Posted on 12/10/2002 3:28:23 PM PST by Utah Girl
As if the Salt Lake City Council hadn't had enough public comment about the Main Street Plaza — it received 2,067 telephone calls Friday and more than 2,100 Monday — 11 current and former community leaders were to testify Tuesday night at a special "fact-finding" hearing.
Whoever gains control of a public easement through the plaza will also get to control speech and conduct there. Mayor Rocky Anderson wants the city to keep the easement. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which bought a block of Main Street from the city three years ago and built the pedestrian plaza there, wants the easement for itself so it can restrict protests there.
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Since Nov. 20, the City Council has received more than 8,500 calls and has hired four part-time employees to staff the phone lines. The calls have overwhelmingly favored the LDS Church, with 8,111 callers voicing support for the church's plaza stance. Only 516 have supported Anderson's position, and another 50 callers haven't taken sides.
About 2,000 people have called Anderson's office over the issue. Of those, 81 have supported the mayor and 183 supported the church. The remainder did not identify themselves and weren't included in the tally, staffers at the mayor's office said. Of e-mails to the mayor's office, 1,068 have been pro-church and 296 pro-Anderson. About 500 e-mails are still uncounted.
A recent Deseret News poll found that a plurality of Salt Lake residents, 43 percent, support Anderson's stand that the city should keep the easement and 34 percent say the church should get the easement.
Tuesday's council show begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be carried live on KUED-TV Channel 7, the city's public-access Channel 17 and KUER-FM 90.1.
Among those scheduled to testify are LDS Church Presiding Bishop H. David Burton, former Mayor Deedee Corradini, ex-Planning Commission Chairman Max Smith, ex-council members Keith Christensen, Joanne Milner, Deeda Seed, Roger Thompson and Bryce Jolley, former American Civil Liberties Union for Utah legal director Stephen Clark, ACLU for Utah executive director Dani Eyer and the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of the First Unitarian Church.
"We are not trying to turn this into the Watergate hearings," Councilman Dave Lambert said. "But I will ask a couple of questions if the speakers don't answer them during their presentation."
The public can attend the special hearing, but comments about the Main Street Plaza won't be taken until a Dec. 17 council meeting. Still, the council is expecting a large crowd.
Robert Hanks, an LDS Church member, has been trying for weeks to organize 20,000 people to come to City Hall Tuesday night and sign a petition favoring the LDS Church's plaza perspective.
Meanwhile, many LDS Church members have been circulating "urban-legend" type e-mails about the plaza and public comment. One e-mail making the rounds urges people to call the City Council office and voice support for the church.
"As of yesterday, 3,000 votes had been cast in favor of Rocky Anderson and only 300 votes had been cast in favor of the church," the e-mail reads. "Because this (phone) number (to the City Council) hasn't been widely circulated, it almost looks like it has been done on purpose so the church won't get enough votes."
The phone number the e-mail refers to is the main number to the City Council and is in the phone book.
University of Utah professor Kimberly Lau said it is not unusual for urban legends to begin quickly.
"It is possible that urban legends can crop almost immediately following events of great significance to a community or group," she said.
Monday, the Alliance for Unity — an 18-member group that includes Elder M. Russell Ballard of the church's Quorum of the Twelve and is co-chaired by billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr. and Anderson — issued a plea for plaza civility.
"There is no place in this or any other community for harassment, mean-spiritedness, name-calling or ridicule of others on this or any other issue," a statement reads. "Let us all, in the spirit of the season, demonstrate civility, restraint, forbearance and fair-play toward others who may believe differently than we do. We must avoid stereotyping this issue as a Mormon/non-Mormon battle."
The Main Street Plaza dispute has divided Utah and Salt Lake City along religious lines, with a majority of LDS members supporting their church and a majority of members of other faiths and those without religious affiliation supporting Anderson, according to the recent Deseret News poll.
When the city sold the block of Main Street to the church in 1999, it retained a public-access easement across the plaza. In response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the easement creates a free-speech forum, similar to what exists on public sidewalks.
That decision irked the church since it paid $8.1 million for the land and the ability to control what happens there, including restricting protests, demonstrations, leafletting and some dress and speech.
