Story originally printed in the Holmen Courier or online at www.holmencourier.com
Published - Friday, April 25, 2008
Lions have competition in Star Hill purchase
An national organization has upped the ante for the parcel of land in Holmen known as Star Hill.
The village has received a written offer from Washington, D.C.-based American Humanist Association to purchase the land on which a star and cross have been erected for many years. The offer is now $1,000 — 10 times the appraised value.
The village had announced it would sell the small parcel to the Lions Club for the appraised value of $100 to avoid legal issues about the separation of church and state after Holmen resident Eric Barnes lodged an informal complaint with the village in March.
The star and cross have been on the hilltop for more than a half-century and have been maintained by the Lions Club. The symbol has been lit with village electricity. The Lions Club offered in a letter of intent to purchase the 30-by-30-foot parcel of land last month
On Tuesday, the village received a written proposal from the American Humanist Association, a national organization that advocates to protect the separation of church and state.
Holmen Village Attorney Alan P. Peterson contacted American Humanist Association Executive Director Roy Speckhardt Tuesday with the instruction that a written “offer to purchase” is required on an official village form and has to be received by the village no later than April 30. The American Humanist Association secured this form and was in the process of filling it out on Tuesday.
According Fred Edwords, spokesperson for the American Humanists, the village will consider offers submitted on that form at the Holmen Finance Committee meeting on May 6 at 6:30 p.m. The full board will then address the issue at its May 8 meeting at 7 p.m.
Neither Village President John Chapman nor village Administrator Catherine Schmit returned phone calls by press time to comment on American Humanists’ offer.
However, village Trustee Nancy Proctor said it would be unfair to not honor the Lions’ offer.
“They originally put it up, and they’ve maintained it for 30 years,” Proctor said. “It would be pretty dirty to say, ‘so and so is going to give us $100 more so we’re going to sell it to them.’”
Edwords said his organization is making the offer to bring awareness to the separation of church and state.
“We value the separation of church and state, and (we value) public land being religiously neutral, neither favoring nor disfavoring religion,” Edwords said. “We’re just saying public land is not where these public symbols belong.”
Edwords said the American Humanists believe the offer to sell the land to the Lions Club shows favoritism towards keeping the religious symbols up.
“Our concern has to do with general separation of church and state issues,” Edwords said. “If someone could purchase a postage size piece of land and if municipalities can sell off a small piece of land with religious monuments on it as a clever way of keeping those monuments in the same place, then this could be done all over America.
“If they sell it and it’s no longer on public land but it looks like public land, then for all intents and purposes, they are biased towards keeping the religious symbols up,” Edwords continued. “Why would you do such a thing if it wasn’t motivated by a desire to keep the religious symbols in the same place? Who are we kidding here?”
Edwords said the American Humanists are understanding of community pride and tradition, but he noted there needs to be a division between religion and government.
“We understand a vast majority of the local people might value those religious symbols, but the government is not supposed to show any favoritism towards any particular religion ...,” he said. “We support the rights of people to erect such monuments on their own property, not on what is perceived to be public land.”
He said the issue is currently being fought all over America and, as an example, said the federal government is embroiled in a debate in San Diego about selling a parcel of land which has a very tall cross on it that can be seen for miles.
The American Humanist Association has advocated in court for various cases involving separation of church and state. Edwords said they don’t have any briefs filed with the Supreme Court for the current term, but the high court will hear a separation of church and state case in the fall in which the Association will participate.
“We do plan to file amicus (friend of the court) briefs in select cases, such as Pleasant Grove City vs. Summum, which comes up this fall,” Edwords said.
Edwords said the organization believes the land sale should go through an open bidding process.
“(We’re offering) 10 times the assessed valuation — in any fair bidding process, we think the board should consider all offers,” Edwords said. “They seem to have this arrangement of just offering it to the Lions. That strikes us as unfair; they should have open bidding.”
Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, said he believes the village will consider the group’s offer.
“We anticipate that the Holmen Village Board will make the decision that is in the best fiscal interests of the village,” Speckhardt said in a press release. “If there is no religious bias influencing the decision on who the site is (sold) to, and for how much, we will look forward to taking ownership soon.”
According to the press release, American Humanist Association was founded in 1941 and has more than 100 local chapters and affiliates across America.
La Crosse Tribune reporter Joe Orso contributed to this article.
All stories copyright 2006 Holmen Courier and other attributed sources.