 Less than two hours after senior citizen centers at Phelps and Marbone closed their doors, presumably for the last time, the members of the Pike County fiscal court brought in to question the authority and the alleged action of the Pike County senior citizens program board in closing those centers. No members of the board were present at the meeting to answer the court's questioning. Melissa Downey, the director of the Phelps Center, told EKB News earlier in the day Thursday that she was told that the closure of the centers was a cost savings measure by the senior's program board, but perhaps the biggest revelation at Thursday's fiscal court meeting came when Assistant County Attorney John Doug Hayes acknowledged in the county's new 2016-2017 budget that the senior citizens program would receive the exact same amount of funding it had received from the county in the previous budget. He also said the meeting Wednesday during which the senior's program board allegedly met and decided to close the centers was illegal. If that wasn't an improper illegal meeting, it was then contrary to the Kentucky Revised Statute, which requires notice of that special meeting just like this court has to give notice of the meeting, and I've told the director that in no uncertain terms, matter of fact, in one meeting I stopped them from going out right in the middle of the court meeting to have a special meeting until they couldn't do that. The fiscal court's appointee to the board, Diane Thacker, was mentioned prominently during the meeting by county officials and senior citizens from the Phelps Center. She was blamed for the closures and was accused of having a vendetta against the Phelps Center, its seniors, and its director. Magistrate Hillman Dotson made a motion that included asking for Thacker's resignation, but Pike Judge Executive Bill Deskins said he planned to investigate the situation before acting. Deskins promised, however, that the senior citizen centers will not close. Neither Thacker nor the seniors program board chairman Elkhorn City Mayor Mike Taylor returned calls seeking comment on behalf of the seniors program board. Reporting in Pikeville for EKB News, I'm Chris Anderson.