Quote Originally Posted by dixidawg View Post
Pay for the construction or pay for the required additional construction costs for "security"? Looks to me like that "public money" was to pay for some serious "building code requirements". Not exactly a gift to the church for them to rebuild with.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/ny...urch.html?_r=1

.....
"Last July, the Port Authority and the Greek Orthodox Church announced a tentative plan to rebuild the church just east of its original site, at Liberty and Greenwich Streets. The authority agreed to provide the church with land for a 24,000-square-foot house of worship, far larger than the original, and $20 million. Since the church would be built in a park over the bomb-screening center, the authority also agreed to pay up to $40 million for a blast-proof platform and foundation.
In recent negotiations, the authority cut the size of the church slightly and told church officials that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial. The church, in turn, wanted the right to review plans for both the garage with the bomb-screening center and the park, something the authority was unwilling to provide. More important, authority officials said, the church wanted the $20 million up front, rather than in stages. Officials said they feared that the church, which has raised about $2 million for its new building, would come back to the authority for more.
The termination of negotiations is a major setback for the little church, a parish of 70 families that is nearly 90 years old. St. Nicholas officials had hoped to build an impressive structure, with a traditional Greek Orthodox dome, and a nondenominational center for visitors to ground zero. That will not be possible on the church’s original 1,200-square-foot lot, although church officials say they hope for reconciliation....."








And for the Mosque, what is the source of the "private funding"? Has that ever been fully investigated and vetted? Do they have the same "security requirements" to build?
The church that was destroyed was a small church with a very small membership. It was only open two days per week. The replacement church planned is six times bigger. $4 million has been raised so far for the construction. The cost -- ignoring issues of the security platform which would be paid by the Port Authority -- was estimated at over $20 million for construction alone. The church has basically been trying to get the cost funded by the public with little success. The exchange of properties began when the church objected to an entrance being proposed for the new memorial. What the PA has said is simply that they are welcome to build on the property they own. The PA will pay fair market value for underground rights but provide no other special consideration. That is sometimes what happens when you push too far in a negotiation where you are being given something to which you do not have any actual legal claim. The fact that the "gift" was promised years ago by a former Governor doesn't help the church in its arguments. No one around today would have made the original commitment. Maybe the chiurch would have been smarter to simply say "Thank you." At this point, they are no longer being offered that option.

None of this has anything to do with the mosque, since the mosque has not requested special consideration from anyone. Rather, others have asked to have laws bent to prevent the mosque from being built. The mosque is obviously allowed to raise funds from any legal source that it chooses. Under US law, it may not accept money from terrorist groups, but is otherwise unencumbered. As far as we know, almost no money has been raised to date and they may never succeed in raising the amounts needed. That is their problem. They are not the ones asking taxpayers to foot the bill.