PARK TO HONOR SCIENTOLOGY FOUNDER CAUSES UPROAR Are Scientologists, Hubbard Fans Looking For Government "Matching Money"?

A proposal to erect a picnic complex at a public park in honor of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and post signs along a hiking trail listing his 21 "Way to Happiness" precepts has many folks in the small town of Tilden, Nebraska worried and angry. A local citizens group is threatening to file a lawsuit, and there is a slate of city council candidates explicitly opposing the plan. Critics say that the signs and picnic pavillion clearly violate the First Amendment separation of church and state.

Why Tilden, Nebraska? This small town of 895 citizens happens to be the birth place of pulp sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard, the man who invented Dianetics and the "religious philosophy" which today is promulgated by the Church of Scientology. The connection is tenuous;

according to reports in the Omaha World-Herald, few people in Tilden were aware of the fact that their community could boast such a distinction.

Hubbard's mother, May Waterbury was from Tilden, and L. Ron Hubbard was born in the local hospital on March 13, 1911. "Mrs. Hubbard and her husband left for Oklahoma within weeks of the birth," and that man who claimed to have discovered the "all the wisdom of the world" never returned.

Two years ago, a group known as the Friends of the Park Foundation began raising money for a new city park and trail which would connect with Cowboy Trail, a popular hiking and cycling route. Enter the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard Foundation; the group donated $50,000 to supplement locally-raised money for the park projects, and match a $228,000 federal grant. The Foundation has pledged another $250,000 for the construction of a "picnic pavilion" which would be included in the new park to be officially named the L. Ron Hubbard Park and Recreation Center.

Plans have also been proposed to include signs listing the Hubbard-authored "Ways to Happiness." They include such homespun advice as "Fulfill Your Obligations," "Don't Do Anything Illegal," and "Take Care Of Yourself." Depending on who you talk to, these are important moral lessons, painful elaborations of common sense, or messages designed to promote Hubbard and the Scientology religion.

Members of the Concerned Citizens group insist that the park project involves an attempt to promote the Scientology religion, and that the "Ways to Happiness" qualify as religious statements which have no place on public property. One member told the World-Herald that the proposal was Scientology's attempt to "come in and recruit new members." In addition Concerned Citizens "narrowly missed" putting a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot which would have banned acceptance of money from the Hubbard Foundation; but three anti-Hubbard candidates are now running for City Council.

The local City Attorney is reportedly concerned about the church-state separation dimension of the park flap. Michael Brogan has advised city officials to avoid the potential for lawsuit and reject at least the suggestion to erect the 21 precept signs, and notes that "The more it looks like the city is approving of a particular kind of religion, the more it would violate the notion in the Constitution that requires a separation of church and state." A number of other suggestions have been presented -- such as putting the "Way to Happiness" signs in the park rather than the connecting bike-trail path; while this may avoid entanglement with the federal matching grant, though, it does not solve the problem of religious display or monuments on public property.

The Tilden City Council is expected to take up the problem again at a meeting either next month or in December. In the meantime, the Hubbard picnic pavilion and the "Way to Happiness" markers face a rocky constitutional road ahead.

** (Our thanks to Ron Larsen for background research used in this article.)

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---

From: Emerald <emerald@nym.alias.net>
Subject: Re: CoS in Tilden, Nebraska - RealAudio of Monitor Radio Report
Date: 1997/02/09
Message-ID: <19970209070637.14135.qmail@nym.alias.net>#1/1

Ron Newman <rnewman@cybercom.net> wrote:

> Monitor Radio, the brodcasting arm of the Christian Science Monitor, > carried an item yesterday (Friday 2/8/97) about the Church of > Scientology's attempt to create a park in the small town of Tilden, > Nebraska, to be named after L. Ron Hubbard. It's become a big > political issue there, whether or not to accept money from the "LRH > Foundation" to build this park.

[...] > The RealAudio files are at > > (14.4 format) http://www.csmonitor.com/monitor_radio/ram_files/seg2-2.ram > (28.8 format) http://www.csmonitor.com/monitor_radio/ram_files/seg2-228.ram

There is a mention of this park in the latest Source magazine, which I received (indirectly) from Co$ last week. I suspect this account will differ from the Christian Science Monitor newscast, but since I don't have RealAudio I can't be certain. From Source #104, page 38:

And in Ron's birthplace, Tilden, Nebraska, city fathers have requested a park be created in LRH's name. With the help of the Friends of Ron, a 22 acre park is under construction, complete with baseball field, wildlife refuge and a biking path named The Way to Happiness Trail.

