California IN BRIEF : MONTEREY : Plans for Nativity Scene Up in the Air

A disputed creche survived the holiday season. But Civic Club members who removed the life-size Nativity figures from the City Hall lawn on Saturday under a judge’s order said they don’t know whether it will be displayed next year. “It just seems like a lot of trouble over nothing. In our club, we don’t preach anything, no politics, no race, no religion,” said Evelyn Hinckley, a spokeswoman for the Monterey Civic Club, which sponsors the Nativity scene. “We are law-abiding citizens. We did not mean to start a tempest in a teapot.” The City Council on Friday ordered the creche removed or reassembled with secular displays, such as a Santa Claus or reindeer. The vote was taken after a U.S. judge temporarily barred the scene because it violated the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. The Civic Club decided against reassembling it. The American Civil Liberties Union sought the temporary restraining order on behalf of several plaintiffs, including 13-year-old Victor Ringel; Unitarian Church ministers Fred and Margaret Keip and the Rev. J. Kevin Phillips, an Episcopal priest. U.S. District Judge William Ingram, who issued the temporary restraining, gave the city three days to decide what to do.