A tiny, rural, predominantly Black town in Tennessee has gotten a reprieve from a looming threat of a financial takeover by the state, the Johnson City Press reports.
Thanks to the help of the NAACP, Mason’s majority-Black leadership is no longer under the scrutiny or thumb of Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson tells the Johnson City Press, “This settlement agreement is a good thing for the citizens of the town and it’s a good thing for African Americans across the country.”
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As we reported in March, just as Ford Motor Co. announced its multibillion-dollar Blue Oval City manufacturing campus about 5 miles from Mason, all of a sudden the state began putting the town’s finances in its crosshairs. Until 2016, the town was led by white elected officials. Those officials resigned after years of fraud and mismanagement allegations.
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“Mumpower admitted that the debt goes back 20 years and has said that we can’t handle the finances of our city. He didn’t think the people who stole the money were irresponsible,” Mason Vice Mayor Virginia Rivers told Daily Kos in mid-March.
Mason’s population was about 1,500 in 2020, according to the 2020 census, but fell to under 800 after a local private prison closed.
The town could benefit from Ford’s $5.6 billion electric truck and battery plant, which is expected to generate 26,000 jobs in its planned 2025 opening. Many of those living in Mason are the descendants of people enslaved in the area before Emancipation.
Mumpower could have opted for state financial oversight, but instead, he demanded the town give up its charter entirely, something that would have subsumed the mostly Black and majority Democrat community into Tipton County, which is 75% white and voted 71% Republican in the last presidential election, according to the Tennessee Lookout.
Today, Mason’s current mayor, vice mayor, and five of its six aldermen are Black.
A financial takeover would have meant that the comptroller had full veto power over any and every nonpayroll expense of $100 or more.
The town immediately filed a lawsuit to stop the takeover, and challenge Mumford’s veto power.
Attorney Van Turner Jr., president of Memphis’ branch of the NAACP, represented Mason’s town leaders. He told the Johnson City Press, that “[t]hey set up Mason to fail” and although the initial demand to halt the takeover while the suit winded its way through the courts was denied, the latest agreement is a “significant victory,” Johnson added.
The agreement says that Mason officials must inform the state of any expenses over $1,000 and will file monthly reports, not weekly reports as originally requested. Additionally, Mason’s payments to its water and sewer funds were cut from $10,000 per month to $5,100, Johnson City Press reports.
“For far too long, we’ve seen highways going through our cities in our community, or hostile takeover by states … Here’s an opportunity for the citizens to retain their charter, implement best practices and participate in the opportunities that the economic development we’re bringing for this community,” Johnson said.