Building this park and this street [L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles] will not only help the residents of Tilden, Nebraska and Los Angeles, but will truly lay the groundwork for similar honors the world over. Given what LRH has done for mankind, there should be at least a park and street named after him in EVERY community on Earth.

"Friends of Ron" is a group of scienos dedicated to promoting Hubbard in various ways. According to Source magazine:

Scientologists, because they have higher awareness and beingness, can generate tremendous influence across the world.

I don't think getting a park in Tilden, Nebraska named after Hubbard can be described as "generating tremendous influence across the world", particularly since they haven't actually done it yet.

An article in American Atheist News (posted a couple of months ago to a.r.s) makes it clear that the minimal success they've had with this project is because of their deep pockets, not their "higher awareness and beingness".

-- Emerald <emerald@nym.alias.net>

What happened to Lisa McPherson?

<http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/lisa.htm>

---

From: rkeller@netaxs.com (Rod Keller)
Subject: Re: The Invasion of Tilden, Nebraska (UPDATE)
Date: 1997/03/13
Message-ID: <5g8soo$bhj@netaxs.com>#1/1

Just reformatted for length.

-----

For the past six months or so, Scientology has been trying to dig its tentacles into the small town of Tilden, Nebraska (population- about 800.)

Tilden is Hubbard's birthplace, and the cult donated lots of money to the city's Park Foundation to build a park in Hubbard's honor, which would include a "Way To Happiness" Trail. The people of Tilden have been fighting back to prevent this. Over the last few months, Scientologists have been seen all over Tilden. It is a small town where everyone knows everybody else, so it is very difficult for cult members to move in without anybody noticing.

I apologize for not being able to provide more frequent updates about the situation there over the last few months. I have been asked to thank the many Scientology critics who came through by sending hundreds of pages of valuable anti-Scieno information to the people of Tilden. I was told that at one point there were so many packages of information coming in to the city- both on paper and on computer disk- that it was like "manna falling from the heavens."

The cult managed to win over three of the city's six council members (it is strongly suspected that certain influential people in Tilden have been receiving auditing, and may be on their way to becoming Scientologists, if they are not already, but alot of this is hearsay and can't be easily proven.) The other three council members have been strongly opposed to the Scientology-sponsored park. The deciding vote is cast by the mayor, who had been waffling back and forth. I have heard from my sources out there that the mayor's family is expecting to get the construction contract for the park, which gives the mayor a financial interest in supporting the park, but he has been torn because so many voters whom he depends on to get re-elected are opposed to it.

All this has been building up to a climactic town meeting which was held last night (March 11, 1997) I still don't have a lot of details, but a message on my answering machine from one of my sources says that the city council voted to approve the park, but ONLY on the condition that there is no reference made to Hubbard, Way to Happiness or anything else that is Scientology related.

This sounds like a victory for the people of Tilden, but I can't help be suspicious about this. After all, the Scientologists have ALREADY given over a hundred thousand dollars to the Tilden Park Foundation. One can assume that the Scienos are expecting something in return for their investment.

If I know Scientology, they will remain quiet for now, wait for the park to be built- with THEIR money- and then start bringing in the L. Ron Hubbard statues and plaques and start hanging them up in the park. By that time the opposition group, thinking they have won their fight, will have dissolved. Even worse, all of the cult's money will have been spent by that time, so even if the city council decided to change its mind about having the park, they won't be able to return the cult's money. This means that the cult will have a permanent investment in the town which they can use for leverage. The cult will say, "Let us have the Hubbard honors that we paid for, or we will sue to get our money back!" The city won't have the money and won't be able to give it back. Besides, a city as small as Tilden could be bankrupted pretty quickly from Scientology litigation. The whole thing smells pretty rotten to me.

There was supposedly a strong media presence at the town meeting last night. If anyone who lives out there finds anything about this in your newspapers or on tv, please post it. Thanks.

---Paul G.

aka "Merchant of Chaos"

-- Rod Keller / rkeller@voicenet.com / Irresponsible Publisher Black Hat #1 / Expert of the Toilet / Golden Gate Bridge Club The Lerma Apologist / Merchant of Chaos / Kha Khan countdown: 9 to go Killer Rod / OSA Patsy / Quasi-Scieno / Mental Bully

---

From: drb@cs.cmu.edu (Dean Benjamin)
Subject: Re: LRH Park Controversy? [in Tilden, Nebraska]
Date: 1996/08/27
Message-ID: <DRB.96Aug27054049@cs.cmu.edu>
organization: Guest of, not affiliated with, CMU, Pittsburgh PA USA

An anonymous observer filed the report below. But first:

The citizens of Tilden, Nebraska, plan a protest rally on September 8.

