In an abrupt about face, plans to finish the half-constructed 70-foot cross on Tumwater Mountain overlooking Leavenworth were scrapped this week. The decision comes after months of community pushback followed by a bizarre flip flop from Chelan County Commissioner Shon Smith after a pair of meetings in Leavenworth this month.
On Tuesday evening, Smith showed up at a Leavenworth City Council meeting in which councilors were considering passing a resolution against the project. He said he was representing Robert Johnson Jr., who owns the small parcel of land on which the cross was being erected.
But that small parcel is far from the only piece of property Johnson owns in the upper valley. According to county records, he owns the Posthotel, the Enzian Inn, the Linderhof Inn, a private airstrip, Leavenworth’s putt-putt golf course and more. His total real estate portfolio in the internationally-famous tourist town is worth about $38 million.
Smith is also a Leavenworth business owner and a family friend of Johnson’s.
During the meeting he said a “land-swap” with the US Forest Service was in the works.
“I’m here to announce the land swap plan for the Tumwater property is underway, halting the lighting cross project indefinitely,” Smith said.
Smith also claimed Johnson and his family have faced threats because of the project.
“The ridicule and threats the family has endured and the hit to their livelihood is unacceptable,” he said. “I too have felt it at my business and am saddened by how it financially affects my employees and the business I've built.”
Smith did not respond to questions, but the next day Chelan County Public Information Officer Jill FitzSimmons corrected the record.
She wrote in an email that Smith was not representing Johnson or the county commissioners, that he “misspoke,” and the portion of the cross that has already been put up will have to come down.
“No land swap in the works. The commissioner misspoke at the meeting. The USFS clarified this for us today,” FitzSimmons wrote in an email Wednesday. “Yes, the project is terminated. What’s up now will have to be removed.”
As far as the “threats” that Smith said Johnson and his family have received, FitzSimmons wrote that any specific details of that would have to be given by the Johnsons.
When reached for comment, Johnson declined to make a statement or answer questions about that. The only thing he did say was that the Wenatchee World made a mistake in their coverage of this story.
Leavenworth Mayor Carl Florea said he had not heard anything about threats until Smith brought it up at Tuesdays meeting, but he had met with Johnson after news of the project broke. During that meeting, he shared his reservations about the project.
Both men are devout Christians. Florea is even an ordained Lutheran minister, and he said he told Johnson he felt that a giant illuminated cross like that sends the wrong message, will make enemies of neighbors and may even be detrimental to bringing people to Christ.
The pair “agreed to disagree” on the matter and left it at that, he said.
Soon after a petition against the project got more than 16,000 signatures and the issue was a regular topic of discussion in both the media and online. It was an issue that just did not go away.
“I’m guessing he was surprised at just how much opposition there was,” Florea said.
He also said he had never heard about a land-swap until Smith brought it up, and that he didn’t understand Smith’s decisions on Tuesday night. But he said he’s glad he’s not in commissioner’s shoes.
“I’m glad I don’t have to be the one walking back,” he said.
