Mason, TN residents demand restoration of community center near BlueOval City

Jameison Flemming speaks about her memories growing up at the Bernard Community Center in Mason, Tenn. on August 7, 2024. (Photo: Tennessee for All livestream)

For 20 years, a small community center in Mason, Tennessee hosted birthdays, reunions, funeral repasts, senior breakfasts and youth movie nights.

But since December 2023, the center has remained locked and empty.

Fayette County Mayor Rhea “Skip” Taylor said he temporarily closed its doors to institute proper oversight over the county’s property. Community members and advocacy groups see the center’s closure as the latest blow to the small, majority-Black town as the region braces for unprecedented growth.

The Bernard Community Center is located just south of Interstate 40, about two miles down the road from Ford Motor Co’s 4,100-acre electric truck and battery plant BlueOval City. The plant is expected to spur a population boom in Tipton, Haywood and Fayette counties when it opens in 2025.

Lue Hall, the center’s director, said it has been operated since 2004 by the community, for the community with little support from the county aside from footing the electricity bill. Fundraisers and rental fees from private events paid for upkeep, and community members filled in with donations when money ran short for new appliances. And the center rented out the rest of the roughly 7-acre parcel to a local farmer to harvest soybeans and timber.

That’s the problem, according to Taylor. The community center’s board wasn’t authorized to sell the timber — county property — without approval from the Fayette County Commission.

When he heard about the timber harvesting, “initially, I thought I had a theft,” he said in a phone interview. So he locked the center’s doors, called the state comptroller and notified the county commission, then started reviewing the center’s financial records.

“In talking with the comptroller, they said that we really need to have a tighter rein on what’s going on out there. They need more formalized agreements, that type of thing,” Taylor said.

The center has since “reopened,” but with new rules approved by the county commission: no more private events are allowed, and public events must be scheduled through the mayor’s office 10 business days in advance. No one from the community has called to reserve the space, Taylor said.

To longtime community members, the closure was sudden and confusing.

“The farmer has been harvesting crops from the land since it opened in 2004, so we don’t understand why this time, this moment, that he stopped the center, closed it, because of the harvesting of the timber,” Bernard Community Center Board member Christine Woods said at a news conference held in front of the shuttered building on Wednesday. “The only thing we know that has changed in this community is that BlueOval is less than two miles away.”

Advocacy group Tennessee for All and BlueOval Good Neighbors, a group seeking a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement with Ford, demanded the center be reopened and restored to its usual operations on Wednesday. They also called into question Taylor’s seat on Ford’s 25-person Equitable Growth Advisory Council tasked with developing a “Good Neighbor Plan” for investment in communities surrounding the plant.

What is true, factual and clear is that this (center) was in the community’s hands for the past 20 years, was a place of unity, and then literally there’s a sign on the door now that says ‘No Trespassing'.

– Rebekah Gorbea, Tennessee For All

Ford has never used the Bernard Community Center and has yet to directly address BlueOval Good Neighbors’ call for a legally binding commitment. In a previous statement, the company said investment priorities would be developed by the council and “driven by resident feedback.”

From ‘unity’ to ‘No Trespassing’

Fayette County purchased the roughly 7.5-acre lot in 2001 using funds from a federal Enterprise Zone and Enterprise Community Grant intended to benefit the rural community.

Taylor was elected mayor in 2002 and has held the role for the entirety of the community center’s existence.

“The reason we got to (where we are) now is because I did not have … good oversight,” he said. “Poor communication is what was going on out there, and with somebody thinking they had the authority to start selling property from the county, I needed to put a halt on things until we actually are able to figure out what was going on.”

Rebekah Gorbea, an organizer with Tennessee for All, said the group sees the center’s closure and new restrictions as a symbol of a “bigger, overarching theme of what’s been happening in West Tennessee.”

Black farming community fights to get fair deal as state takes land for Ford plant roadways

Tennessee for All points to the state comptroller’s 2022 attempt to take over the City of Mason’s charter and reports of the state low-balling Black farmers for land needed to build a roadway connecting the new plant to the interstate. The plant and the growth it catalyzes will inevitably inflate the cost of living, which will hit minority and low-income households hardest, according to the organization.

“What is true, factual and clear is that this (center) was in the community’s hands for the past 20 years, was a place of unity, and then literally there’s a sign on the door now that says ‘No Trespassing,’” Gorbea said.

Taylor said he’s working on finding a way to take in rental fees and deposits so private events can resume, but the county is “just not really set up (for that) right now.”

The farmer has been allowed to continue harvesting from the land, though his rent now goes into Fayette County’s coffers in an agreement approved by the county commission.

Taylor quickly quashed any rumors that the county might consider selling the parcel, which is in close proximity to BlueOval and within the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s project vicinity for the new State Route 194. The land will remain in county hands, and the community center “will stay a community center,” he said.

“For what it’s worth, we have better communication now than we’ve ever had, so if that’s an upside, I’m glad of it,” Taylor said. “But if the timber had never been sold, we would not be where we are now … and if BlueOval had never been in existence, and somebody sold timber, we would be doing exactly what I’m doing now.”

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