Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2000, Pages 69, 81

A Tale of Two Cities

Ames, Iowa Mosque Building Project Approved After Three Years of Litigation

By Michael Gillespie

When leaders of the Muslim community in Ames, Iowa, began planning to build a new mosque four years ago, they anticipated little or no resistance. Much to their surprise they were soon embroiled in a legal dispute that went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court.

City government and the influential local newspaper supported the plan for the new mosque, and the mosque prevailed easily, if not quickly, in the courts. In early May, the litigation finally reached a conclusion favorable to the Muslim community, but awkward feelings remain.

Ames is the home of Iowa State University, the source of most members of the local Muslim community. “Over 90 percent of our members are students” said Mohammad Mujeeb, long-time mosque member, “and they come from all over the world.”

For about 15 years, the mosque has been located on Michigan Avenue only three blocks from the proposed new site. However, mosque leaders had been raising money to create a custom-built mosque, and looking for property upon which to build it for several years. The new mosque will be the third such specially constructed mosque in Iowa. The oldest surviving purpose-built mosque in the United States is located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In 1996, a realtor showed mosque leaders a parcel of land that seemed to be perfect. The mosque members asked Professor Riad Mahayni, chair of ISU’s Department of Community and Regional Planning, to assist in bringing the project to fruition.

Mahayni, respected locally and nationally as an accomplished planning professional and educator, quickly learned that the property was zoned to allow houses of worship. It also had the advantages of being affordable and close enough to the university to accommodate the student worshippers.

However, controversy arose as soon as word got around that Muslims had bought the large lot at 1212 Iowa Avenue to build a new mosque. Neighbors, led by Carol Grant, a former local school board member, prepared a list of objections, and Brian O’Connell, head of the city’s Planning and Housing Department, arranged a meeting many Muslims saw as an opportunity to begin a dialogue.

Three members of the mosque arrived for the meeting at City Hall, expecting to sit down with their neighbors and discuss their objections “The neighbors didn’t come,” said Mujeeb. Instead, “they sent their lawyer,” Robert Goodwin. Mosque representatives reported feeling that Goodwin’s intention was to intimidate them with an “officious demeanor.”

Noting that Grant’s property abutted the building site, Mahayni said, “I thought it was just another NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) case.” But as opposition became more strident, some complaints seemed to have little to do with the specifics.

The City Council received a letter from a member of a fundamentalist Christian group that revealed a distinct and unmistakable bias against Islam. “It was one of a kind,” said city council member Ann Campbell, “but it was definitely troubling.”

The Ames Daily Tribune (known locally as “the Trib”), then edited and co-owned by a former president of NBC News, Michael Gartner, is a highly respected local institution, and Gartner won a Pulitzer Prize for his Trib editorials in 1997. In August of 1997, only days after 23 mosque opponents filed suit against the mosque and the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, the Trib published an editorial titled, “Suit against Muslims isn’t a neighborly act.”

The newspaper took the neighbors to task for statements made at a public hearing: “They talked, without proof, of ‘deterioration in home values and aesthetics,’” the Trib wrote. “They talked, without evidence, of a ‘change of character’ in the neighborhood and of ‘wildlife changes.’ They talked, without facts, of Muslims somehow upsetting the ‘environment’ of the neighborhood. The neighbors,” the Trib concluded, “should ask themselves a question: How much of their distress is about zoning?”

The neighbors reacted to the Trib’s powerful editorial with indignation. Wounded, embarrassed, and aggrieved by the Trib’s suggestion that their opposition was indicative of intolerance, they refused to speak with anyone from the newspaper following publication of the editorial. But they arranged meetings to express their concerns privately to city council members, two at a time, as any greater number would have violated Iowa’s open meeting law.

“It was a very emotional issue,” said councilwoman Campbell, who was then up for re-election. “But changes in a neighborhood often raise a hue and cry.”

At a city council meeting in October of 1997, O’Connell, Mahayni, and Grant made presentations to the council. O’Connell reported the results of the Planning and Housing Department’s positive evaluation of the proposed use of the property.

