GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — The Grand Haven City Council has approved a resolution that would limit access to the Dewey Hill property, where a 48-foot tall cross has been the cause of much debate in recent months.
According to City Manager Pat McGinnis, the council voted 3-2 Monday to remove the cross and replace it with an anchor. Part of the resolution allows the U.S. Coast Guard to replace that anchor display with a more permanent memorial.
“The City legally cannot and should not selectively allow displays if that selection could even be perceived as based on the content of the displays,” the resolution says in part.
Dewey Hill is considered a “critical dune,” as part of the 1994 Michigan Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, and the resolution is also targeted at preserving it from “adverse impacts” and limiting intrusion and erosion.
“You can look up there and see an anchor and think it’s a cross in your mind,” Grand Haven Mayor Pro-tem Michael Fritz said, according to MLive. “The anchor is more acceptable in everybody’s eyes. We have to move forward.”
According to MLive, Grand Haven councilman Robert Monteza read a statement supporting the Dewey Hill resolution, saying that the council doesn’t own the hill but are “caretakers of it for future citizens.”
John Hierholzer, another council member who supported the resolution, added that potential legal battles were part of the reason he supported it. According to MLive, he said the council has already spent $12,000 on it without even going to court.
Grand Haven Mayor Geri McCaleb vehemently opposed the resolution and voted “absolutely not,” MLive reports. Councilman Dennis Scott also voted against it.
Opponents of the Dewey Hill cross say that its display on public land violates the separation of church and state.
