Group wants monument back

BOISE – Members of a group trying to get a religious monument put on city property say they have turned in enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

The Keep the Commandments Coalition gave 18,507 signatures to the city clerk’s office Friday, almost 10,000 more than is needed to force a vote.

But Mayor David Bieter said that even if the signatures are valid, he has no plans to hold an election on the group’s initiative to put a new Ten Commandments monument at Julia Davis Park.

The city removed the old monument earlier this year in an effort to head off a legal challenge from a Kansas-based group that wanted to put its own, anti-gay monument in the city park.

The initiative by the Keep the Commandments Coalition is invalid, Bieter said, because it relates to an administrative act instead of an ordinance.

City code specifies that initiatives must serve to enact ordinances.

Having an initiative to tell the city to put a monument in a park is like having one to tell the city to buy more police cars or install more sprinklers, he said.

Bryan Fischer, a Boise pastor and coalition member, said Bieter’s refusal would disenfranchise Boise citizens of the right to vote.

“The Ten Commandments were removed by a legislative act. They can be returned by a legislative act,” he said.

The coalition has threatened to sue the city to force the election if enough of the signatures are valid. Bieter said he welcomes the legal challenge.

The city will determine how many of the signatures are valid within the next two weeks, officials said.