ACLU starts appeal in 2nd plaza case

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed court papers Friday initiating the appeal process in its second Main Street Plaza case.

The notice of appeal starts the process that will include various written arguments and end with oral arguments before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver likely late this year or early next.

The notice comes three weeks after U.S. District Court Judge Dale A. Kimball dismissed the ACLU's second plaza suit.

The ACLU's second Main Street Plaza lawsuit maintains that city leaders acquiesced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when they adopted Mayor Rocky Anderson's Unity Center solution to the Main Street Plaza dispute last summer.

That solution extinguished the city's public access easement on the plaza — an easement that made the plaza a public forum — in exchange for 2.1 acres of church-owned land in Glendale, where a $5 million community center is to be built.

The suit had argued the community center swap was really a "sham" covering Salt Lake City's desire to protect the LDS Church from critics who wanted to express their views on the plaza.

The deal violates free speech protections and some restrictions on certain government involvement with religious institutions, the ACLU maintains.