Fort Hall - More than 100 people packed the Tribal Council Chambers in Fort Hall on Monday for a public hearing in front of the Land Use Policy Commission regarding a controversial project proposed by a self-proclaimed religious sect currently residing on Reservation Road.
An estimated three dozen members of The Church of the Firstborn and General Assembly of Heaven moved into the Reservation Road home owned by Joseph Ahlstrom earlier this summer.
Neighbors complained at the meeting that the home and adjacent property are serving as residence to more than 30 people. Jennie Bloxham, whose home is just to the east of the Ahlstrom property, said the location, which now sports a new, six-foot high fence, includes the primary home and a handful of trailers.
"My biggest concern is there is already 30 to 40 people living on the property," Bloxham said.
Another concern of Bloxham's is the stress the number of people living on Ahlstrom's property may be placing on a well shared by four homes, including hers and Ahlstrom's.
What has stirred the debate over this group's occupancy on Reservation Road is the proposal to build a nearly 18,000-square-foot, motel-like structure on the property that will stand three stories high and include 38 rooms.
Fort Hall resident Harvey Parker told the Land Use Policy Commission that he is concerned about the damage that may have already been done to the aquifer and adjacent soil because of several "incidents" with the Ahlstrom home's septic system he has "heard about."
"I get concerned when there are that many people on one septic system," Parker said. "Have they already contaminated the aquifer?" While many of the concerns addressed at the meeting had to do with the number of people who could live on the property if the proposed structure was built and the commercial appearance it would bring to the rural residential neighborhood, worries about the nature of the group were clearly present.
One woman, toward the end of the meeting, berated representatives of the group, asking them why they needed to have so many children.
After the meeting, a Reservation Road neighbor asked Geody Harman, a member of the group, why they didn't simply purchase 50 acres in the middle of nowhere and build on that property.
Harman was overheard telling the neighbor that the group could not afford what he was proposing. Harman declined to comment directly to the media after the public hearing ended.
Some of the controversy surrounding The Church of the Firstborn and General Assembly of Heaven stems from uncertainty as to just what this group's practices and beliefs are.
The group has yet to make any formal statement about its intentions in Southeast Idaho, but it does have a Web site, thefirstborn.org, dating back to its days in Magna, Utah.
According to the site, Terrill Dalton, president and founder of the church, was told by God around 2000 that he was one of the "Two Witnesses," written about in the Bible. He wrote on the Web site that he then began to question some of the things he was taught during his upbringing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"Now God in his great understanding of things had already caused me to start a church called the Church of the Firstborn. So when the LDS leaders decided to excommunicate me from the church, things had already progressed to the point that it really did not matter, for the Lord himself came down and laid His hands upon my head and blessed me with all the keys, priesthoods, and gifts, and ordained me as the first elder in the Church of the Firstborn," Dalton writes on the Web site.
In early July, as church members prepared to move en masse to the Reservation Road home, their Magna residence was raided by the Secret Service, the FBI and child protection investigators amid allegations that church members were abusing their children, according to a KSL-TV story dated July 4.
In that story, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office said it found nothing to substantiate claims of former church members that included wishing to harm President Barack Obama, and former President George W. Bush.
Dalton's church is also mentioned on www. ldsmovement. pbworks.com , a Web site run by Latter Day Saint Movement, a group that devotes itself to chronicling the schisms within the Latter Day Saint Movement.
Acording to that site, the church practices polygamy and the law of consecration.
After Monday's meeting, Tony Galloway Sr., chairman of the Land Use Policy Commission, said he had expectations of a large crowd based on the number of calls the Tribal Council's office received prior to the meeting.
He also said there were some concerns the debate could become heated. "We had a cop here," he said with a smile.
