The squabble between Belmont University and residents of the Edgehill area continues to fester. The proposal to give the University access to a city park comes up for a vote on the second of three readings tomorrow night.
Belmont has proposed repairing existing buildings and adding a track, soccer and softball fields and a baseball stadium for Metro’s Rose Park, in exchange for being able to use the public site for some of its NCAA team sports.
Neighborhood residents like John Moore, who are opposed to the project were lobbing council members at last week’s meeting. He says Belmont hasn’t been upfront with its plans.
“It seems like every time we look around, something is being added on to the plan. And I think that’s why the community doesn’t like the idea, because of the uses. They’re going to really, it’s going to require a lot of time taken away, it’s no longer a public park.”
The University has insisted that the park will remain a public facility, and that residents and the teams will work out a use schedule.
Members of council will be touring the site this morning and the Council’s parks committee will be taking up the issue tonight at 5-pm at the courthouse.
Council will be voting on a host of other issues tomorrow night, including the 6-million dollars of Metro Schools’ reserve funds needed to balance its budget after the Council voted to take some of the school’s money to fund libraries and pay raises for police and firefighters.
Votes are expected on the senior citizen’s property tax freeze and the bills to finance both the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center expansion and the proposed new downtown Convention Center. A new ordinance establishing public use guidelines for the Thermal transfer site, where the Nashville Sounds had proposed a ballpark, is up on the first of three readings.
Metro’s 263-million dollar capital improvements budgets is also on tomorrow night’s agenda.
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