Topic: SLAPP

Property Rights group slapped with $500k libel suit; CPRC vows “vigorous” defense

By Christine Anne Piesyk | May 12, 2008 |

• Property Rights group faces $500,000 libel suit
• Controversial development plan under fire
• Councilor Richard Swift, DDP member Wayne Wilkinson claim harm to public image and integrity
• Is this a SLAPP suit?
• CPRC will “vigorously defend” against “frivolous” suit

Another punch has been thrown in the ongoing battle between the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition and both city officials and the Downtown District Partnership: the CPRC has been slapped with a lawsuit over a dissenting advertisement on the issue of redevelopment.

The suit was filed by Wilkinson and Swift on Friday in the 19th Judicial District, Circuit Court of Montgomery County against the CPRC as an organization and, Pam Vandeveer, individually as CPRC treasurer. You can read the complete text of the lawsuit here at Clarksville Online.

CCRP member Joyce Vanderbilt with the CPRC ad

At issue is the veracity of an ad which ran in the Leaf Chronicle on May 3, prior to the May 8 City Council special session at which the final reading and approval of the highly controversial Downtown Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan occurred. The ad stated that Clarksville Mayor Johnny Piper, Councilman Richard Swift and DDP member Wayne Wilkinson as developers who worked for passage of the comprehensive redevelopment plan that would cover roughly two square miles of down town Clarksville and which designated the area as blighted.

The lawsuit charges that the CPRC ad made “libelous” statements against plaintiffs Wilkinson and Swift when the CPRC ad implied that [the plaintiffs] placed their “development interests” above the wishes of the community and their constituency. «Read the rest of this article»

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