Set Free Group Protests Eviction to Council : Meeting: Despite lobbying efforts at City Hall, officials appear ready to raze church’s home and build a youth recreation building in its place.

With a larger contingent waiting outside, 200 members of the Set Free Christian Fellowship crowded into the City Council chambers Tuesday night to demand that the council drop the eviction of their group from a city-owned building.

The Rev. Phil Aguilar, the leader and founder of the 4,000-member group, told the council that he will fight plans to remove Set Free from the building in downtown Anaheim, where the church was founded more than 10 years ago and where it continued to operate a children’s center and community outreach program. The group just moved its main operation to the downtown building after being evicted from its previous site, a privately owned building five blocks away.

About 500 members also protested outside City Hall on Monday without incident.

“It isn’t that we are being asked to move, it is just that we just got through moving into the building,” Aguilar said.

He asked for an extension on the group’s May 10 deadline. When he finished, his group filed out peacefully and the council took no action on his request.

The city purchased the former Anaheim Baptist Church several years ago as part of its downtown redevelopment project, which has seen several stores, restaurants, homes and office buildings constructed. The city intends to tear the church down and erect a Boys and Girls Club, a community center and a public gymnasium.