A Meigs County, Tennessee, resident angry over the theft of more than $1 million from the county’s 911 center plans to ask the center’s board to resign in full when it meets Friday night, and the county mayor is making a similar demand.
It’s the second time Jeff Thornton will appear before board members calling for their jobs after having appeared before the County Commission twice with no success, he said Tuesday.
“I’m calling for the whole board to resign because they allowed $1 million to be stolen,” Thornton said in a phone interview. “They’re not doing their due diligence in their jobs.”
Thornton is referring to allegations leveled in a Tennessee comptroller’s investigation into misappropriation of public funds over a decade’s time by the now-deceased Kelly Finnell Taylor, the 911 center’s longtime director.
Because she died Feb. 21, 2021, no charges were filed against Taylor, 45, comptroller’s officials said in the report. The investigation accused Taylor of misappropriating nearly $1.1 million between between July 29, 2011, and Feb. 17, 2021.