My wife has always compared the St Mary's situation to an onion; there's always another layer of conspiracy to unpeel. However, I'm beginning to see a consensus among the vestry that the core agenda for the squatters was, at least from the formation of the Patrimony of the Primate in late 2010 and the parish's vote to enter it in February 2011, to seize the parish on behalf of the ACA, demolish the existing church and commercial buildings, and sell the entire property for a luxury condo project. It's worth pointing out that this is exactly what the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles intends to do to monetize the property of St James the Great Newport Beach, with the important difference that the Episcopal diocese holds title to that property and is entitled to do this.
Once the parish on the whole began to recognize that something disturbing was going on in late 2011, there was no possibility that the dissident group around Mrs Bush was going to elect anything like a vestry majority to do this. In fact, all of Mrs Bush's key allies had termed off the vestry by the February 2012 parish general meeting and were ineligible to succeed themselves. The parish majority caucused informally for the February meeting by identifying vestry candidates they felt would be most likely to support progress into the Ordinariate. Mrs Bush herself, newly eligible to serve on the vestry, was the only one of the dissidents to get enough votes to be elected to the new vestry, largely because she had carefully concealed her role among the plotters. However, her election wasn't enough to change the parish's course.
Every subsequent action by the Bush group, Anthony Morello, and the ACA bishops is consistent with an ultimate goal of seizing the parish, shutting it down, and selling the property, against the wishes of a parish supermajority and the duly elected wardens and vestry, as well as the rector, who hold actual title to the property. The main benefit from such a sale, which would probably gross something in the $10 million order of magnitude, would be to the ACA, which would then have something to offer for a merger with the APA. (It's worth noting that this merger, seriously mooted in 2012, is according to Presiding Bishop Marsh now "elusive".) However, the sale would be subject to a commercial realtor's commission, higher than a residential commission. Not by coincidence, a realtor was added to the squatter central committee following the 2012 seizure; he had not been active in the parish before it.
The sale would probably be accompanied by not just a commission, but assorted lagniappes, tips, "consulting fees", and whatever else to key members of the squatter group. A vestry member tells me that his contacts among the Freemasons tell him a key lieutenant among the squatters has not paid his lodge dues for half a dozen years, suggesting that whatever scraps from the deal that might fall his way could be put to good use.
The key problem is that the squatters do not have title to the property and are now on the verge of being evicted. My wife thinks that their strategy has been to gain title to the property through adverse possession, occupying the property as if they were the owner for a specified period of time. They expected to drive the vestry from the property, appoint an illegal vestry of their own, hold services, and function as though they were a real parish, but only long enough to establish adverse possession. They brought a lawsuit for civil theft against Fr Kelley with the intent of frightening him away; this lawsuit is expected to be dismissed with other related Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases at a hearing on January 8, 2016.
