State Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of West Bloomfield Mosque Opponents

The Michigan Supreme Court will not get involved in the sale of Farmington Eagle Elementary School to the Islamic Cultural Association, a deal which has attracted critics from around the neighborhood.

The brief order dated on Friday from Lansing means that the appeals court ruling which said that plantiffs Eugene Greenstein and Melvyn Sternfeld had no standing to sue Farmington Public Schools will stand.

The former school building on 14 Mile Road west of Middlebelt Road in West Bloomfield was sold in November 2011 to the ICA, which is based in Franklin, for $1.1 million. That money waits in escrow pending the final outcome of the lawsuit.

Some residents nearby claimed that the deal was corrupt and the public was not well-served. Meanwhile, supporters of the sale have said that the Muslims are being unfairly targeted.

In September, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court's ruling that dismissed the lawsuit. Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rae Lee Chabot initially declined to hear the case on its merits, after determining that Greenstein and Sternfeld did not demonstrate that they would be harmed by the sale of the closed building. 

The group is working to build a community center, including an area to pray, classrooms, and a gymnasium.

Patch local editor Joni Hubred-Golden contributed to this report.