Four leaders at three north suburban churches allege in a new lawsuit that Northglenn unlawfully targeted them for their religious convictions when it passed a law that stopped them from holding prayer sessions and serving meals to homeless people in a city park.
The plaintiffs, including two pastors, lambasted City Resolution 54, an amendment to the city’s public facilities standards, in their lawsuit. The measure prohibits groups of five or more people from using park pavilions and athletic fields on a “recurrent” basis, and the lawsuit claims it is “facially unconstitutional” and “far exceeds any legitimate governmental interest in park management.”
The Northglenn City Council passed the measure in June after hearing for years from residents about the growing homelessness problem in E.B. Rains Jr. Memorial Park, which sits in the shadow of Interstate 25 just east of City Hall.
“By setting the threshold at five people, CR-54 criminalizes the vast majority of group activities in public parks, including activities that present no conceivable threat to park access or any other legitimate governmental interest,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit goes on to say that the city has deliberately targeted the religious gatherings at E.B. Rains park, which have gone on since 2020, “while permitting numerous comparable secular groups to use the park without interference.”
“Plaintiffs sincerely believe feeding, serving, and ministering to the local community, including the homeless community, is a religious exercise central to their faith,” the document reads. “These activities are compelled by their religious beliefs and are expressions of their faith.”
What’s not mentioned in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Nov. 14, is a half-dozen troubling incidents the city contends have occurred at the park over the last few years. They include a woman wounded in a stabbing, an unregistered sex offender slipping a 7-year-old child alcohol in a bathroom, a man harassing a child and a Northglenn police officer getting hit over the head with a glass bottle.
According to a memo prepared for a special council meeting this week, the alleged perpetrator in each incident was an attendee of the church gatherings in the park, which until recently had been held twice weekly.
The city says police have responded to 322 individuals in calls for service at E.B. Rains park over the last two years. Forty-nine of them were associated with the church lunch program.
“That means at least 15% of the people generating calls for service in the park have had a connection to the lunches being served,” the meeting memo reads.
‘Nothing to do with religion’
Northglenn City Manager Heather Geyer said she was unable to go into details, given the litigation the city faces.
But the June measure, she said, “had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with keeping our park spaces and park amenities safe and open to general public use, and to ensure that no single use of any park impacts or excludes individual members of the public from enjoying the amenities.”
Mayor Meredith Leighty did not respond to several questions sent to her by The Denver Post this week.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs are the Rev. David Baca of Westminster’s The Crossing Church, the Rev. Dustin Mackintosh of Thornton’s Next Step Christian Church, and Brent Denny and David McCamish, both members and volunteers at Westminster’s Brave Church.
All four men declined an interview with The Post. Their lawyers at the Washington, D.C.-based American Center for Law and Justice did not respond to several questions sent via email this week.
The issue has split the community of 39,000 and culminated in the special council meeting called Monday to find a solution. The council chose to continue studying the matter before deciding whether to take action. No date was set to revisit the issue.
Online, a debate has cropped up on what the city should do. One resident who didn’t leave a name with their feedback on Northglenn’s website said they found it “absolutely unacceptable for you guys to be telling churches they can and cannot feed people.”
Ryan Easterling-Babin, an unsuccessful candidate for the Northglenn council in November’s election, told council members during Monday’s special meeting that the intent of CR 54 “was to create a criminal offense that could be used to push the homeless out of E.B. Rains park.”
“Unfortunately, it’s also not effective at that either,” he said. “Criminalizing homelessness does not actually solve anything.”
Easterling-Babin suggested that the city issue permits to the churches to hold their lunches in the park and coordinate with Northglenn police to ensure safety.
Concern over safety, drug use
But more residents came out against the gatherings.
Several asked why the three churches, which are based outside of the city, don’t use their own property to feed people. One objector is Katie Brydon, a 25-year resident of Northglenn and a licensed addiction counselor.
Her family no longer visits the park because “it feels unsafe,” she wrote online.
“I understand the churches are trying to reach out and be helpful, but it’s a place where kids play,” Brydon said in an interview. “Every time I’ve been to the park in the last few years, I’ve witnessed people using drugs.”
Another resident who posted anonymously said the church lunches are “causing consequences for the community.”
“I think that the churches should find somewhere else to hand out their meals that doesn’t cause strife in the public space,” the resident wrote.
Northglenn’s battle over religious rights echoes one that occurred recently on the other side of metro Denver. In Castle Rock, a church was ordered by the town to stop allowing people to live in RVs behind the church, saying it violated Castle Rock’s land-use regulations.
The church sued the town last year, claiming Castle Rock was trampling on its religious prerogative to help the less fortunate. The church won the case in federal court and reached a settlement with Castle Rock in June.
The church pastors and volunteers who sued Northglenn claim the city’s action violates their free speech and equal protection rights under the First and 14th Amendments. Their gatherings on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the 28-acre park, they said, were meant to “share meals, prayer, Bible study, and Christian fellowship with members of the Northglenn community, including members of the homeless community.”
In their complaint, they said a Northglenn seniors group met in August at E.B. Rains park for fitness classes “yet were not approached” by city officials. An adult day care service group gathered in the park in September “and was not cited,” the suit alleges.
But three of the plaintiffs were cited in E.B. Rains park by police in recent weeks.
“As applied, (the law) violates the Constitution through religious targeting, viewpoint discrimination and selective enforcement that cannot survive any level of constitutional scrutiny,” the lawsuit reads.
In the meantime, Brydon’s 15-year-old daughter, Brielle, said in an interview that she had lost a long-time gathering place. The high school freshman said she used to visit E.B. Rains weekly but no longer does.
“It’s like a dangerous feeling,” she said. “I feel frustration — it used to be a kids’ park.”
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