The chairman of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office Civil Service Board and member of the county’s Health and Safety Board resigned after sexually explicit comments he allegedly made about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris circulated on social media Wednesday.
” … the media don’t get to decide who the President is,” reads a comment on a Facebook account under the name John “Bucky” McCulley, according to a screenshot of the post shared by social media account Nooga Holler. “It’s easy to pronounce whore. … She’s just like slick Willie.”
The post also suggested that Harris performed sexual acts to advance her career.
McCulley did not return multiple requests for comment Wednesday.
While the three-person civil service board handles appeals about sheriff’s office actions, the sheriff’s office does not select or appoint any members, sheriff’s office spokesperson Matt Lea said. It is up to the county commission to appoint members, and the county mayor selects the chair.
“The Sheriff nor the HCSO have any oversight over the Civil Service Board,” Lea said in an email.
McCulley was re-appointed by Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger as the chair of the civil service board on Nov. 25. He was to serve a three-year term.
County spokesperson Michael Dunne said in an email that McCulley was never a county employee, and his position on the civil service board was non-paying.
Coppinger’s office did not return a request for comment, but Dunne said Coppinger “accepted McCulley’s resignation within hours of learning of his statements.”
“I resign from the sheriffs civil service board. John Bucky Mcculley. Not because I did anything wrong. Because of a Facebook post,” McCulley wrote, with spelling and punctuation errors that are not fixed in this story. “I enjoyed serving Hamilton County. I’m resigning from the health an Safety board to.”
It’s not clear when the resignation letter was sent or whether McCulley was asked to submit it, as Dunne did not respond to further questions. It’s also not clear when McCulley was first appointed.
According to state law, civil service board members must be “of good moral character.”
(READ MORE: Whitwell principal issues apology for Biden-Harris post)
As of Thursday afternoon, McCulley’s Facebook account displayed multiple posts minimizing the severity of COVID-19 and several political memes that had been flagged by Facebook fact-checkers as either false or misleading.
“I’m out of Facebook Jail. That was a rough 24 hrs. Lmao,” he posted Wednesday morning.
That night, he posted, “IM FAMOUS.”
“Everyone stay tuned it will be on the news in the morning,” one woman commented.
McCulley also was a member of the county’s Health and Safety Board, another board appointed by county commissioners. That board is responsible for addressing health and safety issues on personal property – abandoned buildings, overgrown grass, unmaintained swimming pools – in the unincorporated areas of Hamilton County.
Contact Rosana Hughes at 423-757-6327, rhughes@timesfreepress.com or follow her on Twitter @HughesRosana.