{"id":376776,"date":"2026-08-20T18:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376776\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:38:09","slug":"cape-coral-mayor-absent-from-public-events-and-council-meeting-after-election-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376776\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Coral mayor absent from public events and council meeting after election loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter misses another event days after election loss, some say taking vacation<\/p>\n

Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter has not been seen publicly or responded to inquiries since losing the primary election, missing a city council meeting and a local event, with council members citing his need for a break.<\/p>\n

\"Samantha<\/a>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter has been absent from public appearances and city council meetings since losing the primary election on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Councilmember Joe Kilraine said the mayor is “fine” but appears to be handling personal matters. <\/p>\n

“He’s just trying to take care of business on the side, I think,” Kilraine said. <\/p>\n

Gunter missed Wednesday night’s city council meeting, leaving the mayor’s seat empty, and was also absent from Thursday’s St. Jude Dream Home Showcase event in Southwest Cape Coral. A representative from the City of Cape Coral said the mayor’s attendance at the event was previously cancelled.<\/p>\n

Kilraine suggested the mayor might need time to decompress after the election. <\/p>\n

“I’ve been on the losing end, and it’s it’s not a real happy time,” Kilraine said. “[you] keep things running. That’s what you do.”<\/p>\n

Councilmember Laurie Lehmann said she was informed by city administrative assistants on Wednesday that the mayor would not attend Thursday’s event.<\/p>\n

“I know he’s away on vacation right now, taking a break because he worked very hard at the polls,” Lehmann said.<\/p>\n

Attempts to reach the mayor for comment have been unsuccessful, and council members said they do not know when he will return to city hall.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter misses another event days after election loss, some say taking vacation Cape Coral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[85559,209,151686,211,19411,210,187,832,27489,5957,6024,53151,151681,104,28,151682,24128,151688,213,4293,1375,151685,23231,44418,151683,151687,61294,197,151684,1284,2393,1265,221,4335],"class_list":["post-376776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-attendance","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-election","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-mayor","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-city","tag-city-council","tag-city-council-meeting","tag-city-hall","tag-city-of-cape-coral","tag-council-meeting","tag-election-loss","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-joe-kilraine","tag-john-gunter","tag-kilraine","tag-late-news","tag-laurie-lehmann","tag-mayor","tag-mayor-absent","tag-polls","tag-primary-election","tag-public-appearances","tag-public-event","tag-southwest-cape-coral","tag-sport","tag-st-jude-dream-home-showcase","tag-thursday","tag-time","tag-vacation","tag-weather","tag-wednesday-night"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}