This is literally then one case where the slowness of the courts could have worked for the people. Even if the town lost after years of litigation, so what. They would have moved it elsewhere in the meantime. But someone got bribed to drop the lawsuit.
It’s not free for a small town to litigate for years. The fact they settled so fast implies that the way they did it was not remotely legal. They may not have followed their own rules or state rules. Doing that is a good way to get a judge mad real fast. Judge could have put a preliminary injunction on the town to allow the construction to start while litigation proceeded. To do that the judge would have to determine that the developer was likely to succeed and that no irreparable harms would be caused. If the developers lost then they could just demo what had been built and restore the site, no harm done.
This is literally then one case where the slowness of the courts could have worked for the people. Even if the town lost after years of litigation, so what. They would have moved it elsewhere in the meantime. But someone got bribed to drop the lawsuit.
It’s not free for a small town to litigate for years. The fact they settled so fast implies that the way they did it was not remotely legal. They may not have followed their own rules or state rules. Doing that is a good way to get a judge mad real fast. Judge could have put a preliminary injunction on the town to allow the construction to start while litigation proceeded. To do that the judge would have to determine that the developer was likely to succeed and that no irreparable harms would be caused. If the developers lost then they could just demo what had been built and restore the site, no harm done.