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| Walkersville Commissioners Debbie Zimmerman and Russell Winch, Burgess Ralph Whitmore, Commissioners Chad Weddle, Sam Eyler, and Donald Schildt. |
Source/Credit: The Fredrick Post-News
By Ahmadiyya Times | December 16, 2011
The sale of a piece of land once known as the Moxley property was discussed by the Walkersville Board of Commissioners at the Wednesday night's town meeting.
In 2008 the town went through a concerted effort to deny the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community the opportunity to purchase the land by throwing multiple obstacles including tweaking of the laws governing the land use and denying rezoning request pursuant to the conveniently changed rules.
The Muslim community had planned to build a mosque and a convention facility on the Moxley land.
The town cited numerous concerns including parking, traffic, security and burdens on town resources.
Moxley had filed lawsuit against the town in 2008 after the Board of Commissioners effectively blocked the sale to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
The town opted to acquire the land for $4.71 million in December 2009 to settle the discrimination lawsuit but rejected that the rezoning request was denied because of an anti-Muslim bias.
According to Courtney Pomeroy of Fredrick News-Post, the town has planned to sell the property since after the settlement was reached in 2009 and now a buyer has been found.
The sale date, according the announcement by the town, will be on or before Feb.15 for the parcel of the land including a farmhouse and other buildings.
The buyer, Mark Lynch, owner of the Inn and Lodge in Blue Ridge Summit, Pa. said the facility will be transformed for use in banquets, wedding receptions and corporate functions, according to the Fredrick News-Post report.
The town has not cited any concerns of parking, traffic, security and burdens on town resources this time.
Mark Lynch is not known to be a Muslim.
There hasn't been any serious objection reported from Steve Berryman either who had led the group Citizens for Walkersville in 2008, that some say, created the anti-Muslim hysteria in the town.
Berryman had successfully convinced the town of Walkersville with his stated argument that Muslim presence will allow those "with evil will, to operate in an undetectable fashion around our schools,” it was reported.
"They want the highest piece of ground in the middle of Walkersville to do that with,” Berryman told Jeremy Hauck, Staff Writer for Gazette.Net, while gesturing to a picture on his computer screen depicting Muslim men standing around tents.
Berryman was well confident in durability of the sentiment he had riled up in the town.
"Quite frankly, I think the [Ahmadiyya Muslim Community] is underestimating the amount of dissention in the community, and that will become evident during our presentation,” Berryman had told Hauck at the time.
"I’m not a lawyer, an expert on traffic, water, sewer, or safety," Berryman once wrote.
"But to borrow from Glenn Beck, I am a thinker!" he claimed.
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AHMADIYYA TIMES is an independently run and privately managed website and does not claim to speak for or represent the official views of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.
Be sure to get all the facts; the original proposal was (as written) a "convention center" for as many as 15,000 people in the dead-center of a small town of 5,800 population. It didn't fit, and Americans are FREE to express their feelings; it's fully legal in our culture.
ReplyDeleteHere is the original story, told in 3 parts:
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=2348
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=2364
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=2373
Sooooo let's all get this straight. You can spew hate all over a peaceful religion wanting to build a church in our community, but they can't fire back and point out the fact that you're a bigot? And, the freedom of speech, or as you so non-eloquently put it the freedom to "..express their feelings" isn't a cultural trait it's a national right put into our constitution. I say to the AMC there are plenty of farms in and around Frederick that are up for sale, try looking into one of them!! You're a hateful, religiously ignorant man who refuses to allow change in the community no one wants you living in anyway. Thank goodness you no longer have a column in our newspaper.
ReplyDelete