Small Northern Iowa town gets a First Amendment smackdown after picking on man with opinion

SIBLEY, IOWA – Officials in the small Northern Iowa town of Sibley got a First Amendment smackdown after picking on a man who said their town smells horrible.

Josh Harms of Sibley, Iowa, said his town smells like “rancid dog food” after an agricultural blood processing plant came to town.

Of course, the apparent small-minded leaders of that community took issue with the Mr. Harms’ opinion, and even took it a step farther by threatening a lawsuit if he didn’t retract his opinion and take down his thoughts on a website where he wrote about it.   He created a website Should you Move to Sibley? where he blasted the rancid dog food smell that bothered him and the alleged inaction of the town to do something about it.  Instead of trying to fix the problem, town leaders went after the young web developer, but they didn’t count on the furious backlash, millions of pixels of bad publicity, and the immense army that lined up to protect Mr. Harms.

The ACLU got involved and helped Mr. Harms file a lawsuit against the Constitution-ignoring town leaders.

According to the ACLU, on March 29, a federal judge issued an injunction, blocking the city from making further legal threats and allowing him to talk freely to the media – which the town had cautioned him against. The city also agreed with the ACLU to:

• Provide training on the First Amendment for city staff

• Issue a written apology to Josh

• Cover $20,475 in attorneys’ fees for the time that the ACLU and its cooperating attorney spent defending Harms’ speech rights

• Pay $6,500 in damages to Josh

Josh said, “I’m happy that the City of Sibley has recognized they were wrong to threaten me for the criticism I’ve written and published online. Personally disagreeing with something that’s been written is understandable, but threatening the writer with a lawsuit while representing the government is censorship. It violates the First Amendment and our freedom of speech.”