What is the Ajax Turner Senior Citizens Center? 

The Ajax Turner Senior Citizens Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization. It has served the senior community of Clarksville for over 40 years. It is located on Clark Street near downtown Clarksville. The center provides three meals a day to seniors. It offers a safe place to socialize and stay active. Its annual membership fee is low and affordable. It is a lifeline for many of our most vulerable neighbors.

What is Happening?

The City of Clarksville owns the building on Clark Street. For decades, the city leased that building to the center. That lease was not up for renewal. It was a long-term, perpetual lease. Either side could end it with 90 days notice. 

The Mayor chose to terminate that lease. He did it on his own. He did not get approval from the City Council. 

You may have heard that the lease was "not renewed." That is not accurate. The lease was terminated by the Mayor. There is a difference. The center did not have a chance to renew anything. The Mayor made this choice unilaterally. 

The city has given the center just 90 days to vacate a building it has called home for over 30 years. 

What does this mean for the Center?

The non-profit corporation itself does not go away. Its 501c3 status is not affected. But the center will have no home. Its home is on Clark Street. The organization will be forced to find a new location. That is not simple. That is not fast. And it is not fair. 

Here is what is at stake:

The center will lose its home. Seniors will lose their gethering place, their meals, and their safe space - immediately. 

Funding will be harder to find. Many grants and donors require a stable location. Without one, the center's ability to raise money is seriously damaged. 

Taxpayers will pay more. The Mayor wants to create a new city-run senior center to replace what the non-profit already does. That means new city employees, new city costs, and your tax dollars funding something a non-profit was already doing - at no cost to the city.

Three meals a day could disappear. Seniors who depend on those meals have nowhere else to turn right now. 

This was done without City Council approval. The Mayor acted alone. That is not how decisions of this magnitude should be made. 

What is the Mayor Saying? 

The Mayor has made his intentions clear. He wants the city to take over what the Ajax Turner Senior Citizens Center does. He has asked the center to hand over allof its assets to the city. He has stated center employees will be come city employees with city benefits. 

These promises sound nice. But the price is the end of an independent, community-led organization that has served Clarksville seniors for over 40 years. The city is essentially telling the center: get out. They do not care what happens to the non-profit after that. 

The city can own a building. It cannot control an independent non-profit. But it can take away its home. And that is exactly what it is doing. 

What Can You Do?

• Sign this petition to tell the Mayor and the City Council that this is wrong. 
• Share this post so others know what is really happening. 
• Contact your City Council Member and ask them to step in. 
• Show up for the seniors of Clarksville who have no voice in this fight. 

We, the undersigned, call on the Clarksville City Council to intervene in the Mayor's unilateral decision to terminate the lease of the Ajax Turner Senior Citizens Center. We demand that the center be given the time, support, and resources it needs to continue serving our senior community. We oppose any effort to displace a 30-year institution with 90 days notice and no community input.