The Church Invisible

Even a simple country political blog will have to acknowledge a religious confrontation over land ownership that has been dominating the news lately. Your LakeCountyEye, of course, refers to efforts by the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church to buy land from the South Barrington Park District.

Local interests had united to stop the sale of park district land to the religious organization:

The pending sale of land by the South Barrington Park District to a small, relatively unknown church group grew into a resident upheaval that included a lawsuit, but ended Wednesday with cancellation of the purchase, uncertainty about what's next and the resignation of a park board commissioner.
South Barrington park board votes to halt land sale to Plymouth Brethren Christian Church after clash with residents and being sued. A park commissioner quit amid the vitriol, citing 'nonsense.'

The tract of land is called AREA N. And while the "N" stands for NIMBY, the religious organization was recently able to obtain the land by operating under the guise of a shell company:

South Barrington Park District officials didn't learn a religious group was behind the winning bid for 34 acres of public parkland until two weeks after the $2.3 million sale was finalized, they revealed Tuesday. A limited liability company called Area N Development was the winning bidder for the land at Bartlett Road and Route 59, a wooded spot known to many as Area N, during a Feb. 28 auction. The park district closed the deal on March 7. Area N Development was created in Delaware about a week before the auction, public records show. It wasn't until March 22 that Schaumburg-based Fourth Avenue Gospel, which is owned and operated by members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church and was behind a failed effort to acquire the property in 2023, publicly admitted it invented Area N Development to buy the land.
Officials say they didn't know religious group was behind land buy until after it was completed

In other news, a spokesman for the Waukegan Airport said: "So, you can obtain public parkland without disclosing your true identity? Tell me more!"