SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — A Sumner County superintendent and school superintendent are facing charges for withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars that were set aside for upkeep of a historic home.
The house has caused an uproar as some people in Sumner County say they want to preserve it. For now, the house is just boarded up and has at least one padlock on one of the entrances.
This is more than just a home for some people in the area.
Eileen Jones, who lives nearby, said it had historical significance.
“Its roots go back to the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s,” she says.
County officials said the home belonged to William Brown, who left a will that left $500,000 for the county to maintain the home and build a public park.
County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield said Brown, who died in 2017, has not yet had his wishes fulfilled.
“The county sat there and did nothing,” Mansfield said.
He also said $8 million will be donated to a trust for schools to use for technology.
A lawyer’s letter to Brown’s family said all the funds were deposited into one account and signed by the former Sumner County Schools Superintendent and the mayor.
Mansfield said Mayor John Isbell and Superintendent of Schools Scott Langford are currently responsible for handing over the funds to the county commission, which they have not yet done.
“The descendants are understandably quite upset because both the will and the cotton soil were ignored,” Mansfield said.
Neither Mr. Isbell nor Mr. Langford responded to our emails.
I also texted Mayor Isbell to follow up, and he replied that he hadn’t seen the email because he was in a meeting all day, and claimed he could contact me on Thursday.
I told him I needed a response about our story and resent the question to his cell phone with a few hours’ notice, but he didn’t respond.
Mansfield told FOX 17 News that both Langford and Isbell insist they won’t part with the funding because they want the county commission to come up with a plan. He said it was unprecedented.
“We just have to turn it over to the county according to the resolution we wrote,” he said.
An attorney for Brown’s family told FOX 17 News they plan to take legal action if the money is not given to them in the form it is supposed to be.
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