Pueblo City Council votes against mayor, approves settlement with church over RV code
Editor's note: This story has been updated to mention that Nick Gradisar is seeking an additional term as Pueblo's mayor.
Pueblo’s mayor and members of city council don’t always agree on what to do.
On Monday night, all of city council voted against Mayor Nick Gradisar’s advice to avoid settling a lawsuit with a local church.
City council voted unanimously to approve a settlement with the Christian Growth Center, a church on the East Side that sued the city over enforcement of its recreational vehicle ordinance.
The settlement stipulates that the city will pay $40,000 to the church's Pastor Paul Elder, mostly to cover his attorney fees, and that the city will allow the church to maintain an RV spot at their location.
Church's attorney calls settlement a ‘historic moment’
Elder’s attorney Andrew Nussbaum, whose Colorado Springs-based firm specializes in representing religious and nonprofit organizations, told the Chieftain the settlement is a “historic moment” for the first amendment and religious freedom in Pueblo.
“It's a huge victory and historic in terms of establishing the right of churches and religious people to practice their religion according to the dictates of their conscience — and without interference from the state,” Nussbaum said. “That's a bedrock principle in the United States and it's a really big day for the people of Pueblo.”
Gradisar, who worked as an attorney in Pueblo before he was elected mayor in early 2019, said he opposed the settlement because he thought the case should’ve gone to trial.
“I don't know whether it's a victory — the city council basically surrendered,” Gradisar told the Chieftain, adding that “there wasn’t a battle.”
Why Christian Growth Center sued the city of Pueblo
Christian Growth Center, located at 1906 N. Hudson Avenue, sued the city in early 2022, claiming that the city violated religious freedom when they prohibited RV parking on the church’s land.
City zoning laws prohibit large vehicles in the part of the city where the church is located. The Chieftain previously reported that church officials said they offered RV parking to traveling ministers and others in need of a spot to park for over 30 years.
The lawsuit was filed after Pueblo's Zoning Board of Appeals rejected the church’s motion to appeal the violation of city code in December 2021.
Elder told the Chieftain that the traveling ministry program based out of his church parking lot provides a place to stay for traveling pastors and missionaries.
“For 31 years, they allowed us to do it and didn’t say anything,” Elder said.
A federal law could've helped the church’s legal case
A federal law passed in 2000 “protects religious institutions from unduly burdensome or discriminatory land use regulations,” according to the Department of Justice.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, as well as the First Amendment that protects freedom of religion, grant the church “the free exercise of religion,” Nussbaum said — and that includes the “RV evangelist ministry” whose tradition harkens to the 18th century traveling preachers.
Elder expressed gratitude to his attorneys and said he was ready to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We'd made up our mind that we were going all the way to the Supreme Court to protect liberty, because it was the city that was violating their own federal law that they have to adhere to,” Elder said.
Gradisar calls the settlement the ‘worst-case scenario’
Gradisar, who is running for a second term as Pueblo's mayor, said that settling the case now was a “bad mistake."
"Basically, this is the worst-case scenario for us and we've agreed to it," he said.
“When you go to court, you never know what a judge or jury is going to do,” Gradisar told the Chieftain. “We had no intent to discriminate or interfere with their religious practices, but to claim that it's part of your religion to be able to have people live in an RV in your parking lot — in my mind, that's a stretch.”
He said that there’s now a “slippery slope” for enforcing the city’s zoning restrictions against RV camping — the city first attempted to enforce the RV camping ban in 2021 because of a complaint from a neighbor.
“When people call my office to say, ‘Hey, people are living in the camper,’ I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to tell them,” Gradisar said.
On the other hand, city councilor Regina Maestri, who is also running for mayor, said Monday night that going to court could have cost the city more money if it lost the case.
“We actually got off pretty well here,” Maestri said.
What the city will have to pay after settling
The city caries liability insurance through the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency.
Pueblo budgeted paying up to $400,000 this year for the liability insurance deductible coverage, but “the city is only liable for up to $150,000 per claim,” city spokesperson Haley Sue Robinson confirmed with the Chieftain.
This case runs much less than that $150,000 claim maximum, so the city will have to pay the $40,000 as stipulated in the settlement, as well as compensating outside counsel who worked with the city on the case. Gradisar estimated that’s approximately $20,000 to $30,000.
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Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo settles lawsuit with East Side church over RV code
