Supervisor Pete Candland called into The Larry O’Connor Show to address the controversy surrounding Prince William Board of County Supervisors approving a mosque being built in the rural crescent.

While the Board unanimously approved the zoning permit for the mosque, the supervisors were divided on allowing the mosque to be connected to the public sewer pipeline. During the interview, Supervisor Candland said Chairman at-large Corey Stewart did ‘something  very unusual’; Chairman Stewart ordered a motion to reconsider from the individuals who supported the mosque being connected to the sewer pipeline. Supervisor Candland continued by accusing Chairman Stewart of pressuring Supervisor Jenkins​ to vote yes for the sewer.

After returning from break, Chairman Stewart weighed in on the controversial sewer vote. During the interview Chariman Stewart stated ‘federal law trumps local code’, quoting the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and § 1983 of the United States Code. He further explained:

In 2013, we approved a motion, by Supervisor Candland, that approved the church in 2013 with the sewer hookup, and in fact it went further than that because the resolution said and in the future we say that the Board finds that the rural crescent is an appropriate place for religious institutions. And secondly, if you’re going to have a religious institution in the rural area, it should be by sewer not by septic. So if we had denied the mosque or the sewer to the mosque that would have been Exhibit A. We would have lost in federal court and Prince William County would be under a consent order by DOJ and it would have been millions of dollars, we would have a mosque at any [inaudible]. So I had to do what I had to do to protect the county.

Chairman Stewart also addressed Supervisor Candland’s accusations that he pressured another supervisor to change his vote. Chairman Stewart explained the vote was originally 5-3 in favor of the sewer, however the clerk accidentally cleared the board before announcing the vote. In an effort to fix the error, Chairman Stewart instructed the supervisors to re-vote, which resulted in a tie, 4-4. In response to the tied vote, the Chairman asked for a vote to reconsider.

At the conclusion of Chairman Stewart’s interview, Brentsville’s Supervisor Jeanine Lawson shared her knowledge of a court case in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which a church in Newport News loss in a similar case.

Dalton Bennett and Julie Zauzmer of the Washington Post recently pinned an article, After a marathon late-night debate, Prince William County mosque plan approved, about the mosque. An excerpt of the article is below:

On one side, impassioned Prince William County residents dressed in green shirts argued that constructing a new house of worship would disrupt their quiet community, choke the roads with traffic and go against the zoning regulations meant to protect the rural enclave. [Read More]

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