Posted on 01/30/2007 1:14:35 PM PST by SmithL
A nearly decade-old saga surrounding plans to build a new Christian school in Castro Valley is set to begin perhaps its most consequential chapter in U.S. District Court in San Francisco next month.
That is when case of Redwood Christian School and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty v. Alameda County is set to start in Judge Samuel Conti's courtroom.
The lawsuit, filed in 2001, encompasses everything from religious freedoms and land-use regulations to the will of the voters and money, and it could set a precedent for the enforcement of a relatively new federal law intended to protect religious institutions, houses of worship and the general public from discrimination in zoning.
The focus of the lawsuit is the school's and Becket Fund's claims that the county infringed on the school's religious freedom by denying it needed permits to build a 650-student junior and senior high school on 56 acres in Palomares Canyon along Interstate 580. The county Board of Supervisors rejected the project in 2001, just after the county planning commission also had denied it. Both bodies said, among other things, the school was not right for the Palomares site because of its size and the increased traffic it would bring to the semirural area.
The Becket Fund states in the lawsuit that the county has placed "a substantial burden" on Redwood Christian's religious exercise, expression and association, and "treats Redwood Christian on unequal terms in comparison with nonreligious public schools."
However, attorneys for the Becket Fund, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents religious groups, have argued the school has a right to build based on the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. The act forbids government from land-use regulations designed to hinder religious exercise.
There are a number of similar lawsuits across the country involving this act, said Kevin Snider, chief counsel for the Citrus Heights-based Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom and other civil liberties.
Snider, however, said since the act is relatively new, and land-use cases can take a while to work through the court system, many are still in litigation.
"The thing is these are land use cases, and usually land use cases take years," Snider said.
Redwood Christian's junior and senior school, which currently resides in the old Martin Elementary School in San Lorenzo, has sought a permanent home for more than 20 years. Redwood Christian has an elementary school in Castro Valley and started to buy land in Palomares Canyon in 1997.
After three years of buying land, planning, environmental review and meetings, Redwood Christian put forth a plan for a new junior and senior school -- the plan the county denied. Redwood Christian's suit stated the school spent $4.4 million on the land and the planning process.
Alameda County counsel Richard Winnie said denial of the project had everything to do with the Palomares land's agricultural zoning and nothing to do with Redwood being a religious institution. Winnie said school officials had been warned by the county they would not be able to build on the land when they were purchasing it but nevertheless went ahead with the deals.
"They went ahead anyhow in the hopes of (the county) making an exception," Winnie said. "They have shown no willingness to compromise at all, and in land-use cases compromising is important. Neighbors have to respect neighbors."
On top of that, as the project was being denied by the planning commission, county voters passed Measure D, designed to prevent urban sprawl and protect open rural areas such as Palomares Canyon. The county argues it is because of Measure D the school feels it has no alternative but to sue since the land is undevelopable.
Derek Gaubatz, director of litigation for the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund, denies all of the county's claims.
"This is a property the county identified as property that a school could be built on," Gaubatz said. "All we're doing is looking for a home. We still want to build a school there."
Gaubatz added the school did try to compromise and make the school smaller, but the county supervisors were uninterested in those overtures.
In the suit, the school also seeks $30 million in damages from the county for loss of tuition income and for an increase in construction costs since construction was supposed to begin.
Winnie said he feels the Becket Fund also is seeking something else in this case. "They see this as a way of establishing new law that makes it possible to triumph local zoning."
Gaubatz says the case is about something else entirely.
"This case is really about these kids and families in Alameda County who want a school, want an education," Gaubatz said. "That's what is important, and that's what this is about."
The trial is set to begin Feb. 12.
I wish the school luck.
But it is. This is the same judge who presided over my dad's last custody hearings when I was a kid nearly 40 years ago!
From June 1990 to December 31, 1995, Judge Samuel Conti had the highest reversal rate of any senior judge in the 9th Circuit. Of his 21 cases, he was reversed in 43%, affirmed in 29%, and a combination in 29%.
So, is he tired of being overruled, yet?
Apparently not. Given that it's the 9th, one wonders if that's a good thing or a bad thing. <p.
Yeah, I know. I don't expect the school to win any round before the Supreme Court.
Look on the bright side.
At least you'll have a precedent for successfully shooting down the Madrassa that the Mohammetan Death Cult wants to build on your street.
.
California is a Marxist state that practices soviet socialism on the land and has the right to determine what kind of religion is okay in La-La land.
Now if the school threw in a holiday to worship Lenin, prayed to trees and kangaroo rats, designated Al Gore a saint and named communism a miracle, the school would be built in seven days.
This has nothing to do with religion.
The problem is with the lack of government respect of private property rights. It doesn't matter what reason they're denying the school for, the fact that they have the ability to do so is the problem.
You're right that this is about property rights. Both the right to use your legal property in a lawful manner and the right to exercise the property of his religion
James Madison says it better than me -
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may
attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his
property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free
communication of them.
He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
Hard to imagine such a quick confirmation these days.
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