CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Several citizens addressed the City Council Thursday night, with the majority objecting to the city terminating the lease of the Ajax Turner Senior Center, and the city’s proposal to fold the center’s operations under Parks & Recreation management.

Jill Turner Crow, the daughter of Ajax Turner, said, “Our family made a huge financial gift to the City of Clarksville to help with adding an addition to the present Ajax Turner Senior Center over 30 years ago. This gift was given with the idea that the center would continue as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and always serve the senior population in Montgomery County.”

Crow said the 90 days given to the Senior Center to vacate the city-owned building was a blow to the staff, the members, to the friends of the center and to the community as a whole. “This is wrong; it’s unprofessional and a lack of good leadership to treat an organization (like this) that’s been serving the senior community in Montgomery County since 1966.”

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Turner: ‘You’ll have to furnish the building completely’

Crow asked why the future of the Senior Center wasn’t addressed through the City Council, and she questioned how effective the Parks and Recreation Department would be running the operations.

“The mayor has also asked the center to leave all of our nonprofit assets,” she said. “That will never happen. These assets belong to the nonprofit 501(c)3, so a vacant building you will get. That means more money added to the city budget, because you’ll have to furnish the building completely.”

Crow asked why all parties involved don’t just come together and work with one another like in years past. “This is all so crazy what’s been going on. I’m calling on Mayor Pitts to reverse the termination of our lease, to seek proper City Council approval for any actions facing the center and engage with the Ajax Turner Senior Center under a new board, please, all working together and partnering together for the betterment of our senior population.”

Senior center executive director speaks on concerns

The executive director of the Senior Center, Rita Allsop, said when she was hired, she met with Pitts and the board. “It was said to me that there were issues that had been going on previously in the center for years and that I wasn’t going to be held accountable for anything that had happened prior to me,” Allsop said.

“With that being said, I rolled my sleeves up, got into the center, and I have worked very diligently on getting the center back on track. I walked into a building that had numerous things that were wrong with it.”

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Allsop said that on a few occasions, she went to Pitts to inform him about some of her staff who’d given her pushback, which included some individuals who were later terminated. She said some of those fired employees went to Pitts to complain about center leadership.

“He’s opened his door, he’s given his cell phone number out, and these people continue to reach out to him making complaints. Rather than it staying within the building, he’s entertaining it,” Allsop said.

Proposed public discussion voted down by City Council

Later in the meeting, Councilman Tim Chandler proposed a resolution to hold a public discussion over the Ajax Turner Senior Center, which would have required three-fourths vote for approval.

However, City of Clarksville Attorney Eric Bittner suggested the meeting go into a closed session to discuss “threatened litigation.”

After more than 40 minutes of closed session, the City Council meeting resumed, and the council rejected the public discussion 7-5. Voting to open the discussion were Brian Zacharias, Eric Claunch, Carlos Peters, Wanda Smith, Travis Holleman, Jimmy Brown and Joe Shakeenab. Voting against it were Ambar Marquis, Jerry Haywood, Stacey Streetman, Keri Lovato and Pitts.

Councilperson Chandler was not in attendance for the vote.

No intentions of litigation but additional concerns raised

Friday morning, Clarksville Now spoke with the attorneys for the Ajax Turner Senior Center, Kyle Shannon and John Crow, who said there is no active litigation, nor have there been threats.

Crow said the senior center is willing to move out if that’s what Pitts, as well as the City Council, tell them they have to do.

“To be clear, the city has to start their own (senior center). They cannot take over operations of a nonprofit,” Crow said. “The nonprofit is completely separate from that. They can form their own city senior citizens center, absolutely. We can’t stop that.”

Crow said the city will also have to pay for their own staff.

He said they have concerns about the increased liability by the city with what they are planning. “We have seniors in there that have dementia, Alzheimer’s and other disabilities. There’s certainly an increased risk of falls, an increased risk of going awry and that exposes the city to liability,” he said. “Right now, there’s some buffer there with the center running operations. But, if the city takes it over, there’s going to be some increased liability and thus more taxpayer liability.”

Clarksville Now has reached out to Pitts for comment.

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