> Conversely, the city would not grant any church a tax exempt status. . . . .

I wonder if this story was stretched a bit in the media; as I'm not quite sure how a mere city could actually do that. The tax exempt status of churches (for the actual worship sanctuary or chapel at least) is determined by the Federal gov't, not the states, and especially not cities.

More than that, all property taxes in California are assessed and collected by the county governments, not cities. And then, in California, the county merely divies up between the districts, cities and itself, according to pre-set formulas written into State Law.

So while they may have expressed a desire to do such, as apparently reported; there isn't even an available mechanism to do it, much less getting it past the courts. I doubt very much they could have succeeded.