June 13, 2007
Chad Leonard
Dallas County Sheriff
201 N. 8TH St.
Adel, Iowa 50003
Dear Sheriff Leonard:
As you will recall from my letter of May 18, 2007 Mary Hays is in contempt of Equity 28517 by parking her vehicle on an ingress/ egress easement at 23998 260th St. Yesterday, June 12, for the third time since that letter, I found Mary Hays’ vehicle unlawfully parked on the easement and asked her to move it. She refused and I called your Department. Two deputies, Ryan Bowers and Douglas Lande, came to the scene. I appreciate the response and after some 30-45 minutes the vehicle was removed. Unfortunately this episode revealed more problems than it resolved.
I.
As the session of June 12 closed, one of your Deputies, I think Deputy Bowers, came off the telephone saying to Mary that you had advised him to tell Mary that she could park her car in the county right of way behind the closed portion of the gate in the photograph (below) between where Mary is standing and where her car is parked.
No! Neither Mary Hays, nor myself, nor anyone else can lawfully park and leave a vehicle there, nor anywhere on the Lane 1 ingress/ egress easement that includes the county right of way and my access permit. Mary’s original ploy to gain an easement was to ask the Court to extinguish her access there.
Further, the Court decreed that I am required to maintain there a 32-foot wide entrance. I was fined $500 in part for not maintaining the entrance to that width, including the removable post in the center of the double gate (east half closed) behind Mary and the drainage from my 60-foot culvert 30 feet in the background. Mary has been specifically denied an access permit there.
Moreover, there is no parking there because I, solely, hold the access permit and maintain it at my pleasure. The issue is not whether the vehicle is blocking my passage; the issue is the Court Order.
I believe that you erred in two ways by advising Deputy Bowers tell Mary that she could park there. First, perhaps unwittingly, you again engaged yourself and your deputies in interpretation/ enforcement of Equity 28517 without knowing the facts and without a writ, the very thing that you have rightfully and repeatedly made a commitment not to do after Mary’s road rock caper.
Second, you do not have the power to grant parking privileges to any person on a permit-granted access to private property from any County road, certainly not this one where the private law is so exceptional, so long standing and so contentious. You would be very hard pressed to make the case in court that Mary is allowed to park there while I am not. And, I am not!
Before the unlawful parking begins, please inform Mary Hays and your Deputies that you were mistaken in telling Mary that she could park there. Further, if she violates that again, please have her vehicle removed without requiring me to undergo another 30-45 minute session on the ground with you or your staff rehashing Mary’s displeasure over Equity 28517.
II.
What is not to understand about, “remove this unlawfully parked vehicle,” an enforceable request no matter who the vehicle belonged to. Instead, your deputies interpreted it their duty to attempt to engage Mary and myself in some sort of mediation session that devolved quickly into their re-hearing Equity 28517 and their failure to remove the vehicle promptly. In deference to the Restraining Order, when I returned to my truck to get away from Mary and wait, one Deputy motioned me back to the conversation with an index finger call I interpreted as an order.
My understanding from the great rock caper is that your Department will not again be involved in attempting to enforce/ interpret Equity 28517 without a writ. But here we have it all over again.
As you know, the mutual restraining order is law and gives me the privilege as well as the duty of avoiding Mary and her confrontation. Such mandatory contact deprives me of the protection from Mary that the restraining order ensures, absolving me from engaging in any discourse with her whatsoever. Mary is extremely hostile and extremely aggressive and she endangers me, both bodily and legally. Further, after 17 years as a pro se defendant I neither need, nor want, nor am required to hear Mary’s nor your deputies’ opinions of the Orders in Equity 28517. I am lawfully entitled to the services from your Department without being required to stand through 30-45 minutes of re-debate each time I call.
Please advise your staff that Equity 28517 is an extensive, longstanding and contentious body of private law and that conventional mediation techniques are not appropriate in light of the restraining order. Please manage your deputies in such a way that in order for them to meet their obligation as peacekeepers, I am not required to rehash Equity 28517 in Mary Hays’ presence or to your deputies. If this requires specific staff training for all deputies who may respond to a call here, I urge you to provide that before another incident occurs rather than later.
III.
The disparity between your deputies’ treatment of Mary and of myself on April 17 (the rock caper) and on June 12 (the parking incident) is unacceptable and I believe unlawful. Instead of having Mary’s vehicle removed, Deputies Bowers and Lande listened to her spiel, walking here and there with her to hear her litany of discontent about Equity 28517 and her epithets about me. They listened, too patiently in my opinion, without arresting her. Instead, after ordering Mary to move her car they listened to her say, “I’m not going to move my vehicle until I’m damn good and ready.” And, after the Deputy responded to that, shouted into his face, “shut up.” They then, after 30-45 minutes, on your advice, offered her the emolument of parking where it is unlawful for her to park.
Conversely, in the rock caper Deputy Hinds, you assured me, thoroughly researched the Judge Kimes Order and Hinds’ plan before the fact, including advice from Ralph Brown. Still, in that unlawful, premeditated operation, without a writ, and even though I am a pro se Defendant, Hinds did not contact me, nor did he offer me 30-45 minutes of touchy-feely while he prevented the rock from being dumped. Instead, he began by stepping into my path and stating, “Carl, I am here to enforce a Court Order, if you take one more step I will arrest you.” I am confident that had I said to Hinds, “I’ll stop when I’m damn good and ready,” and then told him to, “shut up,” I would have been arrested, as it turns out, in an unlawful ruse to attempt to use your Department to enforce Equity 28517 without a writ.
To be lawful, sex, sexual preference or any anti-discrimination law enforcement, indeed all law enforcement, must protect all citizens equally, male or female, homosexual or heterosexual. I urge you to make that clear to your staff. That has not occurred in this case. Before we move on, it is essential that you and I come to an understanding on this point.
IV
I believe it is counter productive for your Deputies to so adamantly have told Mary several times yesterday that she cannot park on the County road. She has parked there for years in foul weather, an emolument for suing herself into nothing but “a wholly unimproved dirt farm lane whereupon the water will stand.” Please do not suggest to Mary that she can park off the road at my entrance in Section 17 next to Lane 1, I have already spent years prohibiting her, and all manner of others, from parking there. I believe that your deputies’ making such an issue of a loosely enforced ordinance with Mary yesterday unnecessarily puts undue parking pressure on her in inclement weather, is counterproductive to peacekeeping going forward and had noting to do with my request to remove her vehicle from Lane 1.
I will be happy to meet with you again to help resolve these issues.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Carl H. Hays
Attach: Two photographs, one page
PC: Deputy Bowers
Deputy Lande