Cowboy Weathervane_Pai Shih_72dpi_cropBelow are news items from the past week involving local government, religion, and land use that have caught our attention.

  • The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York has issued a Memorandum and Order on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment in Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York v. Incorporated Village of Old Westbury. A guest post about this decision is forthcoming.**
  • The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a 145 page decision, has issued its Opinion and Order on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment in Congregation Rabbinical College of Tartikov, Inc. v. Village of Pomona.**
  • Christian News Network reports that the Coral Springs, Florida City Council will no longer permit pre-Council meeting invocations. The decision follows a request by Satanist Chaz Stevens to offer an invocation.  Stevens threatened to sue the city if his request was denied.  Instead, Coral Springs decided to scrap its invocation policy altogether.  Mayor Skip Campbell sums up Coral Springs’ position: “I don’t think our citizens would be in favor of Satanic invocations before City Commission meetings.  The cost of fighting that could be astronomical.  I don’t see [how] we as a city should be paying lawyer fees for fights on principle.  I can find a lot of better things to do with a couple hundred thousand dollars than to give to a lawyer.”
  • The City of Hawkins, Texas has decided to remove a “Jesus Welcomes You to Hawkins” sign on public property after receiving a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that the sign violates the Establishment Clause. Hawkins Mayor Will Rogers reacted to the letter by stating that “Jesus is not a religion, Jesus is in every religion across the globe.”  Hawkins citizens have responded by posting their own smaller versions of the signs on their lawns.  World Religion News reports on this story.
  • Law of the Land blog reports on a Michigan federal court’s RLUIPA decision in Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor v. Pittsfield Charter Township. The decision considers the Muslim group’s motion to reconsider the Court’s earlier decision dismissing the group’s RLUIPA claims as unripe (prior post here).  The Court adhered to its earlier decision.
  • The St. Cloud Times reports that the St. Cloud zoning board of appeals has denied a church’s request to allow a homeless person to reside in a tiny house consisting of 132-square feet that sits on wheels and is located on church grounds. A local attorney wrote an editorial noting that the zoning board received into evidence a law review article summarizing RLUIPA and its potential application to this matter.
  • Duluth News Tribune reports that a Minnesota woman alleged to have smoked marijuana in violation of her probation for a drug charge is arguing that smoking pot is a part of her sincerely held religious beliefs as a member of Indiana’s First Church of Cannabis. Her lawyer contends that, due to the illegality of marijuana, the woman “cannot adhere to the principal ideologies of her church, namely the positivity cannabis provides to the world.”  The lawyer further argues that the state cannot demonstrate a “compelling interest” by banning marijuana and that her client’s use of the drug does not create a danger to the “peace or safety of the public.”

**Robinson & Cole represents parties in this case.

Original Photography by Pai Shih (Licensed, cropped from original)

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.

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Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.

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