By Bryan Marten
At its April 4th meeting, will the Albany City Council vote to preserve Albany Hill Park or will it choose instead to sell off a significant portion of public park land to private ownership?
You first heard about this issue in 2017 when the Albany Lions Club sued the City of Albany, claiming interference with an easement to light an electrified cross on the City’s property in Albany Hill Park and demanding that the City sell the 1.1 acre portion of the park containing the cross (called “Call Property,” see image to the right).
The multi-faceted case went to court, and in 2018 a federal judge ruled that the cross in its current location in a public park is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment and must be remedied by the City, however the judge did not force the City to sell the park land to the Lions Club. The City and the Lions Club have both stated in court that they agree the cross is an Establishment Clause violation, but the City cannot act on its own due to the Lions Club’s easement which grants them access to maintain the cross.
The judge gave the City some choices: “To remedy the Establishment Clause violation, the City has at least two options — either sell a parcel containing the cross to a private party or condemn the easement through its power of eminent domain.” The easement itself does not grant any land or the cross itself to the Lions Club. If the City decides to sell the public land with the cross, the judge made it clear that the loss of public land would need to be sizable and the changes to the property significant: “The subdivision must be a coherent, separate parcel in such a manner that the public may recognize that the cross no longer stands on public land.”
The City is scheduled to vote today on whether or not to condemn the easement through the power of eminent domain while monetarily compensating the Lions Club, one of the judge's proposed remedies. The Lions Club in a written response has said it will challenge the City if the City votes “Yes” to use eminent domain, but will not if the City votes “No” and subsequently decides to sell a significant portion of Albany Hill Park to the Lions Club.
The Sierra Club and its members have been involved for decades in acquiring and preserving open space on Albany Hill. The hill is home to a diverse ecosystem, including migratory monarch butterflies, and at its base are historic grinding stones used by the local Ohlone tribes. In 2008, Albany Hill was declared a Priority Conservation Area by regional and state agencies.
If the Albany Lions Club is successful, this would be the first public land on Albany Hill to return to private ownership.
What You Can Do:
Write to the Albany City Council at citycouncil@albanyca.org expressing your support for their commitment to keep Albany Hill’s public land public. Any correspondence that the city receives prior to 5pm on April 4th, 2022 will be posted to the city’s website and added to the agenda item pertaining to this issue (9-1 Resolution No. 2022-32).
More Resources:
The City of Albany has more information about Albany Hill on their website. The City also posts its meeting agendas with supporting documents at this webpage. The City’s statement and the Lions Club’s response can be found on the HTML version of the agenda under item 9-1.