Homeowner: Forced Yard Cleaning Case May Wind Up in Court

A retired Niagara Falls homeowner said he's considering fighting the city over a $75 bill he received for some yardwork done by a city crew. Ron Traina, 81, of McKoon Avenue in the DeVeaux section of the city, said a neighbor who was sitting on his front porch saw the "work" conducted on Traina's property.

According to an itemized bill Traina received from city Corporation Counsel Craig Johnson, five strapping men wielding no fewer than four weed whackers labored in the yard for a full quarter of an hour. But after reading about the incident in the Niagara Falls Reporter, Traina's neighbor, Stan Skurski, came forward with a different story.

"Stan saw the whole thing," Traina said. "He said they weren't there five minutes. And on top of that, they couldn't get any of the weed whackers to work so they just used the one." Before and after photographs taken by the city show the yard, which didn't look bad to begin with and wasn't much improved by the city's efforts. Traina said Skurski would testify on his behalf, and added that the pictures tell the story better than any words. He's lucky to have neighbors like Skurski and Tom Bradley, who lives across the street a couple doors up on McKoon Avenue.

"Tom's what you'd call a good Samaritan," Traina said. "He mows my lawn and those of four or five other older people on the block." Bradley also encouraged him not to take the city's bullying laying down, Traina said. With entire blocks of the decaying city abandoned by owners who fled the high taxes, harsh winters and petty politics of Niagara Falls, it does indeed seem absurd that five city workers had nothing better to do than invade the private property of a taxpayer in one of our nicer neighborhoods to perform work he hadn't requested and didn't want done.

Equally absurd is a bill of $75 for one guy swinging a weed whacker around for five minutes. Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, who conceived the idea of having a "Clean Team" dedicated to going around the city and bothering people like this should be concerned. He might just wind up being subpoenaed in the Traina case.

To hear city officials tell it, Traina's small yard was a veritable jungle. Maybe next time they come, since the weed whackers don't often work, they can bring machetes.