Legal Victory Update
More than two thousand of you have already read, commented, shared or otherwise reacted to our post on our legal victory – within 24 hours of our posting it. We know you are engaged and we intend to keep you, our partners, informed.
We have now met to better understand the ruling. We are deeply grateful to Judge Davis. She was diligent and thoughtful and we believe that makes her ruling conclusive. It gives us firm ground on which to stand going forward. We are also deeply grateful to Tom Hale and Brandon Morrow of Kramer Rayson who were equally diligent and thoughtful, always pulling us back to the best path forward as we grappled with a waterfront on issues.
Here’s where we are.
Even if the defendants decide(d) to appeal, their chances of success are very slim due to Judge Davis’s diligence. She made her decision narrow in scope and based it squarely on clear law. Of course, we would have liked victory on every single point we raised but the legal minds guided us well and have left for other forums the lesser issues.
If the defendants did decide to appeal it would/will open the opportunity for counter-appeal by us and there are excellent grounds, indeed some arguments we would enjoy seeing re-visited. Our homework is done so we stand by for the next thirty days.
Our challenge going forward is vigilance. We know there are those who are willing to proceed on the hope of ramming through poorly conceived development plans that do not serve the community. Sadly, there is a history in Knox County of success of such plans as the community has not previously been well organized in it’s opposition to bad plans. That has allowed the development industry to gained far too much traction. We are committed to opposing plans that do not serve the entire community and which do not assess community costs appropriately.
We must change the way things have been done and we know we can. The immediate key is in carefully vetting and supporting County Commission candidates who will serve the entire community, not narrow interests. Secondarily, we must continue to work with our neighbors who share the same concerns across the county. There is strength in numbers, in intelligent organization and thoughtful approaches.
We are working right now on four fronts.
1) taking a look at candidates for the County elections coming up
2) getting in-depth information on the traffic study of Northshore Drive and opportunities for public input
3) finding out what is being done with water sewer upgrades along the Northshore Corridor
4) looking at ways to strengthen NCA incorporating the many lessons we have learned.
Stay tuned.