Circuit Court judge, Mike Pemberton, determined that he nor the county attorney had time to review the city documents and rescheduled the hearing to March 27th at the Loudon County temporary courthouse in Loudon, 10:00 am.

If you take away all the legal e's, the lawyers and courts, this is a very simple case. Lenoir City officials violated state law by annexing two parcels of land outside the city's Urban Growth Boundary, UGB.

First in 2020 when they annexed the Belle West property. No one outside the city council and mayor was aware of the illegal annexation. The city did not notify the county about the annexation, as required by law. Then in 2022, guessing they got by with the 2020 annexation, they illegally annexed the WNW property. Fortunately this time, the county found out about it even though the city did not notify the county again. During the investigation of the illegal WNW property, the 2020 illegal annexation was discovered. 

The entire reason the Public Chapter 1101 law was written was for this exact issue, to prevent city's from annexing property outside their UGB's.  The city has never once argued that the annexations were legal, rather they claim the county has no standing to challenge their illegal annexations. This can't be emphasized enough. If not the county who can challenge the city? Residents outside the annexed property can't challenge the illegal annexations and while the state passed the law, they won't come in an enforce their own laws. So by the city's argument, they can annex illegally all day and there's no one who can challenge them?

Of course this is not correct. There's plenty of case law and court rulings that establish the county's standing and right to challenge this matter.

If the county didn't challenge the city's illegal actions, it would become open season on all county property. Aikens would annex every parcel of land he could get his hands on. 

Hopefully the issue will be settled on the 27th and the county can move forward with discovery and depositions.