CASCO – The religious signs and statues atop Hacker’s Hill in Casco will need to come down before state funds are used to purchase the site, but the naturally formed cross can stay.

The compromise was announced Monday in a letter from the board of Land for Maine’s Future, a state program that is making the donation, to Loon Echo Land Trust, a local group that is raising $800,000 to purchase the hill, a landmark located off Quaker Ridge Road that has beautiful views of the surrounding area.

The Hall family, which tried unsuccessfully in 2009 and 2010 to sell the hill, is happy with the compromise. The cross is one of several religious monuments, statues and signs visitors see when they drive the steep hill to the overlook. Also staying is Jacob’s Well, although the sign will be removed.

“All of the signage comes down, but the cross would stay, which to me was the most important part, so I’m extremely happy with that,” said Jeff Hall, who owns the hill with his father, Conrad Hall. “It would have been nice to have more, but we fully understood there would have to be changes and my dad and I are very happy with that.”

The family wants to sell the hilltop so the aging Conrad Hall can retire. The family contracted with Keller Williams/Cathy Manchester Team in fall 2009, but the property didn’t sell, partly due to the Hall’s insistence that the public be allowed continued access.

Last May, the family signed a contract with Loon Echo allowing the land trust a year to raise $700,000 for the mostly cleared 27 acres at the top of the hill, as well as $100,000 for continued maintenance. So far, the land trust’s executive director, Carrie Walia, says the group has raised $520,000.

Jeff Hall credits Walia with brokering the deal with the state that ends months of doubt whether the family and state could compromise on the religious imagery atop the hill. If a compromise couldn’t be reached, the state could have pulled its $220,000 pledge. The sides ultimately agreed that because the cross was formed naturally – during a storm in the early 1990s – the state would be immune from religious-based discrimination lawsuits.

“The cross was more of an act of nature, because we had very little to do with it, except for trimming it down afterward because we were afraid someone would get hurt as the tree began to rot,” Jeff Hall said. “Carrie Wallia expressed that sentiment to the Land For Maine’s Future Board, and they decided to let it go at that. So we thank Carrie for stepping to the plate for us, and it’s a compromise that I think everyone can live with.”

Walia is pleased with the compromise, but said the cross will not be painted and weatherproofed, as it has been in the past.

“The Loon Echo Land Trust board has agreed to leave the cross in place, but we will not be maintaining it to the same level as it is currently maintained,” she said. “We’re going to treat it more so as a natural structure that has to weather the elements on its own. So there will be one day when the roots will die and the cross may naturally have to come down if it becomes more of a hazard.”

Don Fowler, who led informal worship services on top of the hill for years and helped maintain the cross, is sad to see the religious signs and statues go, but is glad the cross will stay.

“Jeff and Conrad and myself have been in perfect harmony. We’re still in harmony, we just have to make some concessions to satisfy the whims of the world,” Fowler said.

Jody Harris, director of program services at the State Planning Office, which acted as a go-between for the Attorney General’s Office and Land For Maine’s Future board in the matter, said the compromise removes any potential violation of the First Amendment’s freedom of religion, which doesn’t allow government to show favoritism to any one religion.

In its opinion on the hill’s religious imagery, Harris said the attorney general “talked in general terms about what the Establishment Clause says and what we need to be watchful of, and with that general guidance we made the determination that what Loon Echo was proposing met their needs and met our needs and kept us on the right side of the Establishment Clause.”

Fowler also said he intends to continue to hold services on the hill.

“We’re going to attempt it. The owners have requested that, the Hall family,” Fowler said.

Fowler and the Halls will continue to maintain the hill this summer, according to Jeff Hall, allowing the land trust to finalize a management plan.

Walia said her group is still soliciting money and writing grants in hope of raising the remaining $270,000 by the end of the contract period in mid-May. If the group is unable to attain the $800,000 by then, Walia said, the land trust could take out a bridge loan to cover the remaining figure.

“We’re pleased we’re able to get past this issue and focus now on determining the public uses of Hacker’s Hill and developing a management plan and hopefully working with community members to maintain the hill,” Walia said.

Hacker’s Hill in Casco (Staff photo by John Balentine)