The court suggested that the city either give its easement to the church — dissolving the right to public access and free speech — or craft "time, place and manner restrictions" for the plaza. Anderson said that since the city bargained for the public-access easement, he won't give away that public right.
Anderson then crafted time, place and manner restrictions to limit free speech to a narrow 15-foot area on the plaza's southern side. At that site, small protest zones would be established.
The church has said it wants the city to dissolve the easement.
The City Council can either approve Anderson's time, place and manner restrictions or vote to sell or give the city's easement to the church. Anderson maintains the council doesn't have the authority to do that. The mayor is responsible for governing real-property matters such as easements, Anderson says.
And the argument the Trib raises about the easement on the west side of the Plaza is specious. Before the Plaza was created, it was a sidewalk, and a fence that enclosed Temple Square. There were never any demonstrations there because there weren't any gates on that side, so the public didn't go through that area. The city council meeting is going to be interesting this evening. Anyway, here is the editorial.
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The Mayor's Plan
In a free society, it's impossible to legislate good manners. So, short of complaining to a loudmouthed offender's mother, Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposed rules for governing free speech on the Main Street plaza are about the best the city can do.
Anderson's plan for managing Salt Lake City's pedestrian easement across the LDS Church's plaza strikes a reasonable balance between protecting free-speech rights and preserving the quiet sanctity of the Salt Lake Temple grounds. The City Council should adopt the plan.
Officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have rejected the mayor's proposal out of hand, arguing that it would create more controversy, not less, by codifying obnoxious behavior by protesters on the plaza. They also argue that the proposed city law that would embody the mayor's plan is too complex and would be difficult to enforce.
However, the way to determine whether those concerns are valid is to pass the ordinance and test it. If the church's fears pan out, the mayor and City Council can revisit the issue.
The mayor's plan for time, place and manner restrictions on free speech within the city's easement does much to protect the peaceful atmosphere that the church and all civil people, Latter-day Saints and others alike, wish to preserve on the plaza.
The original terms of the 1999 sale of Main Street between South Temple and North Temple did not spell out the dimensions of the city's pedestrian easement. The mayor proposes to define the easement as the east walkway across the plaza, which roughly follows the path of the old sidewalk on what had been that side of Main Street.
Since the easement will not include the walkway on the west side of the plaza (the path of the old public sidewalk on that side of the street), any demonstrators or hecklers would be placed much farther from the east steps of the temple than was the case when the street was there.
Confining the easement to this modest, east-side corridor also means that the church will control all of its other property on the plaza as it sees fit.
In addition, any demonstrations of two or more people will be confined to two small areas, each 25 feet by 4 feet, located on the north and south ends of the easement. This provision will place group demonstrations half a block from the temple. Such demonstrations will require a city permit.
Finally, signs and banners will be limited to 9 square feet, and "unreasonable noises . . . that can be heard in a private place" will be forbidden on the easement outside the group demonstration areas. Leafleting will be allowed.
Church officials argue that this compromise is unacceptable, and continue to press the City Council to give up the easement. But without the easement, the public's legal guarantee to perpetual access across the plaza would be weakened. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the easement creates a free-speech forum under the First Amendment. Hence, the mayor's proposal appears to be the best compromise within the limits of the law as the courts have defined them.
No fair-minded person who respects religious rights and the sanctity of holy places wishes to see the plaza turned into a magnet for Mormon-bashers. The mayor's proposal seeks to preserve civility within earshot of the temple while banishing boisterous groups to the plaza's periphery.
It's worth a try.
Utah's Alliance for Unity -- which includes 18 prominent business, religious and community leaders -- spoke out Monday for the first time on the increasingly volatile Main Street Plaza debate, urging a return to civility.
The group's one-paragraph statement took no position on the impasse and proposed no solution.
"We're just asking them [citizens] to cool the rhetoric. Let's put this on the back burner, let some time elapse," said Jon Huntsman, co-founder of the alliance with Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson.
Also on the alliance is Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ballard and Anderson agreed to the alliance statement issued late Monday afternoon, Huntsman said.
