Imagine you hired a contractor to build a fence. You told them exactly what you needed. They nodded, said they understood, and then built something completely different — and handed you paperwork that made it look like they did it right.
That is what Tullahoma's city attorneys did with Resolution No. 2045.
Tonight, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen votes on a document those attorneys drafted. A document that cites a state law requiring municipalities to use an ordinance — then removes the word "ordinance" from the quote. A document that recycles a public hearing held for a completely different purpose and presents it as legal notice for tonight's vote. A document that declares a legal process complete when the attorneys themselves said — out loud, on the record — that process was never properly started.
This is not complicated. You do not need a law degree to see it. You just need to read what they wrote — and compare it to what the law actually says.
Here is that comparison.
They Quoted the Law. Then They Edited It.
Tennessee Code Annotated 13-3-304 is the state law governing how a city adopts its comprehensive plan. Here is the relevant sentence, word for word:
"The county legislative body, by resolution, or the municipal legislative body **by ordinance**, may adopt the general regional plan."
Read that carefully. Counties use resolutions. Cities use ordinances. The law says so explicitly — one rule for counties, a different rule for cities.
Now here is how Resolution No. 2045 — the document drafted by Tullahoma's own city attorneys — summarizes that same law:
"Tennessee Code Annotated § 13-3-304 authorizes the municipal legislative body to adopt the municipality's element of the regional plan as certified by the Planning Commission."
Gone. "By ordinance." Gone.
The attorneys cited the statute by its exact section number. They read it closely enough to summarize it in a formal legal document that goes before the full board. And somehow — in that careful, deliberate process — the three words that make their document legally indefensible just disappeared.
That is not a typo. That is not an oversight. You do not accidentally omit the words that defeat your own argument.
They Cited a Law That Does Not Apply to Them
The resolution opens by citing T.C.A. 13-3-303 as its authority for using a resolution instead of an ordinance. That law says a regional planning commission may adopt the plan by resolution.
The planning commission. Not the board.
The Board of Mayor and Aldermen is not the planning commission. These are two separate bodies with two separate legal authorities. The attorneys cited a statute that governs a completely different body — in the opening paragraph of the resolution, as its primary legal justification — and it has nothing to do with what the board is authorized to do.
Think of it this way: if a law says your neighbor can park in your driveway, that does not mean you can park in your neighbor's driveway. The attorneys cited the neighbor's permission slip.
They Used a Receipt from a Different Purchase
Resolution No. 2045 includes this line:
"WHEREAS, a public hearing before this body was held on February 9, 2026...and notice thereof published in the Tullahoma News on the 21st day of January 2026."
State law requires that before the board adopts the plan, it must publish notice in a newspaper at least thirty days in advance and hold a public hearing.
The February 9th hearing and the January 21st newspaper notice were for the original Comprehensive Plan ordinance. The ordinance this board claims to have already repealed. That hearing served its legal purpose when the ordinance was adopted. It is done. You cannot use the same receipt twice.
Presenting that hearing as legal cover for tonight's vote is like returning a shirt to a store with a receipt from a completely different purchase. It looks like documentation. It is not.
They Told the Board the Right Answer. Then Helped Them Do the Wrong Thing Anyway.
On April 27th, when Alderman Thoma tried to kill the Comprehensive Plan by motion, city attorneys Steve Worsham and Brittany Hoskins stopped the meeting and corrected him. They explained — out loud, on the record — that repealing an ordinance requires a repealing ordinance, passed on two separate readings. That is the legal standard. They stated it clearly.
The board said it understood.
Then voted on a single motion to repeal the ordinance anyway.
The official minutes show it. Item 26-57. Motion to repeal Ordinance No. 1675. Vote taken. Five to two. Meeting adjourned. No ordinance number. No first reading. No second reading scheduled.
Both attorneys were at that table the whole time.
Tonight, those same attorneys have handed the board a resolution that says in Section 3 that the repeal is already complete. They know that repeal was not completed under the standard they themselves described. They drafted the document anyway.
They Cited a City That Plays by Different Rules
When pressed on whether a municipality can adopt a comprehensive plan by resolution, the city attorney pointed to Knoxville as an example of a city that has done it.
Knoxville has a home rule charter.
That is not a footnote. That is the entire answer.
Tennessee law allows certain cities to adopt a home rule charter — a governing document that gives them authority to operate outside the standard rules that apply to general law municipalities. Home rule cities write their own playbook. They are explicitly exempt from many of the state statutes that bind every other city in Tennessee.
Tullahoma does not have a home rule charter. Tullahoma is a general law municipality. The standard rules apply. All of them.
Pointing to Knoxville as precedent for what Tullahoma can do is like pointing to a doctor and saying nurses can prescribe medication. They work in the same building. They treat the same patients. The same rules do not apply to both.
The city attorney researched this question. She found Knoxville. She cited it.
She did not mention the home rule charter.
That omission is not an accident. You do not research municipal law, find a relevant example, cite it to the board as justification, and accidentally leave out the single fact that makes it inapplicable. That fact — the home rule charter — is the first thing any Tennessee municipal attorney would know about Knoxville's legal authority.
She knew. She cited it anyway.
One Direction. Every Time.
Here is the full list of what these attorneys have produced:
They knew the correct legal standard for repealing an ordinance — and let the board skip it.
They drafted a resolution asserting that incomplete repeal is done.
They quoted the statute requiring a city to use an ordinance — and removed "by ordinance."
They cited a law that applies to the planning commission to justify an action by the board.
They presented a public hearing from a dead ordinance as legal notice for a new resolution.
They cited Knoxville as a city that adopted its plan by resolution — without mentioning that Knoxville has a home rule charter that gives it legal authority Tullahoma does not have.
Every single one of these failures points the same direction. Every one makes the board's action harder to challenge. Every one strips away a layer of legal protection for residents who might want to object.
A contractor who makes one mistake on a job is careless. A contractor whose every mistake benefits the client who hired them — at the expense of the people who were supposed to be protected — is not making mistakes.
What This Means For You Tonight
You paid for these attorneys. Through your taxes, through this city's budget, you pay for legal counsel whose job is to make sure the city follows the law — including when the board would rather not.
What you got instead is a document that misrepresents the law, recycles a stale public hearing, and declares complete a process that was never legally finished — all in the service of stripping the Comprehensive Plan your neighbors built of any legal force.
Tonight at 5:30 p.m., the board votes on that document.
If it passes, the residents of Tullahoma deserve an independent legal review — not from the attorneys whose fingerprints are on this resolution — of whether it is valid under Tennessee law.
And every resident in that room tonight has the right to stand up and ask the simplest question of all:
Whose side are you on?
Tullahoma Municipal Building. 5:30 p.m. Resolution No. 2045. Item 5.
Be there.