(March 14, 2007)--A Methodist council Wednesday approved allowing Southern Methodist University to lease land for George W. Bush's presidential library on the Dallas campus.

The South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church met in Dallas and endorsed the proposal from Southern Methodist University.

The group must approve leasing any land already in use by the school, and the proposed 36-acre site on the southeast side of campus contains some dorms and a parking lot.

In his presentation, SMU President Gerald Turner said the library, museum and Bush institute may be built on one of two sites in the area.

Turner says plans are not finalized, but the action today eliminated what may be the school’s final hurdle in its bid for the library, for which Baylor University was also a finalist.

SMU entered into exclusive talks with the site selection committee at the first of the year and despite objections from some faculty members and a group of Methodist ministers, both the president and first lady seem to have decided on the university as the site for the complex.

SMU is the first lady’s Alma Mater and she’s a member of the university’s board of trustees.

Baylor officials had remained cautiously optimistic even after the announcement that the site committee was focusing exclusively on SMU.

The third finalist for the library, the University of Dallas, dropped its bid after the announcement.

That the first family was leaning toward SMU was no secret.

As early as March 2005, the New York Daily News was reporting that SMU would win the sweepstakes.

The paper quoted sources as saying the Baylor proposal was attractive on paper, but that the first family has “no sentimental attachment to Waco or Baylor at all.”

The paper reported in November, about a month before the selection committee identified SMU as the probable site, that Bush insiders were pressing for a formal announcement early in 2007 so fundraising can get underway.

"You can't ask people in Dallas for $20 million until they can be sure the library won't be in Waco," the paper quoted an unnamed source as saying.

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