"We must avoid stereotyping this issue as a Mormon-non-Mormon battle: while recognizing not all agree, we must still respect those whose views may differ from our own," the statement said.
Anderson is at loggerheads with the LDS Church over the plaza, which it built after buying a block of Salt Lake City's Main Street in 1999.
The mayor has refused to give up the city's easement on the plaza, which the church wants so it can control speech and behavior there. A federal appeals court ruled this fall that the easement requires the constitutional right to free speech be honored on the plaza.
Anderson's stand has made him the champion of many non-Mormons who resent the church's purchase and closure of Main Street between North Temple and South Temple. But the mayor is anathema to many LDS faithful who want their church to be able to keep the plaza free of protesters and pamphleteers.
City Hall has been inundated with calls and e-mails from both sides, and radio talk shows and newspapers have been flooded with comments. Some are vitriolic toward Anderson, others toward the church. It is this venom that the Alliance for Unity wants to stem, Huntsman said.
"There has been a certain element of personal innuendo and to some extent a mean spirit that has characterized this situation," he said. "We need to put it in perspective and take a deep breath. It does not do any harm to anybody to let the church have what it bargained for and what it initially believed it was receiving . . . an oasis of peace and harmony."
But those personal views aside, Huntsman said, "My greater concern is to urge harmony and unity. We just have to respect one another's point of view."
Huntsman, who has acted as a go-between for Anderson and LDS officials, said he and other alliance members simply "want very much to see if we can be helpful."
"If the LDS Church and mayor's office think the best approach is legal, we'll step aside," said Huntsman, adding that he hoped other community leaders would "step up and try to help resolve it."
Alliance member Pamela Atkinson, an advocate for the homeless, said the group has watched the plaza controversy escalate and figured it was time to speak up.
"Someone needs to say, 'Just a moment everybody. Let's listen and respect each other and come to a solution so we don't have the kind of harassment and hatred that's going on,' " she said. "A lot of what the alliance has looked at is the growing diversity in our state. Diversity of opinion is one of the most important components. Everybody needs to be reminded to be respectful."
The alliance statement urges that the plaza dispute be settled "amicably in a spirit of good will," and praises those who have shown civility and respect while holding strong views.
It also says there is "no place in this or any other community for harassment, mean-spiritedness, name-calling or ridicule of others on this or any other issue. Let us all, in the spirit of the season, demonstrate civility, restraint, forbearance and fair play toward others who may believe differently than we do."
Anderson said essentially the same thing Friday, when he proposed limiting the public easement to the plaza's east side with protest zones at the north and south ends.
The mayor said he believed a resolution could be found to retain pedestrian passage through the plaza, meet constitutional free-speech requirements and honor the "clear intentions of the parties that the plaza be a place of peaceful beauty -- a place where we can all find safe and tranquil refuge."
Anderson also apologized for any role he played in the divisiveness.
The LDS Church has rejected Anderson's proposed time, place and manner rules, which would require City Council approval.
The council will wade back into the controversy tonight. As part of a fact-finding meeting, council members will hear from former city leaders involved in the 1999 Main Street sale. The council is investigating the original intent of the parties as it weighs whether to give up the city's easement.
The council is scheduled to hear from former Mayor Deedee Corradini, LDS Presiding Bishop H. David Burton, American Civil Liberties Union representatives, a former Planning Commission chairman and a handful of former City Council members.
KUED Channel 7 will telecast the hearing live at 5:30 p.m.
A public hearing on the plaza issue is set for Dec. 17.
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Text of the Alliance's Plaza Statement
"The Alliance for Unity urges that the dispute regarding the Main Street Plaza be settled amicably in a spirit of good will. We appreciate those in the community who have shown civility and respect for others while holding their own strong views on this matter. There is no place in this or any other community for harassment, mean-spiritedness, name-calling or ridicule of others on this or any other issue. Let us all, in the spirit of the season, demonstrate civility, restraint, forbearance and fair play toward others who may believe differently than we do. We must avoid stereotyping this issue as a Mormon-non-Mormon battle: while recognizing not all agree, we must still respect those whose views may differ from our own." -- Alliance for Unity
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