Alice Hezel, the 70-year-old Maplewood woman who has been in Maplewood court several times since 2012 for issues relating to maintaining her yard, now has a docket call for St. Louis County court.
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center attorney, Bruce A. Morrison, representing Hezel, emailed 40 South News: “We have a case number and a notice of a setting on a docket for October 13, 2016. Please see the attached notice (See a PDF of the docket notice). No trial on that date. Just a docket call.”
Maplewood city has cited Hezel under its ‘weeds’ ordinance, but assistant city manager, Anthony Traxler, has said the issue is yard maintenance, not plants.
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Get real. This ain’t no garden just an old lady too lazy to take care of her yard. You’ll have homeless sleeping in there soon if you don’t take care of it.
You Sir are a real humanitarian.
agree. about as refined and skilled in the humanities, as is his basic Eng. grammar. This is a resolvable problem of negotiation—-why is everyone SO ANGRY?
I love to walk and enjoy other people’s flowers and vegetation, but branches and bushes that encroach upon sidewalks are a problem. If you grow it, control it. Don’t let it occupy public space that other people have a right to use.
Hopefully a landscape consultant, or even a neighbor who is skilled in this, will identify and correct the things needing maintenance. I truly understand the need for managing wild growth. In CA. they do a controlled burn for flora that needs to be pared back. It’s simple land management. Your neighborhood had so many lovely people and really beautiful houses and yards–a compromise to improve the conservatorship needed at the the garden , and keep the garden in managed shape might be reached. I hope i am around next spring–if this situation is agreeably resolved. I would love to have seen this in the early spring season change. Best regards to all!
Oh, Alice! i have only seen this kind of house and free-range garden in the most exclusive backyards in New Orlean’s French Quarter. Has no distinction been made between unfettered free wild flora, and a naturalist managed free wild flora? It took over an hour to get what i wanted–and i only left because i did not want to be a nuisance. Have the house and land been declared historical sites or is that an option? Alice, I hope to meet you. There is modest maintenance needed in some areas- but the whole of the appeal to me was this is preserved history and natural beauty. I understand the neighbors– would like to see a level of oversight from a naturalist land manager. That adjustment being noted, i see great beauty and historical value in that property; a diamond in the rough. I saw the statue of Mother Mary, Queen of Peace, and thought to myself, Alice is not alone in this! (smile!). best regards. maureen
Alice, you are an American original. If you don’t mind, i am going to find out where Cambridge is and photograph your yard. Not everyone interprets things the same way. In Appalachia, i was on a beautiful, winding road and came on a hill side with 15 grave stone all by themselves. The visual itself (to me) was very peaceful; like a lot of love, mountain living had once been there and someone wanted their people respected and remembered. The image was just disturbing to some people, conjuring up thoughts of their own mortality. I don’t know how the law will come down, but what is to some an entire story. with inherent life and all that comes with it, that should be told. To others, the need to conform and never look at “weeds” and “gravestones” as another part of life, just as real as manicured landscapers of many homes. You are in my prayers Alice.
Nothing that “original” about Ms. Hezel’s position. She’s just another thoughtful individual trying to avoid the water-wasting and fossil-fuel-wasting ways of the manicured lawn, providing a butterfly-etc.-friendly environment in the process. “Prayers”? Her soul isn’t in need of salvation. She needs the active public support of like-minded neighbors, in whatever form they’re moved to provide.
Be sure to photograph it from a distance away, Maureen, so you can get the full effect of what the neighbors see. I know it sounds like a poor older woman just trying to help out the butterflies, but it looks like trash has been collecting in an vacant lot for several years. Clean it up Alice!
Maureen please stop stalking Alice, its unbecoming.
Hopefully it isn’t Judy
I hope you get a thoughtful judge. I’ve never seen a thoughtful judge in my life, but I wish you the best.
That yard looks like a vacant north city lot