For their T-shirts, I recommend the "Cult of Greed" cover of the May 6, 1991 issue of Time magazine. Visit the "Xenu's World Tour" website at

http://www.cedar.net/users/dvanhorn/xenu/

Download the T-shirt graphics file (both GIF and Postscript formats are available), send it to a color printer, and take it to your local custom T-shirt store. For around $15 you'll have attention grabbing apparel, *approved* by the ARSCC! The Time article itself is webbed at

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html

For proof of this design's awesome enturbulative PowErZ, we have this excerpt from the report of Xenu's July 27 appearance in Ann Arbor (courtesy of ARSCC Dissem Div):

A few seconds later the t-shirts registered, and perhaps he saw the "Hi! I'm Xenu" nametag on M's chest. He got this confused look on his face and snatched Xenu's ticket back! He also took back the ticket he had given to R. Then he said to S, "What are you doing?

This is not good." S said something noncommittal, R chimed in with a remark about Scientology being a religious cult, and Mr. Clam got really agitated. He started shouting "Dianetics works! Scientology is the fastest growing religion in the world; how can it be a cult?"

-- http://www.cedar.net/users/dvanhorn/xenu/annarbor-art-fair.html

=========================================================================

It seems that there are two bodies of power that the citizens of Tilden are up against. One is the City Council, which consists of 5 voting members and a mayor who has no vote. The other is the Park Foundation, a committee of ten or so people which has been authorized by the City Council to oversee the funding and building of the park.

On Tuesday, August 6, was the first City Council meeting since the controversy started, and the park issue was placed on the agenda. So many people showed up (about 200 -- figure one-fifth of the entire town's population) that the meeting had to be moved to the city auditorium.

About a dozen people spoke against Scientology's involvement with the park, but each person was limited to just a few minutes, and the city council did not allow questions or comments from anyone else. It seems to me the council was simply trying to "handle" the people by letting them speak, but they had no real intention of taking anything they said seriously.

The people learned at this meeting that the Park Foundation had already spent $10,000 in clam money ... $6,000 for surveying and plans, and $4,000 for 2 oil paintings (one was a picture of the future park, and the other was a portrait of L. Ron Hubbard.) These paintings were slated to be sent to L.A. to help raise the remaining $200,000 that is needed to finish the park.

At this meeting the people were also told that there were no Scientologists present, because the councilmembers had asked the clams not to come. But the next morning the people found out that a stranger they had seen at the meeting really *WAS* a Scieno, and this really pissed them off because they felt they had been lied to by the city council.

In the few days before the meeting, many of the townspeople, including my contact person, watched in stunned amazement as mysterious pieces of anti-Scientology literature suddenly started appearing in the small town.

A store that had been out of business for almost ten years received a strange computer disk in the mail, and as curious townspeople passed it around they realized it had files containing some powerful anti-Scieno info!!! Packets of newspaper articles, and videotapes, began circulating around as well. Because only a small amount of Tilden citizens had been concerned about this issue at the time, and because there was virtually no knowledge of the Scientology problem in other towns, and hardly any mention of it in the press, the people couldn't imagine where all this stuff was coming from. There was talk of "angels" outside of Tilden, and the people couldn't believe they had been this lucky to suddenly acquire all this information. [Another BigWin for ARSCC!! - drb]

In the days following the August 6 meeting, some other info came out.

The Park Foundation had received $59,000 from about 15 individual Scientologist contributors. Members of the Park Foundation had been invited out to L.A. for a special meeting with church officials, and while they were there the church had "passed around a hat" so to speak, and got these 15 or so people to donate a few thousand dollars each.

This event had been reported in the Tilden newspaper at the time. But then some new stuff came out, when someone in Tilden came across a *SCIENTOLOGY* publication which not only reported that the Park Foundation members had been to L.A. and received donations, but that the Park people had *RECEIVED SCIENTOLOGY SERVICES* while visiting the church. This was the first evidence that the cult may actually have some of the Park people under mind control. And it has also come out that some of the City Council members have been visiting some of the clams in the Tilden area for "Scientology massages" (better known as "nerve assists.") And the President of the Park Foundation, who has recently gone through a bitter divorce and is deep in debt, has continued to receive Scientology auditing since coming back from L.A., according to her boyfriend. The more the people of Tilden hear about this kind of stuff, the angrier they get.

