Council OKs Sale of Mt. Soledad Cross Site

The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Monday to authorize the sale of city-owned land on which the controversial Mt. Soledad cross is erected, pending consideration of a stay by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Court officials told the San Diego city attorney’s office on Monday that they would vote en banc , or “all together,” on the issue of the stay but did not say when. A federal judge ruled Dec. 3 that city officials had three months in which to remove the cross.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court refused recently to overturn the federal judge’s decision, but by agreeing Monday to have all 11 members consider the stay, the appeals court has given the city one of its primary objectives: More time.

Deputy City Atty. Mary Kay Jackson said Monday’s actions give the city these options:

* If the stay is granted, the cross does not have to come down during the appeals process. The appeal itself will be decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

* If the stay is denied, it gives the city “one more chance,” in Jackson’s words, to request another emergency stay from another U.S. Supreme Court justice. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently denied such a stay.

* If the city fails in yet another bid to have an emergency stay granted, then, finally, the transfer of title will take place. The city will deed the 15-foot-by-15-foot parcel of land on which the cross now rests to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Assn., which owns the cross itself, for the price of $14,500.

Monday’s meeting was packed with emotion, as speakers for and against removal of the cross begged council members to take what they considered the appropriate action. Council members, in turn, aired their views, which largely reflected their own religious thinking.

“I’m offended, because as a Christian, someone is trying to remove a symbol that’s dear to me,” said the Rev. George Stevens, a newly elected member of the council. “I am not opposed to putting a Star of David on the hill, or a Buddha, I’m just offended that someone is trying to remove something dear to me.”

Councilman Ron Roberts said he was “comforted” by the sight of the cross as he drives down Interstate 5 and vehemently opposed its removal, as did Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who said she “respectfully disagrees with our friends of other religions.”

Rabbi Martin Levin of Congregation Beth El in La Jolla was among those who argued for removal of the cross, saying it is first and foremost a religious symbol, rather than a memorial to those who died during wars.

Levin, who said he served as a chaplain in Vietnam, argued that, because many who died in America’s wars ascribed to faiths other than Christianity, a cross could never be a fitting symbol to them.

“A cross on Mt. Soledad makes me feel excluded . . . separate from the community at large,” Levin said. “It makes me feel I am entering Christiandom, and I say that as someone who has a great deal of respect for Christianity.”

Levin said foisting the cross on non-Christians who died in combat and calling it a fitting symbol of their heroism was “greatly insensitive” on the part of the city.

Councilman Roberts disagreed, saying the cross, a statue honoring Father Junipero Serra and even the name San Diego were more a reflection of the city’s history, although some might construe them as manifestations of religious symbols.

“Where do you draw the line?” Roberts asked angrily.

But Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer disagreed with Roberts, O’Connor and Stevens, saying the cross “ is a religious symbol to me and a lot of others who aren’t Christian.”

In a related development, the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday asked city and county officials to reconsider plans to transfer crosses atop both Mt. Soledad and Mt. Helix near La Mesa to private ownership.

In letters sent to the San Diego City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, the ACLU said efforts to circumvent the U.S. District Court decision ordering that the crosses be removed from public property “would be less than an honest and law-abiding thing to do.”

The county Board of Supervisors will decide today whether to transfer the Mt. Helix cross and the land under it to the San Diego Historical Society.

“If we expect our citizens to obey the law, then the city’s leaders cannot place themselves above the law,” Linda Hills, ACLU executive director, said in the letter.

Hills said the ACLU’s position is that if the land is to be transferred it should be sold to the highest bidder.

Howard Kreisner, an atheist activist who filed suit challenging the legality of the Mt. Soledad cross, protested Monday that the transfer of public parkland violated a dozen California laws and would simply prompt more legal action.

“They’re proposing a lot that is less than 300 square feet, a lot with no access to roads, sewage, water, electricity or telephone,” Kreisner said. “They haven’t said anything yet about offering it for sale to the highest bidder.

“They are dancing around the law in an artless charade which deceives no one,” Kreisner said. “In their passion for this religious symbol, they have abdicated their responsibilities as defenders of the law.”

But Mayor O’Connor and others insist the cross on Mt. Soledad was dedicated as a memorial to U.S. war veterans and not as a symbol of Christianity.

On Monday, O’Connor made frequent mention of a recent federal judge’s ruling in San Francisco in which the largest free-standing cross in the nation was said to be “a secular local landmark” that fails to violate the constitutional division of church and state.

It was U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson who in early December ordered the removal of two crosses, saying their presence violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

Jackson, the deputy city attorney, said the date of March 3--believed to be the deadline imposed by Thompson on Dec. 3--is now irrelevant, because the appeals court has set no date for considering the stay or the appeal.

Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this article.