Opinion: Boca Grande church access not just about Sunday mornings
BY STEVE KIEFFER
As a former full-time resident of Boca Grande, I have been following the parking issues with some interest. I was pleased to see the editor address curb “lawns” last week. I believe county employees have failed to properly serve county residents by allowing select individuals to landscape public land in front of their property in an obvious effort to prevent parking. I’m fairly certain some of those property owners are the same ones who are pushing for parking restrictions on the Gilchrist median.
I was going to remain silent and watch the enfolding events from my home in Central Wisconsin, until I read the Beacon online edition this morning and discovered that five highly competent volunteers who have been successfully helping the island through their work on the Parking Advisory Committee had resigned. I find it appalling that the county government’s behavior has obviously caused this to occur.
Early in January 2019, I was invited to attend an informal meeting between some of the leaders of the Methodist Church and some residents of Gilchrist Avenue. A few past and current church leaders were obviously missing. I asked why and was told the goal was to develop a cooperative rather than adversarial relationship between the churches and residents. At that time, I was Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the Building Committee. The gathered group requested that I lead the church’s efforts toward cooperation and work with the residents’ representative.
Early in our efforts we reached out to the parking advisory group and were told by their leader that Gilchrist was outside of their current scope of work, and they were not interested in becoming involved with any conflict between the churches and residents.
Over the winter we started making some real progress. At one point I expressed to the residents’ representative that I could foresee a future where a Gilchrist property owners group represented the residents and the churches. But then, on April 16, 2019, this all blew up when a few individuals who had not been invited to the January meeting launched a coordinated attack at a Church Council meeting. After almost two weeks of extreme personal distress, I resigned from the church on April 28.
During my meetings with the property owners’ rep, it was shared that they expected Mr. Ruane to eventually run for the County Commissioner position, and that they were already meeting with him.
During our meetings they presented a highly flawed plan to restrict median parking to Sundays, except by specific permit. We had extensive discussions about their plan, and I believed they were beginning to understand its flaws.
I wasn’t very surprised to recently read that Commissioner Ruane was proposing this same highly flawed plan as his solution to Gilchrist parking. In many ways recent county government behavior has been appalling. I have to wonder how much of that is being driven by the commissioner.
For 30 plus years of my professional life, I worked on First and Fifth Amendment issues: interacting with, learning from and working with nationally recognized experts in those areas of Constitutional law. Unfortunately, to a great extent due to a 1926 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Realty, Fifth Amendment property rights still receive second class treatment. Governments are allowed to do almost anything, as long as they think it might be good.
There are individuals who educate planning professionals and advise them to do whatever they want because most people don’t have the time and financial resources to legally challenge their actions.
On the other hand, First Amendment rights, the freedom of religion, speech and the press, has been clearly addressed. Here an important legal principle applies, strict scrutiny.
Note that the U.S. Constitution Amendment does not state freedom of religion on Saturday and Sunday. Any effort to restrict the churches abilities to freely function is likely to be reversed by a challenge under the First Amendment. Arbitrarily restricting parking such that it is impractical for individuals to participate in church activities at any time during the week, I believe, would fail a strict scrutiny test.
Sitting here in my office, I am reading a poster on my wall that displays a quotation from a 1945 U.S. Supreme Court case. It states: “… the indispensable democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment … give these liberties a sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious intrusions.
And it is the character of the right, not of the limitation, which determines what standard governs the choice.”
Kieffer is a former full time resident of Boca Grande, now residing in Wisconsin.
