Sandra Walker, et al. v. Metropolitan Board of Parks and Recreation, et al.

Two residents of the Edgehill neighborhood of Nashville, as well as an organization of neighborhood residents, filed petitions for writ of certiorari with the aim of preventing the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County from entering into a lease agreement with Belmont University. The same parties also brought a petition for declaratory judgment challenging the lease. The proposed lease provided that the University would construct an extensive sports complex in a public park located in the petitioners’ neighborhood for the use of the University as well as local schools and neighborhood residents. The first petition was filed after a public meeting at which the Metro Parks Board recommended that the lease be adopted, but before it was actually approved by the Metro Council. The trial court dismissed it without prejudice as premature. Subsequent petitions were filed after the Metro Council voted to approve the lease. The petitioners argued that the process the Parks Board  followed was arbitrary and capricious, that it deprived them of their right to procedural due process, and that the action of the Metro Council was invalid because it was based on a flawed process of recommendation. The trial court dismissed all the petitioners’ claims. Because the Board’s recommendation was not a final order or judgment resulting from the exercise of judicial functions, and because the record showed that there was a rational basis for the Metro Council’s decision, we affirm the trial court.