly a decade of consulting with the Department of Watershed Management and investigating contamination at the Chattahoochee Water

Treatment Plant, among other projects.

“As you know, the City of Atlanta takes extraordinary pride in its history as the cradle of the civil rights movement in America,” Reed wrote in his letter to the company.

“... Much of Atlanta’s international reputation as a bastion of individual freedom was built upon the struggles of civil-rights heroes such as Ambassador Andrew Young, Reverend Joseph Lowery, C.T. Vivian, Mrs. Juanita Abernathy and Xernona Clayton, all of whom worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis."