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National Organization That Pursues Legal Cases Tells Haverstraw To Rescind Deal With Knights Of Columbus
By Tina Traster
The Town of Haverstraw must refrain from supporting the Knights of Columbus with taxpayers’ dollars because the arrangement violates the separation between church and state, according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a nonprofit organization that fights to preserve separation between church and state through litigation and advocacy.
“Government funds cannot be given away to religious organizations in order to help advance their religious missions,” the letter states. “We write to ask that the Town of Haverstraw cease providing taxpayer funds to support religion and any ongoing entanglement with the Knights.”
“While we understand the Town’s desire to maintain a location for seniors to gather, it cannot accomplish this goal by awarding taxpayer funds to a Catholic fraternity which will also be using the building for religious purpose,” wrote Samantha F. Lawrence, a staff attorney for FFRF, in a letter dated Oct. 21, addressed to William Stein, Haverstraw’s attorney. The Madison, WI-based group was founded in 1978, and has 20 chapters nationwide.
FFRF is a national nonprofit staffed with attorneys who bring lawsuits throughout the nation in cases like Haverstraw’s.
RCBJ has obtained a copy of the letter from FFRF to the Town of Haverstraw.
“Government funds cannot be given away to religious organizations in order to help advance their religious missions,” the letter states. “We write to ask that the Town of Haverstraw cease providing taxpayer funds to support religion and any ongoing entanglement with the Knights.”
The letter, which cites a plethora of legal cases, further states, “In order to uphold the principle of separation between state and church and to protect the rights of all citizens of Haverstraw, we ask that the town end this agreement and refrain from financial support of religious organizations in the future.”
In May, a deal that had been in the works for the Knights of Columbus to sell its building at 56 West Broad Street in the Village of Haverstraw for $2.4 million to Kings Katherine LLC, an affordable housing developer that planned about 100 affordable units, was scuttled. At the 11th hour, Haverstraw Town Supervisor Howard Phillips and Grand Knight Joe Vargas met and reached an informal agreement for the Knights to walk away from the affordable housing proposal and donate the building to the town for recreational purposes for the town’s seniors. Bingo night is already held at the Knights’ building.
Under the terms of the deal, the Knights would be able to maintain a presence in the town-owned building, but limited to its office, conference room, and a closet. The Knights would also be able to continue to display religious regalia in the building.
On June 25, the town voted to enter into a formal contract with the Knights.
The town’s approved resolution calls for paying the Knights $56,000 in retroactive back rent with taxpayer money for January through June (which has already been meted out), before the contract between the two entities was signed. Prior to the agreement to donate the building, Haverstraw was paying the Knights about $2,500 per quarter for use of the building for senior meetings. In June, the Town agreed to increase its payments to the Knights to $7,000 per month, an 840 percent increase with no apparent justification.
As a non-exempt organization, the Knights were paying about $30,000 per year in property taxes.
In addition, the agreement calls for continuation of the $7,000 monthly payment until the Attorney General signs off on the deal. However, the resolution built in a provision in case the AG’s office denies the donation: Starting the first day of the next month after such a denial, rent shall be reduced for the remaining lease term to $2,000 a month. The Town also agreed to pay the Knights’ legal fees. Haverstraw has engaged the Albany-based law firm of Girvin Ferlazzo to represent the Knights at the town’s expense, making itself the “responsible payor” of the Knights’ legal fees.
The agreement acknowledges that the donation is subject to Attorney General approval or to the New York Supreme Court. The AG’s office can kick the approval to the courts. Nonprofit organizations are required to show the AG’s office that a fair market transaction is taking place, based on an independent appraisal. The Attorney General’s role is to determine that the terms of the transaction are “fair and reasonable.”
The Town of Haverstraw has retained Brown & Weinraub, LLC, a consulting firm based in Albany, to lobby for Attorney General approval, at $400 an hour for its services.
Several entities and individuals, including the former Grand Knight Todd McGowan, have filed complaints with the Attorney General’s office regarding the donation of the building, citing issues including misuse of taxpayers’ funds, deprivation of affordable housing for the Village of Haverstraw, and the lack of payment of fair value for the building.
