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

  • Coral Springs, Florida may allow Satanist Chaz Stevens to begin a City Commission meeting with an invocation honoring Satan in September or October. However, Mayor Skip Campbell will first meet with commission members to discuss invocation procedures (Coral Springs Talk has more). Last year, we noted that following the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Mr. Stevens, who recently converted to Pabstfestidian because “Satan is a cool dude,” requested that the City of Deerfield Beach, Florida allow him to begin a town council meeting with an invocation to honor Satan – his “Dude in Charge” (prior post here).
  • CBN News reports that there have been acts of anti-Semitism and vandalism in the area of Toras Chaim synagogue, which has countersued the City of Dallas, Texas under RLUIPA contending that the City’s efforts to close the synagogue for failure to renovate the subject property and obtain a certificate of occupancy violate the statute (see our prior post here).
  • Randall Daluz, convicted of triple murder, may bring a RLUIPA and First Amendment suit to challenge the Maine Department of Corrections’ policy prohibiting prisoners from publishing their work. With the assistance of his spiritual advisor’s wife, Mr. Daluz started a website – The Journal of a New Creation – to spread his Christian beliefs. Mr. Daluz handwrites his religious messages that are then transcribed onto the website by the spiritual advisor’s wife (Governing reports on the story). Follow the hyperlink to access The Journal of a New Creation
  • Religion Clause reports that the Ninth Circuit has rejected an Aryan Christian Odinist prisoner’s claim that having a non-white cellmate violates RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision. The prisoner claimed that the presence of a non-white cellmate would pollute his Odinist religious practice known as “the spiritual circle of Odinist Warding.” The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Walker v. Beard, No. 12-17460 (9th Cir. 2015), is available here.
  • The Washington Post reports that the American Civil Liberties Union no longer supports the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the Act is being used as a tool to discriminate or impose one’s views on others.
  • MLive reports that Flint, Michigan City Attorney Peter Bade issued a June 22 opinion advising the City Council that invocation can be allowed in meetings, but suggested that council members not lead the invocation. Hours later, Councilwoman Jackie Poplar led an pre-meeting invocation and stated that the City Attorney’s opinion was “poppycock.”
  • Forsythe County News reports of the ongoing saga of Chinmaya’s proposed Hindu temple in west Forsythe opposed by a homeowners’ association. The proposal will consist of about 60,000 square feet and include more than 300 parking spaces.
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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.

Photo of John Peloso John Peloso

John Peloso, a partner in the firm’s Real Estate Litigation Group, is a trial lawyer who represents companies, municipalities, and individuals in a wide range of matters. At the administrative, trial, and appellate levels, John counsels clients and litigates real property disputes, including…

John Peloso, a partner in the firm’s Real Estate Litigation Group, is a trial lawyer who represents companies, municipalities, and individuals in a wide range of matters. At the administrative, trial, and appellate levels, John counsels clients and litigates real property disputes, including real estate, land use, environmental, and tax matters, including RLUIPA and eminent domain matters.

In the area of real estate litigation, John represents institutional, municipal, and individual clients in disputes involving title, zoning, wetlands, land use, RLUIPA, eminent domain, and other real property rights. He also represents clients in all aspects of commercial lease and other real estate transactional disputes. In the area of real property tax litigation, he represents institutional and individual clients in proceedings at the regulatory, administrative, and trial levels. In this regard, he has dealt with specialized issues involving among other things, the valuation of high-tech software, wireless communications equipment, contingency fee tax audits, special use properties, and the impact of environmental conditions on the valuation of real property.

Prior to joining Robinson+Cole, John was a member of the litigation department at White & Case LLP in New York City, where he concentrated his practice in complex commercial, property and securities litigation.

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.