Kimball is considering several legal motions from city, church and ACLU attorneys. The ACLU wants free speech and expression rights restored to the plaza until Kimball can consider its case at trial. Church and city attorneys want Kimball to dismiss the case before it goes any further.

Kimball also heard arguments about whether the city capitulated to LDS Church pressure when it traded the easement, thus violating the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government from "establishing" a religion.

The ACLU maintains the city, mainly Mayor Rocky Anderson, desired to give the LDS Church what it wanted on the plaza and thus proposed trading the city's easement.

Kimball asked Lopez what the ACLU would say if the city's motivation was dual — to appease the church and gain $5.5 million in cash and land where a community center is to be built.

Lopez insisted the city's primary motivation was appeasing the church and called the $5.5 million in considerations a "sham."

Allred and Sullivan told Kimball he shouldn't examine the personal motivations of various elected officials but should instead note that the city received about 11 times the fair-market value of the easement and solved a contentious community issue.

"Government can sell public property to a church and not violate the establishment clause as long as the sale is for adequate compensation," Sullivan said.

Certainly, the pair argued, cities and churches can engage in contracts and transactions as long as such sales and deals are done for at least fair-market value.

The initial Main Street Plaza suit came after the city sold a block of Main Street to the LDS Church in 1999 for $8.1 million. In that sale, the city reserved a public-access easement across the plaza but gave the church the authority to prohibit on-plaza protests and proselytizing, certain dress and other behavior the LDS Church finds offensive. The plaza is adjacent to the church's headquarters and the Salt Lake Temple and across the street from the Conference Center.

Representing the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, among others, the ACLU of Utah sued Salt Lake City over the restrictions, and in 2002 the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver sided with the ACLU. The court said the city cannot have public access on the plaza while forbidding certain types of speech or other First Amendment protections.

After the 10th Circuit's ruling, Anderson proposed "time, place and manner" restrictions on the plaza easement, a plan rejected by the church. Later, Anderson developed a plan in which the easement rights would be traded for two acres of church-owned land in the city's Glendale area, where a privately funded community center would be built. The deal made the plaza entirely private, with the city relinquishing public guarantees of free expression and pedestrian passage.

The ACLU, with a half-dozen plaintiffs including the Unitarian Church, then filed suit challenging the community center deal on the basis that it takes away constitutional guarantees of free expression and is too favorable a deal for the LDS Church.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com