A charter amendment proposal to remove auto racing and add affordable housing at The Fairgrounds Nashville has been presented to the Metro Charter Revision Commission.
The revision was filed by Kenny Byrd, a former fair board commissioner, and Heidi Basgall, a founder of Neighbors Opposing Track Expansion. While the charter revision commission’s role is to decide only if a petition complies with charter’s requirements for revision, some public speakers recently noted their opposition to the proposal for both what it would do and the format in which it was submitted.
Presented Friday, the proposed amendment was incorrectly formatted, Metro Legal explained at the meeting. The commission therefore voted not to certify the amendment. Metro Legal’s analysis did not find any issue with the substance, and the commissioners suggested it could potentially be certified once reformatted. The board set a meeting for March 11 to review the petition once resubmitted in the correct format.
If the commission does certify the petition, Byrd and Basgall will need to collect signatures from 10 percent of registered voters to get their charter amendment on the ballot. Voters would make the final decision to accept or deny their revision in November.
Byrd told the Nashville Banner that the proposal is not formally affiliated with Fairgrounds Preservation Partners, although he is also involved in that plan to redevelop the speedway. FPP has pitched replacing the racetrack with a park, live-work space for artists and musicians, and a new straight-line track for electric vehicle racing.
That proposal was an alternative to former Mayor John Cooper’s plan to renovate the fairgrounds and bring NASCAR to the racetrack, an effort that stalled as he left office. Mayor Freddie O’Connell has not prioritized the proposal for his administration.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
