HOLLY POND — Citing past U.S. Supreme Court rulings, as well as Alabama Attorney General opinions as precedent, the Holly Pond Town Council denied the municipally owned Lions Club park to be used for a softball tournament to raise funds for the family of Lexi White. White was a Cullman County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher who was shot to death Sept. 7 in an apparent murder-suicide.

Mayor Carla Hart emotionally addressed the online backlash she has received after an email was sent to the event’s organizer, Jarrett Dale Rollins, last week. In the email — sent on Sept. 28 — Hart explains how, because the event would not benefit a significant number of public residents, it would not be covered by the town’s liability insurance policy. However, during the town council meeting on Monday, Oct. 2, Hart said that Rollins and herself continued communication in hopes of finding a legal solution allowing the park to be used.

“I hated to say no, but when I came into this position I said I would not do anything beyond the law. … I will do anything I can as long as it’s the right way. If there is any way we can find to do this, I am all behind it,” Hart said.

Rollins — a distant relative of White’s — first announced the tournament via social media on Sept. 12, and said the location would be either the Holly Pond High School softball fields or Lions Club Park. When speaking to The Times on Tuesday, Rollins said this is the first major fundraising event he has been involved with. His first several initial attempts to contact the town were unsuccessful and resulted in the event gaining widespread public attention before he was able to discuss the matter with Hart.

After being posted on social media by Rollins, Hart’s email was rewritten and shared, along with a photograph of the mayor, by a local social media page. According to Rollins, when he reached out to the administrators of the page to express his disapproval of both the use of a photograph and the post’s misspellings he was blocked.

“After I pointed it out, they seriously came back and said something in the lines of ‘I don’t care, we were just trying to help you with free advertisement,’” Rollins said.

The original email was shared by a second social media page Monday afternoon and encouraged public attendance to the town council meeting to voice their concerns.

During the council meeting, Hart discussed the ways the public response has affected both her and the Holly Pond community as a whole before deferring to the town’s attorney, Dan Willingham, for legal advice on the matter.

“They can do whatever they want to me because they’ve already done enough damage to me and to this town … 99 percent of these people don’t even know me, they just make comments about me. I have a family. I have a grandson. I don’t want him to see all of this stuff. He’s the one who encouraged me to sit in this seat. I try to teach him right in hopes that he may want to do something like this one day, but you have to do it the right way. I’m just so heartbroken about what everyone has said and done about me. But, these words aren’t going to kill me, but I feel like they have harmed me and this town because people won’t come to me and ask me what is going on. They just want to put it out there,” Hart said.

Although Rollins said a third party insurance agency has offered to provide coverage for the event, Willingham said a number of legal precedents would still present roadblocks.

“The question is, “for what can you use municipal facilities?”,” Willingham said.

Citing sections 93 and 94 of the Alabama Constitution, Willingham said publicly owned property was not allowed to be used for private individual functions. He said at least two separate rulings have upheld this view and have defined a “public purpose” as one which “promotes public health, morals, security, prosperity, contentment and general welfare of the community.”

According to Willingham, one of the main issues with the event was the narrow scope of its beneficiaries. Because White’s family consists of her two parents Willingham said, “I don’t think there is any way that you, as a legislative body, could stretch that to be a significant part of the public in my opinion.”

He said a 1995 Alabama Attorney General opinion expands on those restrictions to include almost any type of fundraising event. The opinion was issued in a case in which an auxiliary branch of the Rogersville Fire Department was not allowed to use municipally owned facilities to hold fundraising events. Willingham said he went as far to contact the office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and was told his interoperation was correct.

“I was asked by the mayor if there was anything we could do legally to make this happen. I called the AG’s office and said I knew their rules and have read their opinions and asked if there was anything we could do to make this okay, and I was told [by a representative of the office] ‘Sorry. No.’ … This isn’t a callousness on the part of the municipality. The mayor’s job is to make sure we don’t violate the law and my job is to tell you what I think the law is, and I think this is extremely clear,” Willingham said.

Based upon Willingham’s counsel, the council unanimously decided to deny the park be used as the event’s location.

After being informed of the council’s decision Rollins disagreed with the statute, but told The Times he wanted to be clear that he did not fault the town’s decision to uphold the law.

He said he is continuing to search for a location and remains hopeful of finding a way to hold the event in the town of Holly Pond.

“We will get something. I’m a faithful guy. Maybe, I should be a little more faithful, but we’ve got some calls to Lieutenant Governor Ainsworth today,” Rollins said.