Tehachapi News

Council tables prayer issue

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Awaiting legal advice about a demand that they stop opening meetings with an invocation, the Tehachapi City Council chose to go straight to the flag salute and down to business at their Sept. 8 meeting.

A few minutes later, Mayor pro-tem Phil Smith asked for a moment of silence to honor Bear Valley Springs resident Peggy Mikkelsen, who was killed Aug. 28 by a runaway truck as she worked in her yard.

In closed session following the public meeting, the Council tabled the prayer matter for further discussion at the next meeting Sept. 21.

Smith said the four Council members present – Smith, Shane Reed, Ed Grimes and Stan Beckham – were reluctant to make any decisions in the absence of their fifth member, Mayor Linda Vernon, who had an out-of-town commitment.

Smith said they needed time to consult counsel because of the possibility of litigation.

“I recommended to Phil not to have a prayer until the closed session [discussion],” said Tehachapi City Attorney Tom Schroeter in response to a statement by public speaker Susan Wiggins. “I need direction from the Council on how to proceed.”

Council member Reed urged the approximately 50 people at the meeting to visit the organization’s web site.

“Everybody should look at the site and see what we’re dealing with,” Reed said.

The site lists legal victories and challenges involving the organization and the Job Corps, a top university, Nativity pageants and Easter services, Post Office religious cancellations, Bible instruction in public schools and state Good Friday holidays.

According to its web site, the organization forced the mayor of Denver to back down as co-sponsor of the National Day of Prayer (1993) and it has sued to force an end to prayers at presidential inaugurations.

It also has challenged religion-based programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs and in prisons, forcing the removal of religious material from the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville, Tenn.

In Nov. 2008, it forced the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command in Iraq to stop change-of-shift prayers and Bible reading.

It forced a children’s Christian club in Valencia, Calif., to stop meeting in the school during school hours.

No church bulletin discounts
In Greensboro, N.C., in a case settled June 11, 2009, according to the web site, the organization forced Poblano’s Mexican Restaurant to stop giving 15 percent discounts to customers who brought in a church bulletin.

The organization’s attorney Rebecca Kratz, the web site says,  “called the restaurant’s owner to inform him that the discount violated the federal Civil Rights Act and a Greensboro City Ordinance, both of which prohibit discrimination based on religion. He agreed to discontinue what Kratz called in a follow-up letter, ‘Poblano’s restrictive promotional practice [that] favors religious customers and denies customers who do not attend church, and nonbelievers the right to ‘full and equal’ enjoyment of Poblano’s.”

The organization, the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, sent a letter Sept. 1 to members of the Tehachapi City Council and to City Manager Greg Garrett demanding that the Council immediately stop invocations prior to meetings.

The letter cited the complaint of an unnamed resident and taxpayer who had informed the organization of the invocations.

The letter, which is available on the organization’s web site here, contained transcriptions of the texts of all invocations said at the Council since March, 2, 2009.

Several public speakers at the Sept. 8 meeting spoke in support of invocations while one had another perspective.

“To have a different point of view is hard to do in Tehachapi,” said Ginny Tunks, who is on the Kern County Human Relations Commission. “There are different beliefs of God allowed in this country and supported. Invocations are OK [but] what needs to be looked at is more inclusive, different points of view.”

“This is not such a bad letter.”

“I applaud you for your courage,” Council member Reed told Tunks. “I wish the person who [reported] this would have done the same thing.”

No Cummings Park
In other business, the Council:
•    Saw a presentation on the new Tehachapi Hospital (See sidebar by reporter Mark Powell).

•    Adopted, 4-0, ordinance No. 09-02-701 that amends portions of the municipal code relating to enforcement of code violations. The new process enables the city to write administrative citations instead of pursuing criminal prosecution. The enforcement is directed at substandard housing.

•    Declined to follow the Airport Commission's recommendation that the park at the Tehachapi Municipal Airport be named after Kim Cummings, who was principally responsible for its installation. They did not vote directly on attaching the name to the park. Smith and Reed voted yes on Reed's motion to install a plaque or monument naming all the individuals who contributed to the park; Beckham and Grimes voted no. The motion failed on the 2-2 tie.

•    Approved a notice of completion on the new Valley Blvd. bikeway.

•    Approved the quitclaim deed of a portion of D St. between Wells School and Mojave St. over to the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Parks District.

•    Reed explained that he had missed the last two meetings because his son was ill, and the boy had spent five days in the pediatric ICU at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.