Norris and the county board conducted elections for directors and a treasurer for the school district when the court would not block it. Polling places were set up in all eight of the merging school areas, and people voted in all. The case of whether the entire consolidation procedure, including the elections, was valid went to trial.
Court: "Yes and No"
The District Court of Polk County found that the proceedings for consolidation were partially correct and partially incorrect. The drawing of boundaries, including the dropping of three districts plus two sections of North Camp, were proper procedures. Even the vote in the remaining eight districts was valid. Those had occurred as if the old school law had been in effect. From that point, however, the new law should have been followed. The court ruled that since two districts, Pleasant Hill and North Camp, had rejected the consolidation, they should have been excluded from the new district.
The Polk County Board of Education and Ralph Norris appealed the decision to the Iowa Supreme Court. If the lower court decision was allowed to stand, six school districts would have become one without the tax base of Iowa Power and Light Company. The case became more complicated when the lawyers for Grant, Chmura, and Petersen filed a cross-appeal. Their purpose was to further exclude Pleasant Hill from the proposed district. The interveners from Mitchellville and Runnells had wanted to be included in the district. They argued the county school board's action should be nullified because they were left out.
The hearings before the supreme court and other legal actions delayed a decision on the matter until September 17, 1957. Meanwhile, the people of Youngstown voted to become a town on January 7, 1956. Lew Slade of Iowa Power and Light Company suggested that the town incorporate because he knew that under school laws of the time a town's vote on consolidation of schools had to be counted separately. Since the
School Vote Set Aside
Being incorporated had no influence over the case then before the supreme court. The court only considered the arguments from the lower court. Finally, September 17, 1957, the court ruled that all sides of the issue were wrong. The entire matter of consolidation had to begin again, but this would be under the old law as before May 1953.
In January of 1958, the entire process began again. The county superintendent set January 28 as the date for the second vote on consolidation. The measure again proposed merging the eight school districts of Pleasant Hill, Altoona, West, Babbitt, Four Mile, Clay, North Camp, and Beaver. Of the eight districts, only the people of Pleasant Hill rejected the merger. The vote in Pleasant Hill was five for and 135 against consolidation.
Again the county superintendent proceeded as if the issue had passed in all of the districts. He ordered that election for a board of directors would be February 27, 1958. Before that date, the school board of Pleasant Hill asked the district court to halt the proceedings. The court refused and the election was held. In the subsequent court ruling the district court judge approved of the school merger process. The Pleasant Hill school board appealed to the supreme court.
A Town or Not?
This time the main issue argued was whether the people of Pleasant Hill were a town or not. Neal Smith and James P. Irish, lawyers for Ralph Norris and the Polk County School Board, said the counting of votes should have taken place as if the situation was in 1953 when the original petition was filed. There was no town of Pleasant Hill in 1953.