A federal judge has rejected a Belfast church’s attempt to stop the University of Maine System’s sale of the local Hutchinson Center to a nonprofit organization.
On Wednesday morning, Judge Stacey Neumann issued a decision denying the preliminary injunction that Calvary Chapel Belfast sought to block the system’s sale of the center to Waldo Community Action Partners.
Calvary Chapel Belfast has already filed an appeal of the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
“We’re disappointed with the judge’s decision, but everything’s far from over, as far as we’re concerned,” said Greg Huston, lead pastor for the church, in response to the decision. “We know that, even if Waldo CAP were to purchase it, the sale could be unwound based on further litigation, so we’re just embracing that it’s going to be a long road for everyone.”
The ruling Wednesday came following months of legal wrangling, after the UMaine System initially offered to sell the shuttered Hutchinson Center to the church, but then withdrew the offer and solicited a new round of bids. That culminated in the new offer last fall to sell the facility to Waldo CAP, which provides a variety of services in the region.
The UMaine System has said that it changed course after realizing that the original criteria for judging the bids were incorrect because they did not take into account the fees the system would have to pay the new owner to lease back an internet access hub at the site. The system has also said that Waldo CAP made a better offer in the second round, in part because it offered to pay $3.06 million for the property, compared to $1.1 million offered by Calvary Chapel Belfast and $1.8 million offered by another bidder.
But the church has argued in its lawsuit that it was the victim of religious discrimination and that the UMaine System was caving to public pressure after a backlash against the initial sale offer.
Neumann, who previously denied Calvary Chapel Belfast’s request for a temporary restraining order on the sale, said in her order on Wednesday that the church failed to back up its claims of discrimination with “any direct or circumstantial evidence to connect community animus” to the system’s decisions regarding the Hutchinson Center.
Neumann pointed back to her ruling against the restraining order, noting that “the Court found no evidence of bias from within the System and found no procedural irregularity probative of the System’s intent to adopt the bias of outside parties.”
While system officials “may have been mistaken about whether [they] were required to rescind the award to the Church in order to leave the [internet] hub in place permanently,” Neumann wrote, that would not change the fact that cost savings were the main factor behind the system’s decisions.
In a statement about the court’s decision, the UMaine System welcomed Neumann’s ruling and reiterated its previous arguments that it does not discriminate and that its decisions were mainly based on the best financial outcomes for the taxpayer-funded institution.
“Today, the Court upheld that the transparent, competitive process through which our System has sought to sell the Hutchinson Center offered fair opportunity to all parties,” officials said. “The System will continue to defend itself in any further proceedings on this matter.”
The system did not address the status of its sale of the Hutchinson Center to Waldo CAP, in light of the court ruling.
Waldo CAP officials did not respond to a request for comment.