Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Court questions coroner's whereabouts, cuts department's budget to find out

Where, oh where, has the coroner gone?

This question was posed to the Nevada County Quorum Court at its regular monthly meeting, Monday, Sept. 8.

William Mullins has been the deputy coroner for more than two years now, taking the job under Tommy Glass, the Nevada County Coroner.

However, when Glass took a job with the railroad, Mullins was called upon to do the job more and more as Glass was not available.

Mullins addressed the court to see what could be done. "I know this is an elected position," he said, "but I've talked to the dispatcher and Glass hasn't taken a call since he started this job (with the railroad)."

Mullins has been taking 75-80 percent of the calls for coroner, but this has to be done by someone else when he's out of town, usually Ben Brazzel or Ricky Burke. Mullins, though, notifies the Nevada County Sheriff's Office when he's leaving town.

He said Glass needs to be contacted and resign the position if he's not going to do the job, but the phone number the NCSO has for him has been disconnected.

Justice of the Peace Gary Lewis examined the department's budget and noted Glass has spent $161.72, but has not been paying any bills.

"We need to unappropriate money from the coroner and use it to reimburse William Mullins," he said, "for his expenses."

"I'm not here asking for money," Mullins said. "We need Glass to do something about this situation. I'm not complaining about the work. I'll do the job to help people."

The court agreed with Lewis's motion and basically emptied the coroner's budget, placing the money into the county general fund.

The idea behind this was to try and get Glass to approach the court and work something out.

According to Dana Marlar, chief dispatcher with the NCSO, Glass has not came by the office to pick up his mail in some time.

Under the law, as long as the job is getting done, the elected official is to be paid  even if they don't show up and do the job they were elected to do. Glass has been getting paid to be the NC Coroner, though Mullins has been doing the work.