Kansas county backs off plan for moratorium aimed at peace palaces

SMITH CENTER, Kansas — A rural Kansas county has backed off a plan to keep an affiliate of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement from building a dozen marble “peace palaces” on prime farmland near the geographic center of the lower 48 continantal U.S. states.

The organization, called the Global Country of World Peace, bought large tracts of land in Smith County earlier this year, upsetting some residents.

The three-member county commission on Monday repealed a zoning moratorium passed this summer designed to “preserve the status quo while it could be determined whether zoning regulations could be used to prevent the Global Country of World Peace from using land for the purposes announced by such organization.”

There are no zoning regulations in the rural county area, although a planning commission is studying the idea. Most of rural Smith County is used for farming wheat and corn or as livestock pastures.

County Attorney Allen Shelton said Thursday the commission “passed the moratorium to see if zoning could be used to keep the TMers out.”

He said the repeal came after the commission was told the peace group planned to file a federal lawsuit, claiming violation of its civil rights. Shelton said the group likely would have prevailed.

“The reason they urged the moratorium is they didn’t want the Transcendental Meditation people to locate here,” Shelton said. “You couldn’t use zoning to exclude people for their beliefs. It’s hard to think of a reason for not having an education center in the middle of the county.”

But County Commissioner Arthur Khulmann said the clash is not over.

“We lost this battle, but we’re still hoping to win the war,” he said. “We just hope there’s something else down the line that hasn’t came up yet.”

Altogether, the Maharishi wants to build 2,400 peace palaces in 250 U.S. cities. The TM movement began in the 1950s and traces its roots to India. Practitioners repeat a thought — a mantra — over and over to achieve relaxation, typically for 15 to 20 minutes every morning and evening.

Supporters say TM is a technique, not a religion. But several local pastors earlier this year signed a letter to a local newspaper saying: “They are welcome, but they must understand we are competing for the eternal souls of people.”

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