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The Holmen Village Board will have at least three offers to buy the land under the Star Hill cross/star display when it meets May 8, including one bid of 12 times the value of the property.

The American Humanist Association based in Washington, D.C., sent an offer to buy the land for $1,000 and included a check for the full amount. The Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation topped that with a bid of $1,200.

The Holmen Lions Club discussed purchase of the property at its April 21 meeting, but club President Scott Marshall refused to divulge details.

“That information is not public at this time,” Marshall said. “I can’t comment on it.”

The Village Board’s Finance and Personnel Committee will have first crack at the issue at its meeting May 5. The committee is expected to discuss the matter in closed session before voting in open session on a recommendation to the full board.

The board has been moving toward selling the land as a way to avoid litigation since shortly after a Holmen resident lodged a complaint about the lighted cross display in early March. For five years, the village has owned the blufftop land on which the 40-foot cross stands, and Eric Barnes, an assistant physics professor at the UW-La Crosse, asserted that amounts to government endorsement of Christianity, violating the doctrine of separation of church and state.

Rather than get involved in protracted and expensive litigation over the separation of church and state issue, the board looked instead to sell the property to the Lions Club, which was involved in erecting the structure in 1960.

A village-ordered appraisal of the patch of land on which the cross/star sits valued the property at $100.

Even if the Lions Club submits a bid of only $100, the village wouldn’t be required by law to sell the land to the Freedom From Religion Foundation by virtue of its high bid, said Cheryl Gill, an attorney with Johns, Flaherty and Collins, SC, a La Crosse-based law firm.

“There’s no statutory limitation on that power,” she said.

Municipalities are not required to take bids when they sell public property, Gill said, but if the village turns down a $1,200 offer in favor of a $100 offer, “that might be considered an abuse of discretion.”

A taxpayer could bring suit over such an abuse of discretion, but that would be the only way to challenge the village’s decision, Gill said.

Repeated phone messages and e-mails to Village Administrator Catherine Schmit produced no response. Village President John Chapman said he’d “rather not comment” on the Star Hill issue.

“I’m just reluctant to make any comments because it’s such a contentious issue,” Chapman said.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said she had a difficult time dealing with village officials while trying to submit the group’s bid. For example, the address of the Star Hill property was required for the bid document, but she got nowhere by calling.

“They are very, very unhelpful,” Gaylor said. “Nobody would give it to me over the phone. Nobody was there who knew anything.”

The Lions Club has made no secret of its intent in buying the property — to preserve the star and cross display — and neither do the FFRF and the AHA. Both say they would remove the cross display, with Gaylor saying the star would go, too.

“We would take them down, and maybe we could sell them to somebody,” Gaylor said.

AHA spokesman Fred Edwords said the cross would be taken down but that the group would consider keeping up the star if it was lit year around and not just at Christmas time.

“If they sell it to us, then we will take possession of the land and look at the situation and see how best we can remove the religious monument while maintaining the star. We want to have the least impact on the village,” Edwords said. “Our end purpose is merely to make it clear that religious symbols belong on private and church property. The cross in our view, because it’s a religious symbol, is never appropriate. ... Its position looks for all the world like a public endorsement on public property.”

Bob Ritter, an attorney for AHA, said the $100 appraisal might be a fair price for the amount of land involved, but that appraisal doesn’t include the star/cross monument. Not including that, he said, is like appraising a residential lot without including the value of the house on it.

Putting a value on such a longstanding landmark might be difficult, Ritter said, but one way to do it would be to take bids on the property.

Ritter also said he takes issue with the Holmen Lions Club’s endorsement of one religion. The Lions Club International policy states that the organization is secular. Ritter called the national Lions Club office to try to find out whether the national organization would take any action against the Holmen club but did not hear back.

“I don’t think they’re interested in talking to us,” Ritter said.

The problem with both the Holmen government and the Lions Club endorsement of a particular religion, Ritter said, is the message of exclusion it communicates to non-Christians.

“The government says, ‘The Christians are welcome but for the others, who are you?’” Ritter said. “The harm perhaps is hard to recognize.”

Both Ritter and Gaylor said litigation is a possibility if the Lions Club wins possession of the land with a lower bid. But Ritter said even if the challenge went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, it still wouldn’t settle the controversy over the doctrine of separation of church and state.

“There will not be a definitive ruling,” Ritter said. “What we will get is a shifting of the line.”

The only way to get a definitive answer, he said, would be to pass another amendment to the Constitution.

Contact Randy Erickson at randy.erickson@lee.net or (608) 786-6812.

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