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After months of discussion, the City Council has approved $2 million in Community Preservation Act funding toward the $4.5 million bell tower restoration at the First Baptist Church in Newton Centre.
The money comes with conditions, however, to allow the community to keep using the property if the church is ever sold.
“In that eventuality, what would happen to the investment, especially given that there was so much attention in the petition that was given to how the space was used by the community?” Councilor John Oliver said.
There were similar concerns in the Finance Committee, Councilor Julia Malakie said.
The Community Preservation Committee’s revised plan, approved by the City Council Monday, comes with new conditions.
Most notably, the church must allow the community to continue using the building. And if the church sells the building, there will be a deed restriction requiring the new owners to allow the community to keep using it.
If whoever buys the building wants to get out of that restriction, they have to repay the city for its investment.
“Quite honestly, I was pretty pleased with what they came back with,” Councilor Leonard Gentile said.
The funding was approved with a vote of 21 to 2, with councilors David Micley and Bill Humphrey voting against it and Councilor Stephen Farrell declining to vote.
Farrell withheld his vote because he supports the restoration effort in principle but was concerned that the church had not presented a fundraising plan for the church’s $2.5 million portion of the $4.5 million project.
Micley said he visited the church recently with his daughter and called it “one of the most amazing buildings I’ve been to, not just in Newton but in Greater Boston.”
He voted against the CPC funding, however, in both the Finance Committee and last night because he opposes public funding for religious buildings.
In 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that—despite the 19th century Anti-Aid Amendment barring public grants from being issued for religious purposes—public funding for religious institutions is allowed if the funding requests fit certain historic preservation criteria.
“Some of our most important historic buildings in Newton are our religious institutions,” Councilor Susan Albright said.
Micley said that a court ruling allowing something doesn’t mean the city has to do it.
“We’re allowed to, but it’s still a question of whether we want to support it and support government funding for religious institutions, and if we do, to what extent,” Micley said.
Micley voted in favor of a $125,000 CPA grant for the Second Church in West Newton, but he said the $2 million CPA grant for the First Baptist Church bell tower was too much for him.
In 2021, Newton’s City Council approved funding to restore the tower at Grace Episcopal Church in Newton Corner.
“To me that’s actually a concern, this pattern,” Micley said. “Not because I have an issue with this, but because there’s an opportunity cost. For everything we fund, we don’t fund something else. Grace Church was $1.43 million, this is $2 million, and the question I’m really asking myself is: How many more of these will we fund, and at what expense? How many historic churches do we have in Newton, and what else are we not going to fund because of that?”
The First Baptist bell tower was erected almost a hundred years ago in honor of Samuel Francis Smith, a 19th century reverend of the church who wrote the famous song, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”