On Tuesday, August 13, the good guys held a meeting. They are now called the "Concerned Citizens Coalition," or something along those lines (kind of sounds like the folks who are opposing Moon in Bridgeport, doesn't it?) The good news was that the mayor showed up at this meeting to say that he had changed his mind and was now opposed to Scientology. The bad news is that the mayor is the guy who doesn't have a vote.

Three people spoke at the City Council meeting:

1) a 75-year old man, who at one point in his life had a nephew in a cult (possibly Jehovah's Witnesses, but my contact person wasn't sure.) This man had also once been on the Tilden City Council. He said he understands the position that the councilmembers are in, and explained it this way: "When I had a decision to make on the council I asked myself two questions ... 'Is it right with my God?' And 'is it right with the townspeople?' If I couldn't answer 'yes' to both of those questions, I wouldn't support the measure."

2) an attorney who has agreed to represent the Concerned Citizens Coalition pro-bono. He recommended to the City Council that they get some legal advice to sort out the issues of church and state before proceeding with the park plans.

3) the third person to speak was "Marcy", president of the Concerned Citizens Coalition. She asked for a motion to be passed that would put a stay on the Scientology money to prevent the money from being spent until these legal issues were sorted out. She also pointed out that, even though the mayor was not in attendance at this meeting, he had written a letter to the council asking that the park issue be placed on the ballot in November.

All five councilmembers were there, and none wanted to put forth Marcy's motion. As my contact person described it, "Two Hundered people were staring down the city council." Finally one of them made a motion to put a 30-day stay on the Scieno-money. This was followed by dead silence ... my contact person estimates the silence must have lasted for at least five minutes. Then Marcy finally asked, "Isn't anyone going to second it?!" Begrudgingly, someone finally seconded it, and they took a vote.

The motion passed, four to one.

Last night, Thursday, August 22, there was another Concerned Citizens meeting scheduled, but I have not yet heard what happened there. The plan was to circulate a petition among the townspeople. Over the next 30 days, attorneys representing the City Council will meet with the attorney representing the Concerned Citizens. The citizens are thinking about getting an injunction to prevent any further clam money from being raised and spent. They would like to return the remaining $49,000 to the 15 or so clams who donated it, and they want to raise the $10,000 that has already been spent so they can reimburse the Scienos completely. They have a list of each of the clams who donated.

It appears that the clams who had invaded Tilden are all back in L.A., no one has seen them around lately. But there is a rumor that the woman who owns the farm next to the proposed park has sold the land to the clams ... which means there could still be trouble around the corner. This rumor is unconfirmed, however.

On September 7 and 8, the citizens are planning on showing their support for the park by spending the weekend helping to clean up the area. But they only want to do this if they have a guarantee that it will *NOT* be a Scientology park. They are aware of the worldwide picket on the 8th, and my contact person said she would like to see people wearing special T-shirts while they are in the park that day.

---

Reconstituted from a reply to one of Tilman's damn X-No-Archives.

---

BATTLEFIELD TILDEN

St. Petersburg Times May 11, 1997

By MIKE WILSON

TILDEN, NEB. - In a no-stoplight town on the American plain, in a house where the King James Version lies open in the entryway, a woman unfolds her newspaper and begins to read.

The headline in the Tilden Citizen announces, "New Park Groundbreaking Ceremony Held.'' A picture shows 13 people posed shoulder to shoulder, their grins as frozen as the February soil. The mayor, a construction foreman on his afternoon break, has the familiar job of holding the shovel.

A banner in the background says, "L. RON HUBBARD PARK."

L. Ron Hubbard? The woman pauses in her reading, searches her mental files, retrieves a few scant details: Born in Tilden a long time ago, wrote something called Dianetics, founded the Church of Scientology.

The woman read some Scientology pamphlets once, and found them vaguely troubling.

Now she wonders: Is Hubbard the kind of person his hometown should make immortal?

That afternoon, after tidying the kitchen, she fastens her infant son into a stroller and pushes him three blocks to the Tilden Public Library. There, she begins her research, which continues for days.

She copies the 1991 Time magazine cover story describing Scientology as "a hugely profitable global racket" that operates "in a Mafialike manner." She samples the Web sites where critics rage about "the cult of $cientology" and its history of harassing its enemies with lawsuits and dirty tricks. She absorbs a 1995 court opinion that denounces a Scientology legal blitz as "reprehensible," and another that dismisses the church's founder as "a pathological liar."

Among Hubbard's own writings, she finds the Scientology Code of Honor and goes cold at No. 12:

Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.

L. Ron Hubbard Park? The name won't do, Marcie Sextro decides. She has a husband, a house to keep up, three children besides the baby boy, and no experience as an activist. But she knows the park must not keep that name.

