Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

Tullahoma resident Todd Malone will be filling the Coffee County Commission seat for District 9 in Tullahoma vacated by Tullahoma Mayor Lynn Sebourn earlier this month as decided at the June 24 Commission meeting.

Commissioner Rose Ann Smith nominated Malone during the meeting. Malone’s was the only nomination which resulted in him being appointed to the vacancy by unanimous consent. Only sitting Commissioners can nominate someone to fill a vacancy.

Malone has served in different facets of law enforcement for close to 40 years. He, his wife Terri and their two children moved to Coffee County from Florida in 2007 after he retired from his first job.

He is currently employed by the Department of Defense until September. Both of Malone’s children graduated from Tullahoma High School. His son currently serves in the U.S. military, as Malone did, and his daughter works at a local bank in Franklin County.

Malone stated during the meeting that he will make decisions based on what is good for the citizens of Coffee County and will use data and evidence in his decision-making instead of passion and emotion.

“The only group whose interests are special to me would be the citizens of Coffee County,” he said.

Both before and after Malone’s appointment, Commissioner Tim Brown raised questions about the Commission’s ability to properly appoint someone to fill the vacancy at the meeting due to receiving potential candidate information too close to the meeting’s start.

“Nothing against you (Malone), but we just got this five minutes ago, and it’s not your fault,” said Brown of the candidate paperwork after the appointment. “I don’t know how everybody can vote or at least have the decency to nominate the other two people in and let us vote. There’s something fishy about this going on.”

Coffee County Mayor Dennis Hunt addressed Brown directly.

“Commissioner Brown, you voted to approve the agenda,” said Hunt. “This item is business. The time to have done this would have been when we were approving the agenda.”

County Attorney Mark Williams also explained that a motion could have been brought to remove the item from the agenda, but no motion was made.

“We didn’t know we were going to nominate one person when we approved the agenda,” replied Brown.

Hunt explained that the procedure was laid out in a public notice printed in the Tullahoma News.  

Malone was sworn in during the meeting and commented on his appointment to the Times afterwards.

“I’m going to do the best job I possibly can for the citizens of Coffee County. It’s that simple. I’m a simple guy,” he said.