In August of 2023, I purchased two vacant lots on the far west side of New England from a recently retired widower in his 70s named Kevin. My intention was to park a couple of pick-up trucks and a flatbed utility trailer on these two vacant lots, to get them out of the yard where I lived.

Soon after purchasing these two vacant residential city-lots, New England City Councilman Chris Fitterer verbally stated during City Council meetings that he thought that this was wrong, the parking of vehicles and trailers on vacant residential city-lots in New England. This subject was researched for at least several months, if not longer.

For City Council members and citizens who thought about this situation, it soon became apparent that there were a great number of residents in New England who kept trucks, cars, motorcycles, ATVs, boats, snowmobiles, utility trailers, travel trailers, and motor homes on vacant residential city-lots. If the City Of New England was going to come after me for this, they would have to do the same for at least a hundred more residents of New England.

The scrutiny that I underwent regarding these two vacant lots seemed on the surface to lessen over time, but I knew that it didn’t go away. In my opinion, one of the reasons why City Councilman Chris Fitterer was so concerned about what I was doing with these two vacant residential lots on the far west side of town, was because Chris Fitterer was planning and pursuing permitting for a relatively upscale residential home development on the west side of New England on property that he owned.

I purchased a large wooden garden shed and had it placed on these two vacant lots to keep a riding mower and a push mower inside. When I mowed my two lots, I kept on going with my mowing to cut a third vacant lot that Kevin still owned. Kevin was in his 70s, and it only took me an additional twenty minutes or so to cut the grass on his vacant lot.

In late Summer or early Fall of 2023, Kevin moved out of his house, and a man named Scott and his family moved in. This family bought Kevin’s house and the vacant lot across the alley that was adjacent to my two vacant lots.

When I mowed my two vacant lots, I continued to mow the third adjacent vacant lot. As I mentioned previously, it only took about twenty additional minutes, and the entire three-lot section was completely cut. For those readers who may be puzzled, this is not the only property that I own where I cut the neighbor’s adjacent lot for free when I am cutting my own lots. It saves the adjacent property owner time, energy, effort and makes the entire area look uniformly cut. These neighbors periodically thank me for doing this.

Within about one month of Scott and his family moving in, Scott approached me and he was angry about me mowing his vacant lot across the alley from his house. I couldn’t understand why. I myself would like it if an adjacent property owner always mowed my vacant lots so that I didn’t have to do it. Scott was angry, and in my opinion from this interaction, Scott saw things different than me. The extra effort that I made to do Scott a favor, he acted like it was causing him harm.

The property line between my lot #11 and Scott’s lot #12 was told to us by the previous owner Kevin to be dead center of an 18″ diameter 30′ tall tree that was about 20-25 years old. After the interaction with Scott, he mowed his lot #12 up to this property line, and I mowed my lot #11 up to this property line.

In June of 2025, I noticed that about eleven of the branches on this property-line tree were dead. There was no mistaking that these branches were dead, they had zero leaves, were losing their bark, turning brown, and were dry & brittle. See the photo below.

For at least 10-15 years of my life, I owned and operated a Tree Service. I had trimmed and removed hundreds of trees during this time, including trees in Dickinson and New England North Dakota, never having an accident, injury, or complaint. If I tried explaining my knowledge, experience, credentials, and willingness to trim or remove this property-line tree to Scott, I thought that he might not believe me or listen to me.

I believed that if I explained either verbally or in writing to Scott that this property-line tree was dying, or in very bad health, and that I was willing to trim the dead branches or remove this tree at no cost to him, that Scott might try to hire a Tree Service that would charge about $1,000, and he would try to get me to pay half of this. I based this belief from my previous experience meeting Scott, where he saw things the opposite of me.

Because this property-line tree is theoretically half-mine, half-Scott’s, I could legally trim the dead branches out of this tree as a matter of maintenance necessary for this tree’s health, but not harm or remove this tree. Also as a matter of law, if this tree or any of its branches fell and caused either property damage or injury to a person, Scott and I would be jointly and severally liable, meaning the injured person could sue either one of us, or both of us. This would be a second reason why I would be legally allowed to trim the dead branches out of this tree, I could be sued if a dead branch fell and injured a person or their property.

I didn’t want to argue back and forth with Scott that I had 10-15 years experience owning and operating a Tree Service, that this tree needed to have the dead branches removed immediately because of legal liability, and that I was willing to do this at no cost to Scott.

I was careful to take photos that showed the dead branches on this property-line tree before I did anything, and take photos that showed the only branches I cut were the dead branches. I believe that I was 100% legally allowed to do this necessary tree maintenance, and prevention of dead branches falling on a person and injuring them.

After I completed this tree trimming, in my opinion this tree did not look that bad considering the amount of dead branches that had to be removed. In my opinion, it is possible that in one year’s time this tree might show signs of new growth and improvement. I also believed that I DID NOT have the legal right to unilaterally decide to cut this tree down entirely at this time, because it is debatable whether this tree can recover.

Within a few days, I began to hear “through the grapevine” that “people” were angry with me for what I did to this tree. Yes, I know that this tree does not look symmetrical, this is because I had to remove eleven dead branches. Removing healthy branches to try to make this tee look symmetrical, there wouldn’t be any branches left. As I finished the tree right now, it is possible that it could make a recovery within one year.

At the end of the July 7 2025 New England City Council meeting, City Councilman Chris Fitterer had some very harsh words for me. Chris Fitterer said that he had received some citizen complaints about me and my tree trimming, that it looked very bad, that I should have consulted the property owner, that I was a bad neighbor.

In my defense, I tried to explain that I spent about three hours of work on this tree, at no cost to Scott. I would have liked to have received help, especially picking up branches and taking them to the dump, but I received no help from anyone.

I do realize, that the property owner Scott may not have been the one who complained. I actually believe that Scott himself may not have been concerned one way or the other, but that there a people trying to get Scott angry about this.

In closing, the important thing is that the dead branches were removed from this tree so that they can not fall and injure a person or damage property. The top of this tree was trimmed low enough to where if the entire tree were to fall down or be cut-down, it would not hit the overhead power lines, Scott’s garage across the alley, or Scott’s utility shed. This trimming and branch haul away was done at no cost to Scott.

So what if this tree does not look symmetrical? In one year’s time this tree may recover, or it can be cut down completely. In my opinion, I believe that these “citizen complaints” are under false pretenses. The Number #1 Primary Concern should be that this tree is not a danger to persons or property, not whether it is symmetrical at this time.

Additional Information 7/8/25

I wanted to verify if this property-line tree was actually on the property line between my lot #11 and Scott’s lot #12.

In the City Of New England the street easements are 66′ in width. You measure from curb to curb, then divide this distance by two, in order to locate the center-line of the street. From this center-line, it is 33′ to the private-property lot-line.

From the center-line of 11th Street, using a 300′ tape measure, I measured 33′ to get to Mike Grote’s lot #7 line, then 50′ to his lot #8 line, then 50′ to his lot #9 line, then 50′ to my lot #10 line. This is 33’+50’+50’+50′ = 183′. See the photo below, Mike’s fence corner IS AT 183′.

From my #10 lot-line at 183′, it should be 50′ to my lot #11, then 50′ to Scott’s lot #12. 183’+50’+50′ = 283′. See the photo below, THE PROPERTY-LINE TREE IS AT 283′.

Additional Information 7/9/25

The property owner Scott did not complain, he said to me that he had believed that he did not own this tree.