Back at the house, the Bible is open to the Gospel of John, and she is certain that Jesus doesn't say anything about just causes.

LOVE AND HELP CHILDREN

A couple of years ago, the city of Tilden, Neb., conducted a survey to see what the town needed most. One thing was a doctor. Dr. Bill Barr was getting along in years, and would eventually retire. Doctors named Barr - Bill Barr's grandfather, then his father and uncle, and now Bill himself - have been taking Tilden's temperature since 1910.

The other thing people wanted was a new park with a ballfield, walking trails, picnic areas, and so on. If Tilden - population 895, according to the sign - was to survive, it had to attract families. A civic group had already given the land. Twenty-two acres.

The City Council created the Friends of the Park Foundation to raise money for the park, build it and maintain it. The park foundation - a feed salesman, a florist, some insurance agents, a few others - decided to seek donations from former Tilden residents who had become famous.

Two people qualified. One was Richie Ashburn, who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. Ashburn's mother, who is in her 90s, still lives in town, and shovels her own front walk when it snows.

The other was Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, who was born at 405 S Oak St.

on March 13, 1911. Hubbard's birth was the beginning and the end of his association with Tilden. His family left town when he was an infant, and he died in 1986 without ever having gone back.

The park foundation sent a letter to Los Angeles and quickly got a response from a group called the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard. This group - which said it was made up of people, mostly Scientologists, who admired Hubbard - was so eager to help that the park foundation never got around to approaching Ashburn.

The Friends of L. Ron Hubbard pledged $50,000 to help build a biking-and-walking trail in the park. Later, they said they'd pay for the whole park, whose cost exceeded $800,000 as the park foundation's vision for it grew grander.

The Friends reached an agreement with the park foundation to name the park after Hubbard and to call the bike path The Way To Happiness Trail.

Hubbard published a pamphlet called The Way To Happiness in 1981. Some of the 21 Ways To Happiness echo the Ten Commandments: "Honor and Help Your Parents," "Do Not Steal," "Do Not Murder." Some offer fatherly advice: "Be Worthy of Trust," "Take Care of Yourself," "Love and Help Children." One recasts the Golden Rule in a curiously relaxed way:

"Try To Treat Others As You Would Want Them To Treat You."

Try?

This was the deal: The people of Tilden could have their park, complete with an ice-skating pond, wildflower meadow and baseball field. All they had to do was name it after Hubbard and post his moral precepts on markers along the Way To Happiness Trail, one every 190 feet.

All this might have happened if Marcie Sextro hadn't picked up her copy of the Tilden Citizen and seen the picture of the groundbreaking.

After she did, Tilden began to experience some of the same fear and confusion that befell Clearwater when the Church of Scientology quietly began buying property there 22 years ago. Clearwater is now Scientology's spiritual headquarters.

Tilden, a cluster of silos, barns and two-story brick buildings 150 miles northwest of Omaha, straddles two counties, Madison on the east and Antelope on the west. Scientology divided the town a second time, with the park foundation people on one side and the Concerned Citizens Coalition - Marcie Sextro and friends - on the other.

People who had known each other since the first grade didn't speak when they met at the bank. Karen Decker, a park foundation member, would not pass through the doors of the Johnsons' grocery store because the Johnsons were aligned with the coalition.

In the midst of all this, strangers arrived from California, people whose religious leader spoke of engrams and thetans and the galactic ruler, Xenu.

The Church of Scientology says its members got involved in the park project on their own, not at the behest of the church. "The fact is that the "church' was never in Tilden," president Heber C. Jentzsch, said in a letter to the Times.

He'd have a hard time convincing Tilden of that.

SEEK TO LIVE WITH THE TRUTH

Three Scientologists visited Tilden in September 1995 as guests of the park foundation. One said she was the director of the L. Ron Hubbard Office of Public Relations International in Los Angeles. The others represented the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard. This, they said, was the private foundation that would give the money for the park.

The Scientologists stayed several days. They took a hayride to the park site. They talked about the kind of tribute they would like to see there. They had lunch. They handed out copies of The Way To Happiness.

They gave some books to the Tilden Public Library. One was called What Is Scientology? That what was the question Tilden had to answer before it decided what to do with the park.

What is Scientology? The church Web site says it is an "applied religious philosophy" that seeks to help the individual "solve his own problems and so better his own life." The church - which in 1993 was declared tax-exempt by the IRS - says Scientology has helped countless people quit drugs and alcohol and live happier and more productive lives.

