Glen Ellyn board says no to Jehovah's Witnesses church's brochure rack

A request from a Jehovah's Witnesses church to set up a brochure rack on downtown public sidewalks has been denied by a split vote of the Glen Ellyn village board.

Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, located near Glen Ellyn, wanted to place the movable rack on the sidewalk in conjunction with its street ministry activities.

Activities like street ministry and evangelizing are protected by freedom of speech, but village code prohibits placement of structures on public sidewalks. Using the movable brochure rack had to be approved by the village board.

Although the church could have conducted its ministry on the sidewalk without the rack as often as it wanted, the rack could have only been used twice a month for three months under the proposed license agreement. It also would have allowed use of the rack between 6:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. or between 3:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at two specific locations.

Four village trustees cast the deciding no votes, but Trustees Tim Elliott and Dean Clark supported the plan.

"I think we ought to approve it," Elliott said, "and if staff comes back to us and says, 'Look this just created a firestorm of protests and issues and traffic problems,' well, then we've learned our lesson and we know that when this applicant or others come to us in the future, we can say no"

Although Trustee Pete Ladesic said he supported the ministry, he had an issue with the rack.

"We had quite a bit of discussion about retail sales tax-generating vendors on our sidewalks and I don't want us to open the floodgates that every group that wants to put a rack on the sidewalk is going to be allowed to do that," he said.

Ladesic suggested the village could help the church contact the Glen Ellyn Chamber of Commerce or the Alliance of Downtown Glen Ellyn to work with retailers on possibly putting the rack on private sidewalks.