Legal briefs in steel wheel ruling due
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/19/2010 3:37 PM
E-mail article | Print version
OSAGE, Iowa — Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk and Colin Murphy, attorney for a 13-year-old Mennonite boy, must respond to each other's legal briefs by the end of the week.
Magistrate DeDra Schroeder said she will rule within a week after that on the constitutionality of Mitchell County Road Protection Ordinance, which forbids steel wheel vehicles on hard-surface roads.
Friday's hearing in Mitchell County District Court addressed Murphy's motion to dismiss charges against his client because it vilolates his client's right to practice his religion, which is protected in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Free Exercise Clause of the Iowa Constitution.
In his closing statement, Walk said he doesn't believe the use of steel wheels was a valid religious belief or practice.
Even if the court determines that the ordinance interferes with a religious belief or practice, Mitchell County can show an overriding governmental interest for enacting the ordinance, Walk said.
"Every time a steel-wheel tractor is driving on a hard surface road, it causes damage," Walk said.
Richard Brumm, assistant county engineer, testified about the damage done by steel wheels on county whitetop, a paving process that lays four inches of concrete over an existing blacktop surface.
Brumm said that when the grouser bars on the steel wheels make contact with the whitetop, the aggregate is crushed.
"Is it possible to drive a steel-wheel tractor on a whitetop or asphalt road without damaging the road," Walk asked Brumm.
"No," Brumm said.
Walk said the county doesn't prohibit steel wheels.
"Any individual who wishes to have a tractor with steel wheels can continue to do so," Walk said. "He can continue to use that steel wheel tractor on his own farm yard, field or non-hard surface roads. The only restriction is on hard surface roads."
"The ordinance severely threatens the ability of the Mennonites to follow their religious beliefs and continue to be contributing members of society," Murphy said. "Because the Mennonites will not violate their religious beliefs, and because the ordinance effectively excludes them from hard-surface roads, the ordinance makes it very difficult for them to access their crops or get those crops to market."
All vehicles harm the road, Murphy said.
"Harm is incremental," he said. "Heavy trucks with 18 or 40 wheels damage the roads, arguably far more than small Mennonite tractors. The record here is devoid of any research to justify a conclusion that Mennonite tractors are more harmful than heavy trucks."
Walk said semis have a number of axles to spread out the weight. Steel wheels put the weight on one-inch grouser bars.
Murphy said that for years there was mutual tolerance and peaceful coexistence, and no board of supervisors found it necessary to ban Mennonite steel wheels.
"That is strong evidence that there is not suddenly a compelling need to ban them," Murphy said. "The county has articulated merely an economic interest in protecting the roads. Damage to roads is caused incrementally by many uses."