CONFERENCE An emotional Pastor Chris Avell of Dads Place Church in Bryan speaks at a press conference regarding the new charge filed against him by the City of Bryan To the right of Avell is First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys and Attorney Ryan Gardner
By: Jacob Kessler
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jacob@thevillagereporter.com
A press conference was held at Dad’s Place Church in Bryan this past week. The conference was held in order to present the church’s case to members of the public. Members of the media were invited to attend the conference at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 2nd.
The conference began with Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys introducing attorney Ryan Gardner and Dad’s Place Pastor Chris Avell.
Mr. Dys began by presenting a timeline of events that have taken place over the past year, with March of 2023 being established as the month homeless individuals were allowed to stay at the church.
“From March of last year, until November of last year, the only contact this church had with the city aside from being a part of the city but with city officials was when police officers would come into come to dad’s place with people to say, hey, these people need a place to shelter overnight or spend a few hours or a few days with. Would you care for them?”
“And of course, the church was more than willing to care for those that they brought to the church as best they could. That’s what all of 2023 was mostly like.”
Mr. Dys continued with the timeline, moving on to when a sign was posted by the City of Bryan at Dad’s Place stating zoning rules were being violated. On December 7th, charges for zoning violations were filed against Pastor Avell.”
“At that point, the attorneys with First Liberty Institute were contacted by Pastor Avell, with the attorneys then having to follow a procedure to participate in the case since they were from out of state.
“We’re not attorneys from Ohio, so there’s a process to become admitted to work here and to gain local counsel. And that takes a little bit of extra time.”
“So, we called the prosecutor and said look, can you back this up just to give us enough time to get on board to get all the dots, the i’s dotted the T’s crossed so we could be able to represent the pastor at his arraignment. I was shocked by the prosecutor’s response, which was look, this is an initial appearance. He does not have to have an attorney there.”
Mr. Dys continued with, “No one should appear unrepresented or at least have the opportunity to have counsel. And when competent counsel says we just need another week to get on board.”
“Professionally, that is almost always granted. The fact that this prosecutor said absolutely not is one more data point in a long string of data points pointing to the city’s aggressive actions.”
Conversation then shifted to a court order that Mr. Dys stated was put in place back on January 24th of 2024, with a portion of the order being read aloud.
“Fire inspections are permitted. However, the defendant is the City of Bryan Ohio. Defendant shall not enforce any alleged violations of the fire or zoning codes without court approval or agreement of plaintiff.”
“And then it goes on, should defendant find an urgent safety need to enforce the Fire Code, counsel, the attorney for the city, counsel should jointly contact chambers to schedule another conference.”
It was then stated that the fire inspector came into Dad’s Place a week later at 5:00 a.m. and performed an inspection. At that time, Mr. Dys stated no citations were issued or corrections asked for.
Mr. Dys further states that, since January 24th, numerous corrective actions have been undergone including the removal of burners from the stove, the removal of a washer and dryer, not using the oven for anything that could cause grease, testing and updating fire extinguishers, properly working exit signs, installation of new GFCI electrical outlets, crash bars added to doors, removal of locks on doors and the leasing of two new apartments.
“So, we’ve not been sitting around doing nothing. We worked diligently to comply with whatever the city is asking us to comply with. But it never seems to stop.”
“There’s always one more thing that needs to be done. For instance, last Wednesday, the fire marshal again came through these doors at five in the morning, walked throughout the entire building unabated, uninvited, and without any announcement.”
“And after that, without going to the court, as the court has told us he wanted him to do on January 24 in his order. Issued a citation enforcing the fire codes of Bryan, Ohio.”
Mr. Dys spoke about the citations issued, with one of those citations citing the need for a sprinkler system. This, Mr. Dys stated, is the first time this issue has been brought up, even though previous inspections have taken place.
Following the issue of citations being issued, Mr. Dys went on to address some of the items listed in the press release sent out by the City of Bryan.
“None of these things relate by the way to health or safety in terms of fire codes or zoning codes. Those relate nothing at all whatsoever.”
“They are meant purely to develop opposition to Pastor Avell, to denigrate his character and to create support in the community for their other tactic, which is to throw him into jail.”
“Because after that last inspection last Wednesday, not only did they issue citations the very next day again, before they even returned to court one more time as the court required to do in January.”
“They issued more criminal charges against Pastor Avell, along with $1,000 Day fines or were supposed to have started yesterday. They’ve been held off for now because we raised that issue with the court.”
“Let me address the three issues that are outstanding in this press release that are just simply outrageous. The first claim, and this is a very deceptive claim, is that Dad’s Place has been complicit in the alleged commission of a sexual assault of a minor here last year.”
