Judicial pressure mounts to remove the Mount Soledad cross but the 43-foot emblem will remain standing for now.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has called for the city to appeal the Ninth District Court’s injunction that the city remove the cross within 90 days or face a $5,000 daily penalty.
City council will decide whether to pursue an appeal on Tuesday, May 23. District 1 City Councilman Scott Peters believes that fighting to keep the cross is a losing battle.
“There are other ways to keep the cross and to pay tribute to the men and women that it honors in a way that doesn’t violate federal law,” Peters said.
City Attorney Michael Aguirre has also not expressed much faith in fighting the court’s 15-year-old order to remove the religious symbol from city property.
“We’re free to disagree with the judge but not to disobey the court order,” Aguirre said in a press conference following the court’s order.
Aguirre has promised to work with the mayor and city council to find a resolution within the 90-day period, however.
Once the city files a writ of appeal, the fees will cease, according to Phil Thalheimer, chairman of San Diegans for the Mount Soledad National War Memorial.
The organization has begun a fund-raising effort to solicit money to pay the $5,000 penalty, should the city ever face it. The group also initiated Prop A last year to transfer the cross’s property rights to the federal government, which passed with 76 percent of the vote but was struck down as unconstitutional. The city is also appealing that ruling.
Keeping the cross standing is also an objective for the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, which administers the memorial walls with plaques commemorating veterans surrounding the cross. The association, however, would support moving it to a church or park to achieve that goal, according to Mount Soledad Memorial Association President William Kellogg.
After atheist Philip Paulson sued the city in 1991 over the constitutionality of the cross on city property, Ninth District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. ordered the city to “remove the constitutional infirmity.”
Fifteen years later, the federal court has returned to that injunction. Within those years, the city has unsuccessfully attempted to sell the property twice, and issued Prop K asking voters whether it should attempt a third sale, which was rejected. Most recently, Prop A failed to transfer the land to the federal government.