Friday, June 15, 2007

Lame Duck Goes to Bat for Belmont and Attempts to Circumvent Court Order

Ludye Wallace has gone salty again, this time on a court mandate prohibiting Metro from going through with approval of Belmont University's proposed athletic builds in the Edgehill neighborhood. "Salty Papa" plans to introduce a bill on Tuesday that, if passed on three readings, will "authorize" the Metro Parks Department to "execute" the Belmont Plan. The affected neighborhood association submitted a petition to Ludye with over 300 signatures opposing Belmont's expansion, according to this morning's City Paper. Obviously, Ludye is unmoved by popular opposition.

Given Ludye's lame duck status (he is done after August 2) and the neighborhood opposition from those Ludye is supposed to be representing, I wonder what Ludye stands to gain from this in the end. This inquiring mind would like to know if there is pay back from the increasingly influential and ably lawyered Baptist university in Ludye's post-Council future. It seems to me that the court mandate should have motivated the council member to take a step back and to allow the legal process to take its course before taking sides. Even as anti-neighborhood as Ludye has been lately, I am surprised by his rather brazen contempt for a reasonable court order.

Since the bill is up for first reading, it will probably pass on consent with all of the bills on first reading; but with any luck this bill will go the way of so many other misguided resolutions under Ludye's sponsorship and die the death of deferrals. If Belmont is going to win this thing they should have to expend some legal funds rather than relying on a lame duck to beat 300 neighborhood signatures.

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