If you'll kindly go to THIS SITE you'll clearly see the City of Salisbury is overstepping their legal rights. I spoke with Bill Holland this morning and he informed me that he had sent them numerous letters and spoke with them and they simply refused to respond.
Mr. Holland, you may want to follow this link and read this information for yourself. My guess is that Wilber is enjoying ANY challenge as his Firm gets paid one way or the other. This is going to get quite interesting!
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
10 comments:
No they don't--if you read the article carefully, you will see that cities cannot discriminate against churches by applying laws to them unfairly. Churches are still required to abide by existing laws--they do not get a free pass because they are a church. For example, they don't get to buy up houses and build a new megachurch in a residential neighborhood. As you've noted, the church was asked REPEATEDLY to comply with existing law--a law, by the way, which would not prevent them from doing what they wanted to do! All they have to do is hold a public hearing. The church is on the wrong side of this, and the sooner they simply acknowledge they were wrong, follow through on the required paperwork, the sooner they can get their variance. If the church leaders want to make a big case of this so the city taxpayers can pay Wilber to prove the obvious (that the city is in full compliance with the law), that is on them. I'd rather they take that money and donate it to the poor.
Final Frontier
Joe,
Did you read the article you linked to or was there a typo somewhere? The City is not overstepping their bounds, not at all. After reading the article I come to the following conclusions:
1. Where the U.S. Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalize Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) are concerned, the Constitution trumps the Act.
2. “[N]either RLUIPA nor the Constitution requires that municipalities give up their right to regulate the location and size of religious institutions, so long as those zoning decisions are based upon sound planning and not upon anti-religious bias.”
3. The church has 2 basic challenges, either the code as a whole discriminates against churches or the particular zoning decision is unfair.
4. The problem for the church is that they have a pretty big burden to prove the code in general is discriminatory or that a particular zoning decision is unfair, because there hasn’t been a zoning decision. They stopped the process before getting a decision. They would have to get a decision denying them the use, then exhaust all their administrative remedies to appeal it, before taking it to court.
5. The zoning code applies to everyone, even the church. The City is not saying the church can’t use the house for religious purposes, it’s allowed under the code if you follow the procedure. The church is choosing not to follow the law and then crying foul when they are fined after repeatedly being warned.
I am not a fan of this administration, but they were right in their actions so far.
How about looking into more imporant matters, such as gang activity at Bennett High School. After a baseball bat and gun were seen at a school sports event this week, numerous officers have been on foot in and about Bennett High all week. Classes are in a virtual lock-down once the bell rings all day long.
I suspect from what I read there and what I read here that the church messed up.
But leave it to Barrie Tilghman to create a tempest in a teapot for everyone, rather than just handling it in a positive way and moving on to some serious places needing code enforcement.
Smells like something else churned up to put Camden in turmoil, those dirty dogs!
Did a group of 6-7 kids enter a classroom and beat up a child in the middle of a class at JMB on 12/12?
My daughter said there were 5 police cars at JMB today including one of those new black chargers. It almost made her afraid to enter the building.
fyi, this thread is about the church & the city... not the school
hey I have a question, when a church goes and sets up a business center, do they pay taxes like any other business or are they tax exempt?
My son said some kids from an Asian gang out of D.C. came into the classroom and jumped a black kid from a rival gang. I quickly told him this was impossible, because the Mare has assured us we have no gangs in the City of Salisbury. My son was relieved to hear that. ;-)
fyi, this thread is about the church & the city... not the school
3:25 AM
We are well aware of what this thread pertains to. The subject of JMB still being out of hand came up and some of us took the opportunity to comment on what our children witnessed. What's the problem? Do you have knowledge of this incident and are keeping quiet about it? Are you a JMB teacher or administrator? Do you work for WCBOE? Got something to hide from the taxpayers that keep these schools going? If there was a post on these incidents these comments would have been placed there.
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