Secret deal in Corker lawsuit raises questions

[donsu]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/election/article/0,1406,KNS_630_5095555,00.html


A secret settlement in an environmental lawsuit that Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bob Corker has tried to avoid talking about before Election Day possibly involves a $775,000 land purchase for an environmental group, county records indicate.

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Records at the Hamilton County Register’s Office show that days after the settlement was announced, the Tennessee Environmental Council signed an option to buy 13.4 acres from Pilgrim Congregational Church-United Church of Christ. The council was one of the plaintiffs that filed the lawsuit.

A source familiar with the secret deal told The Commercial Appeal of Memphis that the settlement calls for defendants in the suit to pay for the environmental group’s land acquisition. The specific source of the funds could not be determined.

Corker has said he was prohibited from talking about the settlement, extending a mystery for voters in his race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of Memphis. A Ford campaign spokesman has said voters deserve to know if Corker destroyed a city conservation easement "to make millions and then wrote a check to avoid having to tell the truth about it in a deposition."

The former Chattanooga mayor had been scheduled to give a deposition last week. The secret agreement allowed him to avoid that testimony about decisions made while he was mayor about an access road across a conservation easement for developers to build a Wal-Mart on property his former company sold.

The land deal with the church involves 13.4 acres of woods and meadows in the South Chickamauga watershed that TEC hopes to dedicate for public use.

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A woman who answered the telephone at the church Thursday said there was no one available to discuss the pending transaction or church’s business affairs. Records show Vanessa Robbs signature for the church, as moderator.

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When a judge denied attempts by Corker’s attorneys to delay his Oct. 20 deposition until after the Nov. 7 election, his attorneys tried to withdraw from the case, then reached a settlement agreement.
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Wal-Mart
Church
Corker

[Clark2008]

1. First, I'm guessing it was this place:

We also have a program/retreat facility on 13.4 acres of land at 8012 Shallowford Road about a mile and one half past Hamilton Place Mall. Be sure to check out the Pilgrim House page.

http://pilgrim.chattanooga.net/