Campaigners seek to resolve issue identified by chancellor, get question before Nashville voters this year.
Image Credit: Martin B. Cherry / Nashville Banner
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by Stephen Elliott, [The Nashville Banner, Creative Commons] –
Less than a full business day after Davidson County Chancellor Pat Moskal ruled against them, a group seeking to end auto racing at The Fairgrounds Nashville has filed an amended charter referendum petition.
On Friday, Moskal ruled that the group’s prior effort could not proceed, as its title did not clearly express the subject of the referendum. First thing Monday, the group filed a substantially similar petition with an expanded title to address the court’s lone objection to the petition.
The previous title was “Updating the Functions and Duties of the Metropolitan Board of Fair Commissioner.” The new title is “Updating the Functions and Duties of the Metropolitan Board of Fair Commissioners by removing the term ‘Auto Racing’ as an activity required to be conducted at the Nashville Fairgrounds and replacing it with the term ‘Affordable and/or Workforce Housing;’ and requiring the Fair Board to implement plans to discontinue auto racing at the fairgrounds.”
The petitioners, led by Mike Kopp and Saul Solomon and dubbed the Restore Our Fairgrounds Coalition, still aim to put the question before Nashville voters on the November ballot, but the adverse court ruling and other variables put further pressure on their ability to do so. If the new petition is approved by the Charter Revision Commission and avoids any further legal challenge, the group could have as little as one month to collect tens of thousands of voter signatures ahead of a July deadline. If future litigation holds the process up again, the group would have to wait until the August 2027 Metro election to ask voters to decide the future of the Fairgrounds Speedway.
A previous effort to put a similar question before Nashville voters was derailed by litigation and did not appear on the 2024 ballot.
Metro Clerk Austin Kyle said no date has been finalized for Charter Revision Commission consideration of the new petition, but it will occur within 15 days and possibly as soon as Friday, depending on member availability.
After a deal with then-Mayor John Cooper fell apart, track operator Speedway Motorsports has continued discussions with Metro officials under Mayor Freddie O’Connell. The mayor has largely avoided weighing in on specific plans for the track, acknowledging that the Metro Charter currently protects auto racing as a use there.
“We’re going to continue having conversations with all the important stakeholders, the communities closest to the racetrack, people interested in how we preserve our charter obligation with limited impact on taxpayers,” O’Connell said last month.
