Thursday, August 28, 2008

Ford hearing postponed

I just got a call from Joy Ford of Country International Records. She told me that within the hour her attorney, Scott Bullock of Institute for Justice was notified by Nashville’s MDHA that they were postponing their motions scheduled to be heard in court tomorrow. Bullock also told her that MDHA had just faxed him other papers that they were filing but since Bullock was 10 minutes from leaving for the airport to come to Nashville he hadn’t had time to thoroughly read them and opine. He is still coming and will meet with Miss Joy this afternoon about this sudden change of plans by MDHA.

In my life experience it’s not unusual at all for these sorts of postponements to occur, especially if there is a chance the outcome is one they don’t want. It’s frustrating to be sure but it’s part of the game. What’s galling is the further abuse of Miss Joy who isn’t used to such shenanigans and feels badly that her supporters are being inconvenienced. I assured her that most of us probably half expected this turn of events and we wouldn’t hold her accountable for MDHA’s tactics. It’s my opinion that it makes them look even worse.

I also asked Miss Joy if she’d ever gotten that ‘compromise’ MDHA proposal of several weeks back and she said that a nearly illegible drawing of how much property MDHA was willing to leave Miss Joy had been faxed to Bullock but nothing came of it since it left her not but three feet outside her back door. Miss Joy said she never got anything directly from MDHA.

So, hold off on rushing to Nashville in the morning and pass this news on to those you may have encouraged to come. Miss Joy said she’d touch base after her conversation with Bullock this afternoon. Stay tuned.

1 comment:

Danny L. Newton said...

The same rope-a-dope tactic was used against the Putnam County victim of eminent domain abuse Norma Lynch. Not only did they get postponements twice, they even pretended to give up and throw in the towel until they saw the legal fees that were racked up by Mrs. Lynch's attorneys.

This is part of the psychological warfare involved in my opinion.

This action in Putnam County is to secure a business park. For some reason, the County and the City of Cookeville needs a 400 acre plot and is seeking to get the final 12 to 15 acres of land even though in the last court meeting, the attorney for Mrs. Lynch, Bob Anderson, proved six times that the city and the county wanted property that was beyond their planned development. The City Manager stated that they would use the property "eventually", but could not say exactly what it would be. This is on farmland that is suppose to be be beyond being called "blighted" according to the eminent domain protections that were passed by the legislature. In the last court meeting the judge ordered the county, city and Mrs. Lynch to negotiate further but failed to understand that the city and the county can only offer less money since they have exhausted the amount allowed by the county commission.