Bernards, Islamic Society headed to mediation

BERNARDS - A federal lawsuit over the township's denial of a proposed mosque starting is heading to mediation next month.

United States Magistrate Lois Goodman ruled Friday that the lawsuit between the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge and the township will be mediated by retired U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano starting on Sept. 23.

If the mediation process does not reach a resolution, then the lawsuit will proceed toward a court trial.

Goodman's ruling came a day after Adeel A. Mangi, lawyer for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, sent a letter to the judge alleging that "a campaign of false and malicious press statements" is continuing. 

Mangi cited an interview by Mayor Carol Bianchi to Fox News, in which he said she "attacked" both the congregation and the Department of Justice for launching an investigation into the township's action.

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In the Aug. 8 interview, Bianchi said the dispute "is a land use matter. It never was about religion."

After the interview, Mangi wrote, the congregation and its president, former township mayor Mohammed Ali Chaudry, "received a volley of hate mail" which contained obscene language and images.

The case drew national attention when the Department of Justice decided shortly after the lawsuit was filed in March to investigate whether the township violated religious freedom laws when the mosque plans were denied..

In the 100-plus-page lawsuit, the congregation and Chaudry, who served six years on the township committee, including one year as mayor, and six years on the school board, argues that that planning board's denial of the mosque proposal in December, after conducting 39 public hearings over four years, was illegal.

The congregation wanted to build a 4,252-square-foot mosque on Church Street in the township's Basking Ridge section with a 1,954-square-foot prayer hall that, the lawsuit says, met all zoning requirements. The congregation purchased the property for $750,000.

Yet, the lawsuit says, the opposition within Bernards "evolved into a well-funded machine" that coached objectors to express their opposition on land use terms, not because it was a mosque.

That led to opponents raising "one unreasonable and picayune land use objection after another," which, the suit charges, resulted in the planning board making "serial demands based on novel interpretations of the zoning law that had never been applied to any other applicant."

But the congregation "bent over backwards" to meet the board's demands, but ended up with having to meet more conditions, according to the lawsuit.

Those demands included the number of parking spaces, stormwater calculations, a buffer and light from headlights in the parking lot.

The suit also charges that the planning board placed stricter demands on the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge than it did on other houses of worship, including the Millington Baptist Church, Congregation B'nai Israel, Chabad Jewish Center and the Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church.

Hearings on the plan began in August 2012 and did not end until December 2015.

In May, a group of nearly 20 national religious groups, including Jews, Baptists and Evangelicals, joined the Islamic congregation's legal fight.

In a brief, the group, under the umbrella of The Beckett Fund for Religious Freedom, said that the township planning board's denial of the mosque is "an affront to our nation's commitment to religious liberty for all."

Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com