By PAUL HAMMEL
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — Native American activists were back protesting Monday morning at the site of a housing development planned near Wilderness Park, across the road from a location for sweat lodge ceremonies.
Lincoln police were called to the site after activists blocked equipment that began removing trees from the site Monday morning.
Tree removal work was reportedly at a standstill at the site of the Wilderness Crossing development late in the morning, after police negotiated a suspension of the work and standoffs between protesters and the equipment.
“We’re upset,” said Erin Poor, a spokeswoman with the Niskithe Prayer Camp, a protest camp erected in May (and later dismantled) to object to the proposed development.
Activists, Poor said, had expected that after a lawsuit filed by city was dismissed last week, a public hearing would be scheduled so that an appeal could be heard of the development’s OK by the city Board of Zoning.
But Poor said that late Friday it was learned that no appeal hearing would be scheduled. With tree removal imminent, protestors re-established a tipi camp across the road and returned to the site.
She said the legal team working with the Niskithe Prayer Camp planned to meet later Monday to decide on next steps.
A phone message left with the Lincoln city planning department was not returned immediately Monday morning.
The activists have protested the development, maintaining that it would disrupt sweat lodge ceremonies conducted across the road. They contend that the city failed to consider that, as well as impacts on flooding in the area, in granting permission for the development.
Officials with Manzitto Construction maintain they have followed all city rules in gaining an OK and have made concessions to create a buffer between the housing and the sweat lodge site.
Plans for Wilderness Crossing include 162 single-family homes, 134 townhomes and 205 apartment units.
Some commercial space is planned on the property, which was cropland that the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln sold to the development.