With the opposition citing the separation of church and state, Annual Town Meeting voted to turn down a request from the Congregational Church of Harvard to spend $2,500 from Community Preservation revenue towards restoring the columns in front of the town center church. The article was one of the smallest appropriations on the warrant Saturday, but it led to one of the longest discussions of the day.
The Community Preservation Committee had supported the spending, noting that the church has a policy of making its meeting space available to local groups, including committees and boards of the town government.
“This space is available to all the townspeople for free,” said Michelle Catalina, a member of the Community Preservation Committee and a representative of the Planning Board. “…As long as you’re not making a profit, it’s free of charge. It contributes significantly to our community, and our committee felt that this project was in keeping with what this money should be used for.”
The Community Preservation Committee is responsible for recommending to Town Meeting how to spend revenue from a 1.1 percent property tax surcharge. According to the state’s Community Preservation Act, that money must be spent on historic resources, open space, or community housing.
Paul Green, of Old Littleton Road, a Congregational Church member, said the church hosts about 600 meetings per year, most of them secular. The church members consider their facilities to be a community resource, Green said.
The columns on the 1821 building are bound to fall soon, Green said, and the congregation has a choice of replacing them with wood or cheaper plastic.
“Part of the reason for us asking the town for a little help here is to let us keep the wood columns,” Green said.
While acknowledging the Congregational Church’s contribution to the community and its visual contribution to the town common, some speakers at Town Meeting said they felt the article crossed a line.
“It’s likely unconstitutional, and more importantly, violates the spirit of one of our most cherished values: that our government not fund or establish a particular religious institution,” said Bruce Leicher, of Warren Avenue. “I recognize the modest size of the request, but this is an area where principle matters more than the price.”
Several speakers said the church could raise money for the restoration from private sources.
The town has allocated Community Preservation funds to private organizations before, for example, Fruitlands Museum, said Deborah Thomson of the Community Preservation Committee. Denis Wagner, of Still River Road, noted that the Harvard Historical Society, which is not owned by the town, has received Community Preservation money to replace the roof on its building.
Steve O’Brien, of East Bare Hill Road, called on the Community Preservation Committee to come up with a policy to guide its recommendations on future requests to fund private projects.
“I think what you have to do, and focus very hard on, is coming up with very specific guidelines with what you will fund and what you won’t,” O’Brien said.
From a legal standpoint, said town counsel Mark Lanza, funding the church column project would not violate the state or federal constitution, because the money would be used to fix a historical resource, not contribute to the promotion or operation of the church.
“Preserving the columns of an edifice is not, in my opinion, promoting a particular religion,” Lanza said.
The article failed by a show of hands, one of only two articles on Saturday’s warrant that made it to a vote but did not pass.
