Salt Lake City attorney defends sale of street to Mormon church

The Associated Press

05.19.99

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	Salt Lake City's Main Street as it looks now, near Mormon Temple.

SALT LAKE CITY — The city has sold portions of 49 streets for $1.8 million since 1986, and the sale of one block of Main Street to the Mormon church is no different, the city attorney argues in response to an American Civil Liberties Union protest.

On April 13, City Council members voted 5-2, along Mormon/non-Mormon lines, to sell the block from North Temple to South Temple to the church for $8.1 million. On April 27, the deed was transferred and on May 10, the street was blocked off and crews began tearing up sidewalks.

The church plans to build a plaza over underground parking on the site.

The ACLU has threatened suit over easements that allow The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to prohibit demonstrations, boomboxes, smoking and sunbathing.

City Attorney Roger Cutler said on May 17 in response to the ACLU that the city also has sold streets to the Catholic, Baptist and Lutheran churches.

"That property (on Main Street) is no longer public," he wrote. "Like any other owner of private property, the (LDS Church) has the right to determine what activities it will or will not allow on its property, subject to the terms of the easement reserved by the city. As owner, the (church) may also engage in activities on its own property that it would not allow by others."

	Artist's conception of how Main Street would look in future.

Stephen Clark, Utah ACLU legal director, contends city leaders abdicated their responsibility to uphold the Constitution and particularly the First Amendment by approving the easement restrictions.

They preserved a public easement on the property and then left enforcement of the rules up to church security guards. They allowed church attorneys to inject specific protections of Mormon speech and behavior into the easement document, he said.

Clark contends U.S. courts have not allowed cities to lease or sell public forums, like squares and streets, and turn them into private stages for their new owners while still keeping a public easement over the property.

This sale, and the easement restrictions, smack of preference for the Mormon church, he says. "I held out some hope that the city recognized it sold the public's First Amendment rights for what is essentially a mess of porridge," said Clark, "but this letter makes it clear the city deliberately sold those rights without any consideration for the consequences."

Cutler rejects Clark's argument that the street is a public forum.