Church-state separation issues delay move on lease
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20050810-9999-1m10lease.html
[excerpt]
Aguirre questions concourse deal
By Martin Stolz
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 10, 2005
A decision on leasing San Diego's Community Concourse and Golden Hall to a
church subsidiary, and move the city attorney says could raise
constitutional and legal problems for the city, will wait until September.
The City Council was scheduled to vote on the lease Monday, but the action
was delayed until Sept. 6 after City Attorney Michael Aguirre issued a
15-page opinion questioning the deal.
The proposed lease for the concourse, which is adjacent to City Hall, would
entangle city officials in the affairs of the North Park Apostolic Church,
Aguirre said. The lease would violate the U.S. Constitution's separation of
church and state and the California Constitution's "no preference" clause,
he said.
In June, city officials negotiated a lease with the church's nonprofit
business subsidiary, the Neighborhood Involvement Association. The
agreement calls for a payment of $650,000 for five years' rent.
In return, the lease requires the church group to maintain and operate the
concourse, which since 1993 the San Diego Convention Center Corp. had run.
Convention Center staff members leased out the concourse's Golden Hall as a
venue for performances, meetings and community events, but every year it
operated at a loss. For the past year, the losses reached $1.5 million.
The Convention Center Corp. stopped operating the concourse July 1, when
city subsidies to the center ended.
[end of excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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