The New York State Attorney General’s Office has also received and is reviewing a copy of FFRF’s letter to Haverstraw.
Echoing similar and additional concerns, Kings Katherine LLC sent a letter on Sept. 13 to the Town of Haverstraw, saying it has discriminated against minorities, violated the separation of church and state, and is misusing taxpayer money.
“What is being done here is illegal and is callously suspect of rank discrimination against minorities,” the letter says.
Attorney Mark Cermele of Cermele & Wood LLP of White Plains is urging the Town of Haverstraw to rescind its offer to take over the Knights’ building.
“With this offer, the Town chose to undermine the autonomy of the incorporated Village,” Cermele wrote. “I write to implore the Town to revoke its Offer, which is illegal and will result in serious repercussions upon the Town and the K of C (Knights of Columbus) by the NYS Attorney General, the New York State Comptroller’s Office and possibly the US Attorney’s office.”
His letter was cc’ed to Village of Haverstraw Mayor Michael Kohut and Grand Knight Joseph Vargas. Sources say neither Phillips nor Stein has responded to the letter.
In FFRF’s letter, it points out that the Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternity with a stated goal to “provide opportunities to live and spread the Catholic faith.”
The government, it says, cannot subsidize certain religions or dispense special financial benefits to religious organizations or ministries.
“It is a fundamental principle of the Establishment Cause jurisprudence that the government cannot favor religion. The Supreme Court has said ‘The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.’”
Haverstraw Town Attorney Bill Stein did not respond to a request for comment.
The FFRF has successfully litigated similar issues in the past.
It filed suit in New Jersey state court against Morris County and county officials, challenging public grants of tax dollars to repair or maintain churches, specifically challenging $1.04 million in allocations to the Presbyterian Church in Morristown to allow “continued use by our congregation for worship services,” and allotments to the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church that would ensure “access to the church for worship, [and] periods of solitude and meditation during the week.” FFRF argued that the grants violate Article I, Paragraph 3 of the New Jersey Constitution, guaranteeing: “nor shall any person be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right.”
The FFRF helped a get anti-discrimination rules scrapped by the Trump administration reinstated. The FFRF, along with a coalition of service and advocacy organizations, filed a lawsuit on January 19, 2021 against eight federal agencies for undoing rules that protected those receiving social services from discrimination based on religion.
Previously, federal rules had required faith-based organizations that provided critical, taxpayer funded services to inform recipients of their legal right to: not be discriminated against, not to have to attend religious programming, and to be given the option for a referral to an alternate provider. These rules helped protect the most vulnerable from being forced to attend a Bible study or join in a prayer in order to access basic rights such as food or shelter.
Without these protections those who were seeking services may have needlessly opted into religious activities or forgone assistance altogether in order to avoid participation. This lawsuit sought to have these rules declared a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and reverse the rollback of the previous protections.
FFRF filed a lawsuit on behalf of New Jersey resident James Tosone against the secretary of state for forcing public office candidates to swear a mandatory religious oath. Tosone identified as a nontheist and was opposed to swearing “so help me God” as part of the candidate oath. He has run for public office in New Jersey several times. Starting in 2022, he sought to run for office and was unable to do so because the Division of Elections would not allow him to verify his candidate form with a secular affirmation in place of the religious oath.
FFRF filed a lawsuit on September 21, 2022, challenging the unconstitutional funding of a private religious school in the state of South Carolina. State lawmakers earmarked $1.5 million in the 2022-23 budget to Christian Learning Centers of Greenville County to help get its new facility off the ground. CLC is a religious organization whose mission is to “provide biblical instruction for public school children at no cost” and has done so through biblical release-time instruction to students in Greenville County schools for 25 years.
The lawsuit argued that public funding to a private and religious educational institution violated two provisions of the South Carolina Constitution, as well as the rights of all citizens and taxpayers of the state of South Carolina, including plaintiffs and those who were similarly situated.
