Opinion ID: 2230068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: kiryas joel ii

Text: Four days after the Supreme Court's decision in Kiryas Joel I, the Legislature responded by passing chapter 241 of the Laws of 1994. Under the new statute, a municipality located wholly within a single central or union free school district but whose boundaries were not coterminous with the boundaries of any preexisting school district could establish its own school district whenever the educational interests of the community required it ( Grumet v Cuomo, 90 NY2d 57, supra [Kiryas Joel II], citing Education Law § 1504 [former (3)] [a]). [2] The statute set forth facially neutral criteria that a municipality could satisfy in order to establish a school district and delineated the process by which the new school district could be formed. The statute further defined the term municipality as a city, town or village in existence as of the effective date of this subdivision (Education Law § 1504 [former (3)] [g]). This Court held chapter 241 of the Laws of 1994 unconstitutional for two reasons ( Grumet v Cuomo, supra ). First, this Court determined that although the statute was facially neutral, it had a nonneutral effect of allowing Kiryas Joel to create its own school district without providing the same opportunity to other groups. Specifically, the Court reasoned that by limiting its applicability to municipalities in existence as of the effective date, of the statute, any group, religious or nonreligious, subsequently incorporated as a municipality was effectively cut off from utilizing chapter 241's procedures ( id., at 72). The definitional limitation manifested itself in such a way that only one sect reaped the benefits of the statute Kiryas Joel. The Court noted that the Legislature might have achieved a constitutionally acceptable result if it had enacted a law of general applicability that the Village of Kiryas Joel, as one in a broad array of eligible municipalities, might have invoked ( id., at 75 [emphasis added]). Second, the Court determined that chapter 241, like its predecessor, failed the second prong of the Lemon test ( id., at 68). The Court stated that, inasmuch as Kiryas Joel was the only municipality eligible to benefit from the statute, the enactment of chapter 241 would be perceived as an act of governmental favor for the sole benefit of the Satmar sect ( id., at 75).