From Deseret News archives:

ACLU ponders an appeal

Plaza ruling may be hard to overturn, attorney believes

By Brady Snyder
Deseret Morning News

Published: Sunday, May 9, 2004 12:21 a.m. MDT

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Kimball — The 10th Circuit suggested the city could get rid of the pedestrian easement and make the plaza entirely private. The idea of killing the easement, then, originated with the 10th Circuit. The city can't be accused of discrimination for taking the court's advice.

Argument — The city's Unity Center deal violates the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause, which includes the notion that government can't have too much "entanglement" with religion and promote or "endorse" one religion over another.

Here the sale of the city's pedestrian easement "resulted from undue influence by the LDS Church." Furthermore, the mayor knew his Unity Center deal "would reinforce the non-LDS community's distrust of any cynicism about the influence of the LDS Church on the affairs of government."

The city's secular gains of the Unity Center deal were "nothing more than a facade" to hide the true purpose of protecting the LDS Church from critics.

In signing the deal the city promoted a religion, the LDS Church, and permanently entangled itself with the church by having the church regulate a downtown pedestrian plaza.

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Kimball — The city gained land and cash totaling more than $5 million and the promise that a community center would be built in Glendale — clear secular purposes. If the city had a dual interest in acquiescing to the LDS Church's public relations machine, it's OK since a legitimate secular interest exists as well.

The personal motivations of the politicians are irrelevant if a significant secular interest is apparent. The city's sale did not advance one religion, the LDS Church, over another. In fact, the city received more than 10 times the fair market value for the easement. That compensation included a great deal from the LDS Church, which already paid $8.1 million to buy the plaza in 1999.

By getting rid of its easement, the city actually decreased the chance it would become entangled with the church since it no longer has any management of the plaza.

E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com