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Tennessee Conservative News [By Olivia Lupia] –
After being granted a temporary restraining order against the City of Clarksville in its takeover bid, the Ajax Turner Senior Center was awarded another legal victory as a Montgomery County judge ruled the city’s efforts are strictly prohibited in the state of Tennessee and issued another injunction allowing the center to reopen.
The nonprofit center originally filed the suit against City Mayor Joe Pitts and four members of the community’s Senior Citizen’s Board as Clarksville was trying to move ahead with plans to assume operations of the organization and move it under the Parks and Recreation Department.
While the center’s legal complaint says the city neither owns nor lawfully controls the center and therefore could not force them out of the building, the city terminated the center’s $1 annual lease in March. Mayor Pitts has maintained the municipality has the right to take control of the Ajax Center as the city owns the building, to which it has made capital investments, and provided nearly 90% of the funding for the organization.
The Senior Center announced it would refuse to vacate the premises without a formal eviction notice and continued to hold board meetings, followed by the temporary restraining order.
Issued by Chancellor Kimberly Lund, the injunction forbade the city from evicting the center from the building or removing any property, assets, equipment, or records. It also prevents the city from acting on any notices to vacate or interfering with the center’s staffing, relationships with vendors, banking, or the Dept. of Human Services, and its licensed Adult Day Care program.
And less than two weeks later, Chancellor Lund has again sided with the center, ruling that the City of Clarksville’s takeover of the Senior Center operations constituted a form of “self-help”, which is prohibited in Tennessee.
“Ajax Turner Center was entitled not to be dispossessed until appropriate court proceedings occurred. Instead, [Clarksville] backdoored their way into this,” Lund said.
The court then issued another temporary injunction maintaining the status quo of the center, “if they can operate at all.”
According to Lund, when the nonprofit’s lease was terminated back in March, “landlord-tenant laws kicked in, but in the meantime, possibly even before that March letter was sent, but definitely right after, it appears to the court that the City began a course of interference with the operation of the center. The board members appointed by the City stopped acting on behalf of the center. The City started securing funding and licensing against the center, specifically tied to the very location where the center was operating out of.”
“They didn’t wait until the landlord-tenant issues were resolved. They just took action to effectively shut the center down with competing interests,” the Chancellor continued. “Rather than seeking eviction, someone thought it was wise to act in contradiction to the center, all while pretending that it might not be in the best interest of the City to operate a senior citizen center. So, the competing licensing, competing funding, both at the center’s address, the employees that were tied to licensing, which were subsequently fired in what could have been a closed meeting by city appointees who had already stopped working for the center, caused great concern to this court.”
Lund also said the city’s repeated interference with the center’s business operations was designed to force the center to close and push the nonprofit out, stating that “the idea that the city withheld funding may be an issue for today, maybe not, but the idea that they withheld funding because compliance was not being met is sort of tongue-in-cheek because they were preventing compliance from occurring.”
Upon receiving the injunction, the Ajax Turner Senior Center announced it will be reopening on Monday, August 24, though the affiliated Adult Day Center will remain closed for the time being as it requires additional staffing and resources the Board is working to procure.
Moving forward, the center will be dependent on donations to continue operations and has set up a GoFundMe to receive contributions.
Sources:
https://tennesseeconservativenews.com/clarksville-senior-center-sues-mayor-over-city-takeover/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ajaxturner
About the Author: Olivia Lupia is a political refugee from Colorado who now calls Tennessee home. A proud follower of Christ, she views all political happenings through a Biblical lens and aims to utilize her knowledge and experience to educate and equip others. Olivia is an outspoken conservative who has run for local office, managed campaigns, and been highly involved with state & local GOPs, state legislatures, and other grassroots organizations and movements. Olivia can be reached at olivia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