Here's how: Hubbard said every human being has a "thetan" inside. He once said thetans were sent to Earth, which he called "Teegeeack," by the cruel king Xenu. This was 75-million years ago. Thetans go to Venus when their hosts die.

The trouble with thetans is that they carry "engrams," lingering images of past psychic injuries. Engrams confuse and sicken the beings they inhabit. To overcome these painful memories - to "go clear" - one must receive "auditing."

Auditing is a conversation between a trained Scientologist and the "preclear," or subject. The auditor operates a device called an Electropsychometer, or E-meter, which looks like a futuristic radio with two tin cans attached by cords.

According to What Is Scientology?, the device "measures the mental state or change of state of a person, helping the auditor and preclear locate areas of spiritual distress or travail so they can be addressed."

Scientologists who go clear can become Operating Thetans. OTs can progress through eight levels, with the highest known as Truth Revealed. The church won't say what all this costs, but former members say they have had to pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Marcie Sextro, 32, came across much of this information during her research. The things she read did not make her a friend of L. Ron Hubbard.

She learned that 11 Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, went to prison in the 1980s for infiltrating and burglarizing the IRS, the Justice Department and other agencies to thwart their investigations of Scientology.

And that Hubbard was suspected of stealing millions from the church and socking the money away in Swiss banks.

And that federal authorities were seeking to charge him with tax fraud when his thetan went to Venus in 1986.

The source for much of this was the 1991 Time magazine cover story, "Scientology: The Cult of Greed." The church says the article is full of lies and errors. It filed a $416-million libel suit against the magazine, but a federal judge dismissed the suit last year, saying that "no reasonable jury" could conclude that the statements in the article were published with malice.

There was one other thing that disturbed Sextro. The church says Scientology can be used to supplement other religions, but Christianity apparently isn't one of them. Hubbard said Christ is a myth and heaven "is a very painful lie."

Sextro - who goes to a foot-stomping, hand-waving, tongue-speaking Christian church - took offense at that. So did the Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, and Church of Christ members who were helping her with her research. These people didn't want anybody's religion in the park. And they wanted Hubbard's there least of all.

Sextro and her friends - including another housewife, a teacher at the Lutheran preschool, a bull rancher and an auto mechanic - took their case to the mayor and City Council.

Which, it turned out, couldn't be bothered with it.

BE WORTHY OF TRUST

About the time the Sextro group was doing its research - the spring of 1996 - four members of the park foundation flew to Los Angeles to pick up a $50,000 check from the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard. The money was to be used for the Way To Happiness Trail.

Why didn't the park foundation ask the Scientologists to put the check in the mail?

"It is our responsibility as citizens of Tilden to find out more about L. Ron Hubbard," park foundation leader Dave Decker told the Tilden Citizen.

The park foundation people fulfilled this responsibility by spending three days in a Scientology hotel at the expense of Scientologists.

They attended a reception at the Way To Happiness Foundation, toured the Scientology publishing house and enjoyed a day at Disneyland.

Decker's wife, Karen, received a free auditing session in Los Angeles.

Scientology says the purpose of auditing is to improve one's "beingness." Mrs. Decker reported that her beingness was about the same after the session as it was before.

Dave Decker used to have a feed store on Center Street, but that didn't work out. Now he's building a small shopping center and - like a lot of people in Tilden - raising a few hogs. But mostly he works on the park.

"It's going to be something nice for our children," he says.

Decker, fiftyish, has a broken halo of brown hair, fingers like kielbasas, half-glasses on his nose. His checks bear pictures of Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd. "Most people, when I write a check, figure it's a Looney Tune anyway," he says.

Decker says the town needs tourism for economic development. Including his.

The state of Nebraska is laying a 300-mile bike path that will run through Tilden. Decker backed the park plans in hopes that tourists - including Scientologists - would bicycle into town, veer off into the park and then visit his shopping center.

He has heard that people using the state bike trail will spend $83 a day.

"They gotta spend that someplace," Decker says.

BE COMPETENT

The Concerned Citizens Coalition first approached the Tilden City Council last August. The council usually meets in a room the size of a one-car garage, but so many people came that the meeting had to be held in the gymnasium, between the basketball hoops and beneath the Nebraska state flag. The townspeople sat in the bleachers.

After voting to let the fire department buy a ventilation fan for $850, the council took up the park issue.

Stan Grubb said the Scientologists had to be stopped "before they get a foothold in the community." Jean Marie Shermer waved a copy of the Time magazine story, which the Concerned Citizens had provided to the council. She said she didn't want a tribute to Hubbard in Tilden.

Scott James said Scientology is a religion, not a cult, and everybody should calm down. Council member Darrell Wyatt said Scientologists do some pretty darned good work.

