SANTA CRUZ >> A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to allow a Christian street preacher to resume speaking on Pacific Avenue after he was ticketed three times for noise complaints and had his amplified speech permit revoked by Santa Cruz police.

The lawsuit also seeks to overturn two city laws that allow police to issue a city permit for amplified public speech and allows police to revoke the permits for what his attorney contends are vague reasons of “good cause.” The suit comes on the heels of a January criminal trial in Santa Cruz in which the same street evangelist was convicted of an infraction for unreasonable noise, according to court records.

Nate Kellum, an attorney for the Tennessee-based Center for Religious Expression, took on the case for Donald Allan Harman of Pleasanton. Harman, 52, is a mortgage broker who was drawn to Santa Cruz to spread the gospel in part because of its crowds, buskers and street performers.

“He wants the freedom to speak,” Kellum said Wednesday. “He wants to regain his constitutional rights.” The Center for Religious Expression describes itself as a “servant-oriented, nonprofit Christian legal organization dedicated to the glory of God and the religious freedom of his people.”

Attorneys for the city of Santa Cruz said the issue is the volume of his preaching, not the content of it.

“The city agrees that Mr. Harman is entitled to share his religious beliefs in public forums, but his expression must be within the bounds of the law,” City Attorney Tony Condotti wrote in a 2015 letter to Kellum. “The government can regulate such protected speech with valid time, place and manner restrictions.”

Harman began preaching his Christian beliefs on Pacific Avenue in spring 2013 with a headset microphone and an amplifier on his chest, according to attorneys in the case. He was sometimes heckled or questioned by passersby, but he didn’t have any trouble with Santa Cruz police until March 2014. An officer told him he needed a permit to speak with an amplifier in public.

A police lieutenant granted the permit and he continued to preach for more than one year. In May 2015, an officer told him he received complaints because his amplifier volume was too loud. Harman lowered the volume and continued to preach several times until July 2015. That month, police said they received more complaints and revoked his permit to use amplification.

In August 2015, two officers wrote Harman “unreasonable noise” tickets after more complaints from workers at two businesses on Pacific Avenue. One restaurant owner said his patrons could not hear themselves converse because of Harman’s loud preaching outside the front door, said Santa Cruz Deputy City Attorney Reed Gallogly.

“The city believes that it acted properly and enforced the law properly,” Gallogly said Wednesday. City attorneys have not yet filed a response, but Gallogly said, “We plan to defend it accordingly.”

Harman returned to Pacific Avenue in September 2015 and was written a third noise ticket. Harman said the ticket was unfair given that musicians on the street consistently perform at louder volumes.

Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said Wednesday that officers downtown try to balance free speech with respect for others’ sensitivity to noise.

The lawsuit names the city of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel, Lt. Warren Barry, Sgt. Carter Jones and officer Ian Burnham.

Another street preacher sued the city in federal court in 2011. Separately, the city contended with free speech issues after activist Robert Norse was ordered out of City Council meetings in 2002 and 2004 for disruptive behavior that included a Nazi salute. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court but later handed back to an appellate court that sided with the city in 2015.