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'No' painted on church sign, was it graffiti, or vandalism?

By Shannon Burkey

Although two signs at the St. Archangel Michael Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church were recently vandalized--one with a big, red "No" spray painted across it--church officials say they don't hold any grudges and would like to move on.

"We want our church to be a beautiful part of this community," said John Ivancovich, president of the church's board of directors. "We don't want to concern our efforts on the minor defacing of the signs."

The vandalism occurred on June 20, one week after a heated planning commission meeting that lasted nearly six hours, where church members and neighbors of the church turned out in force to speak before the commission on the modification of the church's outdated use permits.

Neighbors of the church have complained over the years that the noise and parking situation at the church are unbearable. Among other things, they also were against the church having a liquor license and restaurant permit and holding late-night dances.

The church, however, is required by the county to hold a restaurant permit because of its fully operational commercial kitchen. Church officials said they use the kitchen for church-related lunches and dinners. As for the liquor license, officials said they have had it for many years and they do serve alcohol at some of the events they hold.

Neighbors asked the commission to do away with the liquor license and restaurant permit as well as put parameters around the church's functions and activities.

The commission decided to leave the church's activities and functions open to those things directly related to the religious objective of the church. To address the noise complaints, it placed times of operation on the church.

As far as the food and liquor license, the commission modified the use permit to say the church could still offer both but only in situations incidental to the church's "organized religious worship, education or objectives."

"What the planning commission decided was pretty reasonable," Ivancovich said.

Not all of the neighbors agreed, however, and a neighborhood group has since appealed the commission's decision.

Ivancovich said the church, which is in the process of drawing up plans for a new sanctuary, has been working with the neighbors to make things more agreeable for both sides, and he won't speculate on who is responsible for the signs.

"We don't know who did it, but we don't think any member of the neighborhood task force had anything to do with it--they are above that," Ivancovich said. "It could have just been kids playing a prank. We're not reading too much into what happened with the signs."

Jolie Houston, attorney for the church, said she thinks there is a little bit more to the defacing of the signs.

"This was not graffiti, it's vandalism. It should be classified as a hate crime," she said.

But church officials just want to move forward with their plans and not dwell on the past.

The church has been working on the designs for its new sanctuary for the past seven years and even changed the architect and the design after the neighbors said they did not like it.

"We've gone through a lot of effort and design to build a beautiful church that will be an asset to Saratoga," Invancovich said.