Holiday Displays Controversy

This story originally appeared on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007

WEST CHESTER -- The Chester County Commissioners are set to approve conditions under which groups can get permission to erect winter holiday displays.

The new policy, scheduled for a vote Thursday at the board’s formal session, would requite that the display conform with current First Amendment law concerning religious displays such as creches or Menorahs.

The move comes in the wake of a dispute last year after a Menorah was erected on the courthouse lawn for the first time. Its presence led a former county commissioner to argue that the commissioners had opened the door to other displays, and soon the board approved the display of a nativity scene on the lawn.

At their work session Tuesday, the commissioners made it clear that they did not want the courthouse lawn to become a central point for groups to put up displays year-round. The only times that displays would be permitted under the policy are during the winter holiday season -- roughly from the end of November to mid-January. An exception is also made for the United Way of Chester County, which has historically put up a sign indicating its fund raising activities on the lawn.

“it would be our practice to not have other displays on the courthouse lawn,” said Commissioner Patrick O’Donnell. He suggested that it would be unseemly to have groups “start hanging stuff up all over the eaves” of the historic courthouse.

Commissioner Donald Mancini said he was in favor of an even more restrictive policy that would ban all displays from the courthouse front lawn. He noted that the building had just undergone a $2 million renovation and that there was some concern that displays would detract from the historic character of the building. But he said he would go along with the new policy allowing winter displays.

“I recognize that’s not going to be workable,” he said of the ban. “As long as things are workable, and so everyone knows what’s going on” he would support the policy’s adoption.

The proposed policy states that groups may erect winter holiday displays so long as the commissioners determine that the display “will not have the effect of causing a reasonable observer to believe that the count is endorsing religion” and “will not adversely affect the appearance of the courthouse”

It also requires that any group proposing a display mus provide proof of general liability insurance in the amount of $1 million.

Former Commissioner Colin Hanna, who last year led the charge for the presence of a creche on the courthouse lawn, said the policy appeared workable.

“It seems like a reasonable attempt to develop a policy that both honors our traditions and doesn’t cross the line into constitutional impermissible establishment of religion,” Hanna, now head of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network, said Tuesday.

“The policy also leaves the final discretion in the hands of the commissioners, and I think that is appropriate,” Hanna said.

In late 2006, the commissioners were approached by former Commissioner Andy Dinniman, now a Pennsylvania state senator, with a request from the Chabad of Chester County, a Jewish organization, to allow a Menorah to be erected on the lawn, next to the traditional Christmas tree and snowman displays. The commissioners agreed to allow one to be placed here. Soon after, Hanna wrote the commissioners and demanded that they allow a creche -- a traditional Christian display.

The commissioners agreed, and soon an East Bradford woman, Helene Eissler, paid for a creche that stayed on the lawn during the Christmas season.

The Chester County Courthouse became part of the battleground over the debate on what religious symbols are permitted on a public building in 2001, when two residents objected to the presence of a plaque listing the 10 Commandments on the front of the courthouse. Both Dinniman and Hanna, commissioners at the time, supported the presence of the plaque, and a federal court eventually allowed it to remain.

The new holiday display policy requires groups wanting to erect displays to make application to the county by Nov. 15, and to pay all costs associated with constriction and maintenance of the displays. The commissioners suggested that if there are a large number of requests, not every organization would be granted approval. But they also said approval would not be made on a first-come, first-served basis.

If adopted, the full text of the policy would be posted on the county’s website, www.chesco.org.