Main Street Park Is Newly Renovated but ...

Ten Commandments Flap Warms Bozeman

By Marjorie Smith, 11-29-06

While the Pope’s visit to Turkey focuses world attention on issues of religious tolerance, we’ve got a hot debate going on right here in beautiful (and downright chilly) Bozeman.

This IS Bozeman after all, where everything is controversial. But the current flap over the Ten Commandments and whether they should be re-installed in a downtown park seems to have put us smackdab into a central national debate: Is this a Christian nation after all? Do we really believe in the separation of church and state?

The center of the controversy is 5 feet tall, 3,500 pounds – a granite monument with the ten commandments inscribed upon it. It used to sit in Soroptimist Park, on the corner of East Main and South Rouse, kitty-corner from the current city hall. During renovation of the park, the monument was moved to the city yards. As the landscaping neared completion this fall, a Bozeman man named Charles Swart volunteered to pay the costs to put the monument back. City Manager Chris Kukulski polled the commissioners individually and apparently enough of them agreed that if private funds were used to put the commandments back, it would avoid the “government support for religion” trap.

No one told Bill Halpin about it, though. Halpin, owner of Greenspace landscaping had been hired by the city to accomplish the park restoration. Halpin had just left for a three-week fishing trip when I contacted Greenspace this week, but his wife Micheline said, “They stole some of our plants and placed (the monument) back in the park while Greenspace Landscaping was still responsible for the safety of the park and all liability if anyone got hurt would fall onto us.” So Halpin moved the monument back to the city yards – and then the controversy exploded. Indignant letters appeared on the Bozeman Chronicle’s op-ed page. Halpin told the city commission he’d received harassing phone calls. The Chronicle editorialized that a stench arose from the way the city commission and city manager had handled the matter, arguing that the matter should have been discussed openly.

Mayor Jeff Krauss acknowledges that the commandments monument was not part of the restoration plans for the park which has been approved before the work began, but says, “I have no problem with (Kukulski) altering the original plan…altering the plan is well within the city manager’s prerogative, and that change required no city meeting or public input.”

Even the origins of Soroptimist Park seem lost in the mists of time and it was never officially dedicated as a park. It’s the site of the old Bozeman city hall, built in the 19th Century, which in my childhood housed the fire department on its ground floor, the police on the second floor, and other offices in the part of the building that had once been an opera house.

The old brick building had become inadequate and unsafe by 1966 when it was demolished upon completion of the current city hall, a low-slung concrete and steel structure. (This building has been outgrown for decades and offices are scattered around town; it’s possible that city hall will soon move two blocks north to the old library -- not to be confused with the old, old Carnegie Library building now nicely restored by the law firm that purchased it from the city.)

As far as Mayor Krauss knows, the site of the old city hall was traded to the owner of the lot where the current building was constructed. Then the empty lot was donated back to the city and it lay ignored and unloved for some time until the Soroptimists organization adopted it and turned it into a park. Apparently the ten commandments monument goes back to the 1970s and was a gift of the Eagles Club. At some point, a huge mural called “The Valley of the Flowers” was painted on the blank wall of the Eagles Club next door to the park, and its vision of John M. Bozeman, etc. has loomed over the park since, gradually fading into the obscurity some members of Bozeman’s cantankerous art community think it richly deserves. Others love the mural and just this week a letter to the editor of the Chronicle suggested the mural should be restored now that the park has been renovated.

Soroptimist Park had been neglected and was not well used in recent years, although Bozeman City Commissioner Jeff Rupp, whose day job is as head of the Human Resources Development Council, recalls that during the years when HRDC had its offices in the Bozeman Hotel, directly across Main Street from the park, he and other HRDC staff members enjoyed taking breaks in the park. Rupp was aware of the commandments monument, he says, although it was unobtrusively placed against the Eagles Club wall.

In fact, it was only 18 months or so ago that it was proposed that the lot on which the park stood be sold to developers to earn money to help pay for the new library’s construction. At that time city leaders floated the idea of “moving” the park several blocks to the south end of the new public library property.

There was an instant outpouring of indignation at that idea and a rediscovered fondness for Soroptimist Park. Bozeman already has a park (Peet’s Hill) at the south end of the library property, it was pointed out, and its largest urban green space, Lindley Park, is just east of the library. Soroptimist Park represents the only open space along Main Street between the new library and the old Willson School a mile or so down the main drag.

So instead of selling or "moving" Soroptimist Park, The city decided to use some of its downtown tax increment funds along with some federal grant funds to restore the park and hired Bill Halpin of Greenspace Landscaping to redesign do the work. The landscape plans approved by the city did not include the ten commandments.

Jeff Rupp said that in the 11 months he’s been on the city commission, he’s never been asked about taking the monument out of the park or putting it back in. However, he says, “I’m trying to be respectful of our history – (the monument) is part of the history of the park. But the first place it was put back (by Charles Swart) made it seem too large. I think it should be put back against the wall, so it would be more in scale.”

Rupp adds that if someone from another faith wanted to propose something for the park representing their religion, “I would be receptive to that conversation.”

Despite his support for the city manager’s decision, Jeff Krauss says he is very aware of the church/state dilemma. Originally, he says, “I would not have voted to re-erect the commandments.” The Commission plans to hold a public hearing on the subject sometime in December but Krauss says the reasons he will have for making a decision have been altered. “The monument was restored legally, under the authority of the city manager. The landscaper (Bill Halpin) had no right to remove the monument, any more than I could legally hook a chain up to the water fountain and jerk it out of there. He had already voiced an objection to the monument on theological/political grounds, publicly, in front of the commission. His claim of safety issues is too transparent a dodge.”

Commissioner Steve Kirchhoff, however, has a different view of Halpin’s side of the case. “He’s been called a vandal by (the Chronicle). I think some due diligence is required before we start vilifying the man. I’m not saying what he did was 100 percent correct. He could have acted more circumspectly. Nevertheless, there’s more to it than what has been reported. Specifically, the site plan he was following called for the removal of the monument. Period. Then the monument was re-installed without consulting him, on top of his sprinkler system and after the removal of some plants.”

Kirchhoff also commented upon the city manager’s “straw polling” used before he authorized Charles Swart to replace the monument. “It’s a fair device in certain situations,” he says. “But events and public interest got stirred up, and it turns out the straw poll wasn’t sufficient for this matter, which has caused significant public interest.”

Kirchhoff says the city manager is looking for a church or other entity to receive the monument and display it somewhere else. Krauss noted that before the current controversy erupted, assistant city manager Ron Brey “was working on a commitment from the Salvation Army to put it across the street. I thought it would not matter what side of Rouse the commandments were on.”

And so it goes in Bozeman. The weather may be freezing but our controversies will keep us warm.

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