The council took no action. This turned out to be what the council did best. Most of the council members did not read the Time article, or any of the other materials the Concerned Citizens gave them. Some still haven't.

"We have people refusing to be informed," Sextro says.

Not refusing, exactly. Declining. The mayor of Tilden, Steve Rutjens, is the foreman of his family business, Rutjens Construction. He wears a baseball hat that says "Ditch Witch," the name of a company that makes trenchers and plows.

"I don't have time to sit down and read books to figure out what this stuff is. I told them I wished they had an audiocassette," he says. L.

Ron Hubbard, Tilden's most famous son, may have been a genius. Or maybe he was a demented liar. Rutjens really can't say.

The mayor and council members weren't prepared for such a contentious issue. They serve mostly because nobody else wants to, and get paid a couple hundred dollars a year for their trouble. Normally they make easy decisions such as whether to spend $1,000 to replace the brooms on the street sweeper, which they did, but then it broke down again.

When the park controversy started and people demanded that they take a stand, they were taken aback. They hadn't signed up for anything like this.

The Concerned Citizens Coalition didn't let up. It hired a lawyer, a clear indication that things in Tilden had gotten out of hand.

Attorney Mark Albin, whose office is in Norfolk, 22 miles east, made the council members uncomfortable. He pointed out that the City Council had no control over the park foundation. It had no idea how much money the foundation had, where the money came from, or how the foundation was spending it.

This was important because the park foundation had used the $50,000 from the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard to get state matching funds for the Way To Happiness Trail. If the City Council decided not to approve a trail by that name, and if the Scientologists took their money and went home, Tilden would have to come up with $50,000 to make good on its deal with the state.

Albin had another point: What if the city built the trail and somebody sued on the grounds that Tilden had violated the Constitutional separation of church and state?

Not to worry, the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard said. The Way To Happiness is "a common-sense moral code," not Scientology scripture.

Call it religion or call it common sense, the Way To Happiness was making the Tilden City Council miserable.

Finally, Mayor Rutjens came up with a solution. It wasn't exactly Churchillian, but it would have to do.

TRY TO TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO TREAT YOU

The members of the Concerned Citizens Coalition measure their words carefully when they talk about Hubbard and the Church of Scientology.

They don't call it a cult of greed or a racket; they let Time magazine do that. They don't mention that Hubbard falsified his military record, claiming honors he didn't have; they leave that to the Los Angeles Times.

And they don't speculate about what happened to 36-year-old Lisa McPherson, who died under mysterious circumstances after spending 17 days in the Fort Harrison Hotel, the Scientology spiritual retreat in Clearwater. Instead, the Concerned Citizens point to coverage of the case in the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune.

Sextro and the others don't speak ill of Hubbard or the church because they know what happens to people who do. They read about Paulette Cooper, the author of The Scandal of Scientology, who was framed by Scientologists on charges that she made bomb threats against the church. Cooper was indicted by a federal grand jury in 1973, only to be exonerated after the FBI raided Scientology's offices and uncovered the plot against her.

The church says that's ancient history.

Just 18 months ago, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that a church lawsuit against the Washington Post was "reprehensible" because its purpose was to "(stifle) criticism and dissent of the religious practices of Scientology and (destroy) its opponents." The church's Web site says the judge's decision was "erroneous."

Even Dave Decker, Scientology's best ally in Tilden, is frank about the church's tactics. "If you have ever defamed the church, you better be careful, because they'll come after you," he says.

Still, he sees no reason not to honor Hubbard. The Los Angeles City Commission did. If Los Angeles can have an L. Ron Hubbard Way, Decker asks, why can't Tilden have an L. Ron Hubbard Park?

Decker says the park wasn't meant to promote Scientology, and the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard took pains to distance themselves from the church that Hubbard founded. The articles they wrote for the Tilden Citizen never mentioned the word "Scientology."

Early on, Nebraska's Norfolk Daily News (circulation 21,000) published a story saying the Church of Scientology was contributing to the park project. The park foundation demanded a correction, and the paper published one that said the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard are "not associated with the church."

Maybe not, but they certainly were dedicated. One day, Marcie Sextro got a phone call from Dave Decker. Would it be all right if someone from the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard called to talk about the park?

When Kaye Conley called, Sextro switched on her answering machine and said she was recording the conversation. "I didn't trust her," she said. Yes, things had changed in Tilden.

Conley said she didn't know why people were suspicious of the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard. "It appears that it is considered that we have some vested interest," she said.

