Many a young adult who has waited far too long to end a soul-draining job or relationship has bolstered him or herself by thinking “at least now I know what doesn’t work.”
Tom Gram, a veteran litigator turned mayor of Tiburon, can feel their pain.
A proposed compromise in Congregation Kol Shofar’s three-year odyssey to expand its outdated facility submitted by Gram’s town council met such vociferous opposition from both the synagogue and neighbors opposed to expansion that the mayor admits all he can glean from a stormy Feb. 7 meeting is he knows what doesn’t work.
That meeting was adjourned at 11 p.m. when “the court reporter’s fingers were worn to the bone,” Gram said. He said he offered to record the testimony from that point forward to be transcribed at a later date. But lawyers for both the synagogue and the neighborhood groups opted to continue the meeting to Wednesday, Feb. 21, which mystified him.
“It was a little disappointing. We thought our approach might be an adequate compromise. Between now and the middle of next week we will have to come up with another approach,” said the mayor.
But getting the two sides to agree is appearing more and more to be a task akin to untying the Gordian Knot.
“The sides are so diametrically opposed and it’s gotten to the point where they’re so paranoid and distrustful of each other that they can’t sit and talk reasonably,” said Gram.
While Kol Shofar officials were cautiously optimistic with the council’s compromise measures in November of last year, a provision inserted shortly before the issue was resumed this month alarmed the congregation.
The council’s “Provision 2” restricted temple usage of its facility, imposing maximum numbers of attendees at activities on days other than Shabbat or a list of major Jewish holidays. Larger events would require a 10-day notice to the town’s director of community development.
The provision drew a stern letter from Jonathan Bernstein, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, who stated such an action was not legally defensible under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2001 (Kol Shofar earlier enlisted the legal backing of the Becket Fund, which specializes in such cases).
Ron Brown, a member of the synagogue’s building committee, was “mind-boggled” about having to “count the number of Jews who come into the synagogue.”
Gram said the council never intended to micromanage and the numbers and hours listed in the provision were flexible. But he noted that it hardly mattered now, as objections to the provision from both parties have rendered it moot.
Stephan Volker, the lawyer representing Kol Shofar’s neighbors, did not return several phone calls from j.
Gram said he wished Kol Shofar could just build its extension and the synagogue, neighbors and town council could hammer out any problems that cropped up.
Brown said that moving ahead with the expansion process was Kol Shofar’s only choice — earlier this decade the synagogue seriously explored the vicinity for open plots of land and came away empty-handed.
“Besides that, this has been our home for 22 years,” he adds.
The process so far, however, has not been cheap. The synagogue has employed outside counsel in addition to the Becket Fund, as well as architects and engineers. The cost of building adds up every day Kol Shofar cannot put shovels into the ground.
While Brown would not rule out the possibility of a compromise that leaves everyone satisfied — or equally unsatisfied — it seems a very real possibility that the process will be lengthy and even litigious.
“It looks like this is going to take a long time,” Brown admitted.