masslive.com
(TNS)
Quincy city officials will not install two controversial, 10-foot-tall Catholic saint statues on the front of the city’s new public safety building until a judge decides whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction requested by 15 residents who are suing Mayor Thomas Koch over the statues, The Patriot Ledger reported Tuesday.
If granted, the injunction would prohibit city officials from installing the statues or spending more public funds on them until a final decision on their legality is rendered.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Norfolk County Superior Court in May with the help of the ACLU of Massachusetts, claims that the bronze statues violate a clause in Article 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights that states that “all religious sects and denominations ... shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”
It also alleges that Koch unilaterally decided to commission the statues, which depict Saint Michael and Saint Florian — the Catholic patron saints of police and firefighters, respectively, and that he and other city officials kept plans for their creation and installation out of the public eye for years.
While the public remained in the dark about the statues, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were allocated for their creation without the approval of the City Council, the suit argues.
A hearing on the preliminary injunction could be scheduled for July 28 or earlier, the Patriot Ledger reported. City officials requested that they be given until July 9 to file court documents supporting their opposition to the injunction.
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