BEEP! Sextro's answering machine emitted a loud, shrill sound, its way of announcing that it was still recording. Conley gathered herself and went on. But the sound interrupted her again, and then again, and then again, at 15-second intervals. The sound was a distraction at first, then an annoyance, and finally a form of torture.

"Let's just forget that I'm a Scientologist . . ."

BEEP!

"Our children can't be educated because they're so drug-inflicted . .

."

BEEP!

"I don't know where this idea comes from that we worship some kind of devil . . ."

BEEP!

Conley mentioned Scientology's opposition to psychiatry - especially electroshock therapy. "We don't believe you can make a person better by frying his brain . . ."

BEEP!

Conley gave up.

SUPPORT A GOVERNMENT DESIGNED AND RUN FOR ALL THE PEOPLE

This is what Mayor Steve Rutjens told the people of Tilden: I'll do whatever you tell me to do.

If bending to the will of the majority doesn't sound like leadership, the people didn't mind. In a place like Tilden, it's more important to be neighborly than it is to be sure of yourself. A City Council vote on the issue was scheduled for March 11 of this year.

Rutjens' "stand" turned the park issue into a numbers game: Whichever side got the most signatures would get its way, at least with him. In the days before the decisive City Council meeting, just about everybody in Tilden was asked to sign a petition for one side or the other.

Both sides delivered their stacks to the city office before the meeting. Most of the coalition's petitions were signed by longtime residents of Tilden. Some of the names on the park foundation petitions were less familiar: Rivera. Portillo. Morales. Ponce. Perez.

Guajardo. These were Mexican immigrants who live in a trailer park on North Elm and work in the meat-packing plant in Norfolk.

In a city where second-generation families are seen as new blood, the Mexicans are all but invisible. Some people might be inclined to discriminate against them, but they'd have to notice them first.

Some in Tilden didn't appreciate the park foundation bringing the Mexicans into the controversy. "They know nothing about the park and trail," City Clerk Pat Borgelt says. Decker seized the opportunity to cry bigotry.

Borgelt finished tallying the petitions on the day of the big meeting.

If the council deadlocked, the mayor would know how to vote.

The council held the first part of the meeting in the garage-size room. After voting to solicit bids for the shingling of the fire house roof, the council members got up and walked to to the city gym, where 200 people in a town of 900 sat waiting.

Tilden had a lot at stake. Business people who had taken a position were suffering for it now. Old friends had stopped talking to each other. The mayor had received two letters demanding that he accept the money from the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard. The letters were from his mother and his niece.

Tilden - which had struggled to raise even a few thousand dollars - was now being offered an $800,000 park. All the council had to do was say yes.

The meeting lasted until midnight. The park foundation spoke. The Concerned Citizens Coalition spoke. Mayor Rutjens repeatedly asked the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard what they would do if the city decided not to honor Hubbard. Would they take back the money? The mayor could not get a straight answer.

By a 4-2 vote, the council decided not to name the park for Hubbard, and not to build the Way To Happiness Trail. The mayor didn't have to vote.

After the meeting, the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard took back their $50,000 and left town.

FULFILL YOUR OBLIGATIONS

A lot of people in Tilden don't want to talk about Scientology now.

The Lutheran pastor has no comment. Jeannene Kerkman, of the park foundation, doesn't return calls. The wife of park foundation member Duane Eggers says, "He isn't available." As in, ever.

But few people don't want to talk about Scientology as much as Jerry Fields doesn't want to talk about it. Something, or someone, has made this Nebraska insurance man as edgy as a little boy in the dark. He sits behind the desk in his office, not talking. He won't even talk about why he won't talk.

"I really don't want to be in this," he says, meaning this newspaper story. Or this office, this town, this area code.

Fields is the only person in Tilden who was on both the park foundation and the City Council. As a park foundation member, he seconded the motion to make a deal with the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard.

Later, in a City Council meeting, he voted against holding a public referendum on the park issue. Clearly, the Hubbard people had him on their side.

Then some of the coalition members cranked up the heat. They told him they would take their business elsewhere if he didn't vote their way.

He could lose his livelihood. The Scientologists pressured him, too, he says. But he doesn't want to talk about it.

Jerry Fields empties his lungs with a long, shrinking sigh.

"People are cruel," he says.

He was among those who ultimately voted against honoring Hubbard. Soon after, he quit the City Council and focused on selling insurance.

Hanging on the wall of Fields' waiting room is a plaque that the Friends of L. Ron Hubbard gave him before he turned on them. It is inscribed with a quotation from Hubbard:

"On the day when we can really trust each other, there will be peace on Earth."

-- ptsc

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