New details emerge on Stupak’s Christian school land gift

Newly obtained documents show that the religious school which U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak wants to give a piece of federal property to, already defaulted on the original agreement that required them to purchase land of equal value to swap with the Coast Guard for the Cheboygan property the Cornerstone Christian School was allowed to build their school on.

The original lease between the Coast Guard and the school, signed in July 1986, has now been located. In that document, the Christian school was required to purchase a piece of property in St. Ignace of equal value and then swap the two properties, the Coast Guard getting ownership of the St. Ignace parcel to build housing units there and school getting ownership of the Cheboygan property. The 1986 agreement says:

The licensee will, upon approval of the Coast Guard Housing Planning Proposal, actively pursue purchasing land suitable for multi-family housing in the St. Ignace, Michigan area (north of the Mackinac Bridge). The land purchased shall be of equal appraised value as the Coast Guard land licensed to the Cornerstone Christian School. The property purchased by the licensee in St. Ignace will then be conveyed to the Coast Guard in exchange for the Coast Guard property in Cheboygan, Michigan.

That original agreement ended on July 1, 1991. On April 20, 1992, the then-chairman of the CCS board, David Sova, wrote to the Coast Guard’s 9th district command requesting a new lease for the property “with the longest term possible.” In that letter, Sova wrote: “We must regretfully inform you that at this time we have been unable to accomplish our goal of acquiring the land in St. Ignace that the Coast Guard has desired. We truly have diligently pursued the purchase of the land described, but have not been able to finalize anything.”

The Coast Guard command then granted a new five-year lease on the property for the sum of $1 per year, the same as the first five-year lease. At that time, the school was informed by the Coast Guard that they were listing the Cheboygan property on which the school sits as surplus property and beginning the process of disposing of the parcel. Seventeen years later, the surplus property still has not been put up for bid as required by federal law.

As reported previously, CCS approached Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, a couple years ago asking him to see if he could do something to “leapfrog over that lengthy process and try to get the property transferred directly to the school.” That prompted Stupak to submit HR 1291, which would give the seven acres of land in Cheboygan to the school free of charge, in apparent violation of the Establishment Clause and federal law.

Peter Irons, a retired law professor from University of California at San Diego who specializes in the First Amendment, has written a letter to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, saying that the school had “breached its license with the Coast Guard by non-performance of a license provision.”

“Considering that the Coast Guard had designated in 1992 the Cheboygan property as ‘surplus’ and not suitable for construction of personnel housing, Irons wrote, “the disposition of this property is governed by the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, which provides that such ‘surplus’ property ‘may be sold to the private sector for fair market value through the competitive bid process.’”

Citing CCS board chairman Jim Granger’s statement that he asked Stupak to find a way to bypass those requirements, Irons writes that the resulting legislation “would thus violate the clear provisions of the Federal Property Act.” The bill, he said, also “would effectively provide a ‘gift’ of federal property to a religious organization, which would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is also expected to write a similar letter to Stupak and Cummings. Calls seeking comment from Stupak’s office and the Cornerstone Christian School were not returned.