By Cindy V. Culp
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Based on a federal judge’s order, McLennan County officials will evaluate whether they should change ordinances that prohibit parking and camping along the roads to President Bush’s ranch.
At a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. ordered the county’s attorney to confer with attorneys for an anti-war group led by Cindy Sheehan to see if they could reach a compromise in regard to the ordinances.
The directive came after Smith listened to nearly two hours of testimony to support requests from both sides for a temporary injunction.
Sheehan and her followers want to stop the county from enforcing two ordinances that they claim limit protest activities. One prohibits parking along portions of 14 county roads around Bush’s Prairie Chapel ranch. The other bans people from residing, erecting shelters or erecting portable toilets along county roads.
The county sought a temporary restraining order to keep the protesters from violating those restrictions. The ordinances were passed in September, shortly after Sheehan and her supporters left the Crawford area last summer.
Attorneys for Sheehan’s group assert that the ordinances violate the Constitution because they effectively limit protests. They say they understand the need to maintain safety and agree with county officials that the situation last August was undesirable. But they say the ordinances are too broad.
During the hearing Thursday, the head attorney for the group, David Broiles of Fort Worth, said his clients weren’t there as “absolutists under the First Amendment.” They simply want the ordinances narrowed so parking and toilets could be erected on portions of the roads where it would be safe, he said.
“We recognize the county’s interest in having traffic flow, we recognize the county’s interest in having orderly protests,” Broiles said. “But we didn’t exactly get to pick the spot because that’s where the president lives.”
Broiles went on to say most of the protest activities this summer won’t be on the roadside anyway since Sheehan recently purchased a five-acre tract of land in Crawford. But due to the symbolic and emotional nature of Sheehan’s original roadside camp, protestors still want reasonable accommodations there, he said.
“Cindy and her tent have become an international symbol,” Broiles said.
Representing the county, Waco attorney Mike Dixon countered that the ordinances are only meant to protect health and safety.
As part of the case, he filed multiple affidavits from landowners near the protest site outlining what they experienced, he said.
Among the examples of wrongs Dixon recounted were school buses having to wait for protesters to move vehicles in order to pick up or drop off children and residents being blocked from entering their property.
“In one case, a lady was sleeping in the middle of the road at 10:30 at night because she was afraid of snakes in the ditch,” Dixon said.
Legally, the ordinances don’t restrict free speech, Dixon said. Erecting a portable toilet or parking an air-conditioned vehicle may make protesting more convenient, he said, but such activities are not conduct protected under the First Amendment.
“There is no barring of expressing a message,” Dixon said. “You just don’t need to live in the right-of-way.”
After listening to the testimony, Smith ordered the two sides to try to work out compromise. He told them to meet Thursday afternoon and report back at 3 p.m.
The attorneys complied, but since any changes to the ordinances would have to be approved by county commissioners, and since commissioners can’t discuss county business outside of a public meeting, nothing was finalized Thursday.
Dixon plans to brief the commissioners in executive session during their meeting Tuesday. He will then confer with Broiles. If a compromise cannot be reached, Smith could issue a ruling as soon as Wednesday.
“We’re negotiating in good faith and in according with the court’s instruction,” Dixon said late Thursday afternoon.
Broiles said he is encouraged by the opportunity to possibly reach a compromise. He has written numerous letters to county officials asking for such a discussion but never got a response, he said.
cculp@wacotrib.com
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