Main Street flap over?

All signs indicate that one of the most divisive chapters in Salt Lake City's history may be over.

The American Civil Liberties Union has until New Year's Day to file an appeal of the dismissal of its second Main Street Plaza suit. ACLU of Utah executive director Dani Eyer said she "has voiced her opinion" to the ACLU national headquarters about continuing. However, she has not heard back from national lawyers who will ultimately decide whether to appeal the case.

While still in the dark about the final decision, Eyer says it doesn't appear as if anyone's preparing to continue the fight.

"I'm assuming I would have heard something by now if they were gearing up," she said.

The ACLU has 90 days to appeal the dismissal of its free speech and religious separation suit by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision came down Oct. 3, giving the ACLU until New Year's Day to appeal.

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 things the LDS Church finds offensive.

With the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, among others, as plaintiffs, the ACLU of Utah sued Salt Lake City over the restrictions, and in 2002 the 10th U.S. 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 there.

After the 10th Circuit's ruling, Mayor Rocky Anderson worked with the church and other local leaders to come up with 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 $4.5 million privately funded community center is to be built. The deal made the plaza entirely private and the city relinquished public guarantees of free expression and pedestrian passage on it.

The ACLU then filed a second suit against the city, claiming political pressure from the church and its members led the mayor, who had previously pledged not to give away public access on the plaza, to give up the city's public access easement though the plaza. Anderson's change of heart violated constitutional provisions against government favoring one religion over another, the ACLU said.

The 10th Circuit Court, however, ruled that by giving up the easement — for roughly $5.3 million in compensation, including the community center — the city was getting more than 10 times its market value and rightfully disengaging itself from a potential constitutional entanglement with the church over control of the plaza.