“Dads Place confronted the responsible individual for this crime. Confronted him as a pastor on the moral aspects of that, but also said there is a legal obligation here as well.”
“Walked with him to the police station for that person to turn himself in. Why does the city know about this crime? Because Pastor Avell made them aware of that crime.”
“We won’t find that information in the city’s press release. They only intend to smear this good man’s name to turn the community against him as one more element to support their baseless accusations that he ought to be in jail.”
“The second false claim is that Dad’s Place allows sex offenders to live at the church. Evidently someone who has an unfortunate history, an unlawful history, a terrible history, chose to use this address as his sex offender registration as required by law.”
“He did that without any permission by this church, and certainly by no encouragement by this church. As soon as the church found out about it, they confronted the individual about it and said you cannot do that. They moved him into a hotel down the street.”
“He changed his registration that same day. I understand that later on he was not able to live in that hotel and had no place to go, he was homeless, and he changed his registration to the city courthouse.”
“So, I assume then that Mayor Schlade has the same concern about having a sex offender register at the courthouse as she has about having a sex offender register in the church.”
“But the intentional deceit, the reckless disregard for the truth of the matter, has been purposeful and intentional, and are meant to further denigrate this church and the care they provide for this community, to encourage people in the community to be opposed to this church, and to further support her efforts to put Pastor Avell in jail and clear this building of any of its people is wrong.”
“The third claim, that Dad’s Place is a hotbed of criminal activity that has required over 50 visits by the Bryan Police Department. This is a very intentional misrepresentation of the facts.”
“I told you a moment ago that the main contact that this church has had with the City of Bryan, Ohio from March of 2023 to November 2023 was its own police officers, bringing individuals to this building for help.”
“Some of those individuals turned out to be wonderful people to be able to minister to and to be with. Others were not so kind and were disruptive.”
“And the church had biblical and legal reasons to ask them to relocate. In fact, they would often have to call the very police officers that brought them here to come back to this facility and remove them. The city cannot create a problem and then blame the people who are trying to help for the problem.”
“Other instances occur where there are crimes elsewhere. For instance, there was a situation at the library across the square.”
“The individual fled over here, and we became aware of the situation and so we notify the police, guess where they came to, they came here again.”
“Again, the problem has not been of Dad’s Place’s making it has been somewhere else and now Pastor Avell and this church received the blame for it all.”
Following those rebuttals regarding the City of Bryan’s press release, Mr. Dys stated the next steps for the church.
“So that’s where we currently are because the city chose to ignore the court’s clear order to say that you had to go back to the court in order to get permission to enforce its zoning codes or it fire ordinances. We have asked the court to hold them in contempt of that order.”
“We have asked them also to reconsider our temporary restraining order requests. The court has now set a hearing for that on May 13th in Toledo in Federal Court. We will be there along with Pastor Avell to put on testimony.”
“We expect to make arguments that will support an injunction to hold the city and restrain them from enforcing any further ordinances against them in violation of the Constitution of the United States, of Ohio, and of federal and state law.”
Mr. Dys went on further to state how far they are willing to take the case in court. “We are prepared as an organization and as attorneys to take this case as far as we must take it.”
“In fact, I would like to have this case resolved today and allow these people to go about their good deeds without any further recriminations by the city. Without any further efforts to throw Pastor Avell into jail. I’d love to have that resolution today for them.”
“But the important principle of people of faith being able to do what the Constitution guarantees their right to do is of such value and importance, not only here in Bryan, Ohio, but across the country.”
“We are more than prepared to carry this case from Toledo in the federal court there, up to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and if necessary to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
“You ask any attorney what that costs. At a minimum that’s going to cost this city a million dollars to defend that lawsuit.”
“Mayor Schlade, are you prepared to spend a million dollars of taxpayer money defending this lawsuit? We are, we’re prepared to stand behind this church and go all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, to guarantee the right of this church and other churches around the country to care for those who need it the most.”
Pastor Chris Avell also had words to say about what the church is to him and those who it helps. “This is God’s home for the broken. For the hurt, for the lost, for the desperate. This is their home.”
“And by home, I don’t mean house or residence, I mean a place in the heart. You can be in a building and it’s not your home. This is our home, and we’re here to defend our home.”
“And because we believe that God has called us to love the least of these, we believe this is absolutely the core mission of the church to go out and make disciples, to lay down our lives for those who are broken and hurting and needy. And I can’t do anything else.”
“I believe it’d be a sin for me to know what is right to do and not to do so. And so, we’re here for them. And we’re here for you too.”
The press conference lasted for just over forty minutes with multiple allegations being made against the City of Bryan and Mayor Schlade. A request for comment has been sent to Mayor Schlade’s office regarding the press conference.
