Wiccan Church Waits for Board Decision

	Wiccan Church Waits for Board Decision
	Author??

The following was typed in by Baird Stafford. We of Iron Oak are deeply indebted to Baird for his effort. Thanks, Baird!

The following article appeared in Florida Today, 13 October 1994, Copyright Florida Today. It is posted here without the permission of Florida Today.

Begin Article

A Palm Bay board could not reach a decision Wednesday on whether members of a Wiccan church should be allowed to hold religious meetings at their pastor's home.

The Code Enforcement Board hearing was continued until Oct. 31.

"This is not about zoning," said the Rev. Jacque Zaleski, minister of Church of the Iron Oak. "This is about people not liking the way other people worship."

She and her husband, John Coleman, Jr., have filed a federal lawsuit trying to stop the city's enforcement of zoning regulations. But a federal judge in Orlando on Tuesday refused to grant an injunction to prevent the hearing.

"You just can't have a church in a residential-zoned area without a special exception," City Manager Mike Abels said.

Other religious leaders said they have held organized church events at their Palm Bay residences and never were cited or had complaints lodged against them.

End Article

Begin Hearsay (from Baird)

According to my SO, who attended the Palm Bay hearing, the chairman of the Code Enforcement Board had to excuse himself from the hearing, leaving the volunteer members of the Board all but rudderless -- although they did have a lawyer sitting with them.

The church's attorney objected several times to evidence the "prosecution" displayed or otherwise brought out, but was told that the Board is a quasi-legal entity, and that judicial rules of evidence were not followed. His objections would be entered into the minutes of the meeting, he was told, but the Board would see the evidence, anyway. (The City's attorney did not like having the same ploy pulled on him when it was the church's turn . . . .)

Testimony by the Zoning Inspector who had signed the citation against Iron Oak determined, on "cross examination" that: he had never seen a violation at the house, and that he had filed the citations because the City Manager told him to; that the pictures entered in "evidence" were taken in February, even though no complaints were lodged until March; that no automobiles had ever been observed to block traffic on the street in front of the house; and on, and on . . . .

The good citizens who volunteer for that Board were much alarmed to find themselves involved in a dispute having Constitutional ramifications. The protest was heard several times from the Board that their expertise is in "dumpsters in the wrong place and flower beds crossing property lines." From all I can determine, and from the fact that the Board continued to the hearing until its next meeting, it sounds as though its members were beginning to wonder on their own about the motives that led to the original citations. They had been told, it seems, that the case was open and shut and would take fifteen or twenty minutes; a recess was called so the members could arrange for alternate rides home from school for their children and the like when it became patent that the premise on which they had based their timing was faulty -- to say the least.

Information on the Federal hearing in Orlando comes to me at third hand. The judge declined to grant an injunction against the Palm Bay hearing on the grounds that it would entail too much work: she would have to research Palm Bay's zoning regulations and the like for herself. What was really interesting, though, was that Ms. Heather Morcroft, Esq., a member of the Board of Directors of the Wiccan Religious Cooperative of Florida (WRCF) was apparently observed to be seated at the table reserved for the City's legal team throughout the hearing. I infer from this that Ms. Morcroft, Esq., was taking an active part in the city's case, and that WRCF's malice towards Iron Oak has not abated during the past couple of months.