Specific Objections

Then Mahayni addressed specific objections of the neighbors. He presented evidence from public records indicating that the proposed mosque would significantly increase property values in the neighborhood.

He also addressed the neighbors’ concerns about parking and public safety by producing Ames Police Department records indicating no parking or disturbance complaints from neighbors on Michigan Avenue, where the existing mosque was located. He reminded the council that the city’s Muslims were not asking for special privileges.

“We are simply asking you to apply the city ordinances and help us exercise our constitutional rights,” said Mahayni. “We will be happy to work with the neighborhood and try to accommodate any reasonable requests they may have.”

Then, after Grant and others voiced their objections, and assured the council that religion and race were not issues, the council voted unanimously in support of the mosque building plan.

The matter didn’t rest there, however. Opponents took their objections to the District Court of Story County, where Charles Stauduhar, who described himself as an independent licensed appraiser, testified that construction of the mosque would cause the plaintiffs’ properties to decrease $321,305 in value.

But his testimony conflicted with that of the city’s director of public works, a city planning specialist, a city fire inspector, and a state-certified real estate appraiser. Under cross-examination by Dan Manning, a Des Moines lawyer representing the mosque, Studuhar admitted that he could not provide data to support his opinion.

“Dan Manning had crossed paths with this particular ‘expert’ before,” said Judy Parks, assistant city attorney for the city of Ames. She said that under Manning’s cross-examination Stauduhar conceded that his academic credentials, three degrees, all from the same university, were all obtained within six months, and that he was the president of that university. The court’s ruling “gave little weight to Stauduhar’s appraisals…found them difficult to understand, arbitrary, and based upon hypotheses that do not exist and certain erroneous or incomplete information.” Parks noted that “It is unusual for the court to mention the credibility of a witness in that way.”

Despite the weight and tone of the district court’s ruling in favor of the mosque, the neighbors and their lawyer appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Iowa which, after a delay of months, transferred the case to the Court of Appeals of Iowa. On May 9, 2000, the Court of Appeals unequivocally affirmed the ruling of the District Court.

“I really feel very bad that we all had to go through this,” said Mujeeb in a subsequent telephone interview in late May. He said the legal battle cost the mosque well over $50,000, and the fund-raising effort for the building program had been on hold for two years. Nevertheless, mosque leaders hope now to meet and talk with the neighbors. “I hope we’ll be able to patch it up,” said Mujeeb.

For her part, Janet Bealle, a plaintiff who lives across the street from the mosque’s property, said, “I’m truly sorry and upset that it reached the point where religious intolerance and racism became a question…It kind of all got off on the wrong foot to begin with. If only we had been able to meet.”

Many who know the neighbors say their opposition to the new mosque was indeed based on their desire to preserve their neighborhood. They support the neighbors’ contention that race and religion were not factors.

In fact, however, the neighbors might have agreed at any time over the past three years to meet with members of the mosque. Yet they rejected several overtures, and instead of suing the mosque they could just as easily have sued only the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

“The suit against the mosque was baffling,” said Campbell, “and inexcusable.” Almost everyone in town seems to agree.

The neighbors might have given up the battle after the district court ruled so unequivocally against them. Their persistence in litigating suggested an effort to drag out the dispute in order to bankrupt the mosque or, failing that, to render the proposed mosque a cost-prohibitive project.

Recent developments indicate that some Ames residents have come to understand that the legal strategy, while it did succeed in delaying the building of the mosque for three years, was widely viewed as incompatible with a meaningful commitment to religious tolerance.

Some of those who opposed the project may now be feeling regrets. Mahayni and Mujeeb report receiving anonymous donations. A brief note with $400 in one envelope asked that it be put toward the building fund. Another note accompanied $600 in cash.

Mujeeb, who was surprised and pleased by the unexpected contributions, said he believes they indicate that the healing process already has begun.

Michael Gillespie is a free-lance writer based in Ames, Iowa. He writes frequently about politics and media.