The county filed suit back in February 2023 after the city illegally annexed two parcels of land outside their urban growth boundary. The county's attorney tried multiple times to get the city to correct their illegal actions to avoid litigation with no results.

Lenoir City attorney, T Scott Jones filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit claiming the county had no standing to bring the lawsuit. In fact, according to Jones, no one could challenge the illegal annexations. RIDICULOUS. Lenoir City's staff attorney had stated several times that the interlocal agreement from 2005 was invalid. Obviously, Judge Pemberton disagreed with Johnson's opinion.

The next phase of the lawsuit will begin on the actual merits of the case. Hopefully during pre-trial discovery and depositions, it will be learned how the mayor and council came to approve the two illegal annexations and why they did it knowing it was illegal and the property was outside their UGB. Who all the investors in the Belle West, now Mountain View Farms were and how the main street in the development came to be named for a Tony Aikens family member. There's lots more violations in these illegal annexations that will be brought up during the trial, like signatures of deceased people on annexation papers and so on.

No date for the trial has been set yet.

Click Here To Read Judge Pemberton's Ruling

The time line thus far.

First, in 2020, Lenoir City annexed the Belle West now Mountain 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 state law.

Then in 2022, guessing they got by with the 2020 illegal annexation, they annexed the WNW property, knowing before they did it, it was outside the city UGB and illegal to annex. 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. 

Both the Belle West/Mountain View and the WNW annexations were 100% illegal under state law, no way around it, and Aikens knows it. Apparently, he doesn't care how much tax payer money has to be spent trying to defend the city's illegal actions.

2/15/23, The county files suit.
3/20/2023, The city answers the suit with a motion to dismiss.
11/20/2023, The judge requires the city to set a date for their motion.
2/28/2024, 1st delay with late documents from Lenoir City.
3/27/2024, 2nd delay with Lenoir City motion to amend.
4/24/2024, 3rd delay for other attorneys from previous amended motion to join the suit.
6/17/2024, The hearing on the motion to dismiss was heard.
8/21/2024, Judge Pemberton released his ruling denying Lenoir City's motion to dismiss.