Diane Lammers fought the city of Brentwood for more than a year, including three court dates, to keep a large healthy oak tree in her backyard (2318 High School Drive) that a neighbor had complained about. She finally got to keep it.
Lammers called 40 South News Monday to talk about it.
In February 2015 she got a letter from the city telling her an oak tree in her front yard needed to be removed because it was pushing up the sidewalk. She didn’t want to lose it because she said her cooling bill would multiply in the summer, but didn’t have the energy for another fight.
“I’m spent,” she said. “I’ve got no more to give to fight the city of Brentwood.”
Lammers moved into the house on High School Drive about six and a half years ago. It had been vacant and the yard was overgrown with tree-sized weeds, which she cleared out. “Basically I was the hit of the neighborhood,” she said.
Then a neighbor came over and told her, “we want you to take down this big huge tree.” Lammers told him there’s nothing wrong with the tree, plus it would be expensive. See also: Trees removed on High School Drive: resident really mad
After about a year she got a letter from the city of Brentwood telling her that the tree was not in compliance with city code. The neighbor had complained, though the city had not been to her house to see the tree, she said.
So Lammers said she hired a tree maintenance company, who told her the tree is healthy but it was winter, and couldn’t be trimmed. They suggested calling Ameren, because the tree sits on an easement.
An arborist at Ameren there told her he was aware of the tree and her neighbor. He said the neighbor called them “constantly.” He also said the tree is healthy and is trimmed according to their standards.
When Lammers told the city the Ameren opinion in a letter, she was told in a return letter that she is not in compliance, which resulted in the city arborist, Rob Brockman, coming to take a look. She said Brockman told her it “had a canker, and will cause death and destruction,” she said.
Lammers said she then got a third opinion from the company, Trees Forest and Landscapes, which said the tree was healthy.
Then in May 2014 she received a court summons. She said she asked for help from a neighbor who is an attorney, who agree to help without charging her. When they got to court, they were told the court had messed up and sent them the wrong court date.
In the second court appearance, she was told the city employee who had cited her no longer worked for Brentwood, so the city needed to figure out what to do about the code compliance officer before the court can make a decision.
In the third court appearance, she agreed to pay to cut the dead wood out of the tree. She also told the city attorney she hoped this would be the end of it. The city attorney said the neighbor needs to realize he moved into a neighborhood with large trees, and sometimes twigs and branches can blow into his yard.
She said the court case was dismissed in December 2014, so her name wouldn’t be on court records over a tree dispute.
When Lammers got a notice in February 2015 that the tree in her front yard was pushing up the sidewalk and would be removed in a week, she said she was out of energy to fight the city.
City Administrator Bola Akande said in an email to 40 South News that Lammers and the other neighbor who had a tree removed had been contacted and had no objections.
She said a week later Brockman was in her front yard by the tree. “I went out and introduced myself, because every time he had been there before he had never knocked on the door or introduced himself to me,” she said.
She was home when Brentwood Public Works took the tree down.
“They do not tie off any branches and lower them, they literally chainsaw and push,” she said. “It shook all these homes around here, and there’s big gashes in my front yard, and they busted up the sidewalk.”
She was told to remove the broken and dead limbs that were creating a hazard in her tree, not the entire tree. 40 south news has been misinformed.
Nobody told her to cut the tree down. They told her to to remove the dead limbs that were hanging creating a hazard. South 40 has been misinformed of the truth.
If they are going to print to about the owner of the trees in question then they should also print about the person who complained about the trees in order to not show bias and allow us to come to our own conclusions based on facts. It certainly would be nice to have all the facts. I mean what if this is caused by a neighborhood bully ? How is it that we are inundated on the tv to not stand for bullying yet we always seem to stand by as adults and let it happen. Sounds to me like someone needs some old school after school television.
Sounds like this lady has the misfortune of living next to a “problem” neighbor who moves into an old neighborhood with big trees and then discovers — Hello! — that big trees sometimes shed leaves and branches. What scares me about her story is that a wacky person can move next to you in Brentwood and make a wacky accusation against you, and the City’s code-enforcement guy will apparently just accept the wacky guy’s complaint without much investigation and launch an action against you. This is nuts. If what the lady said is true — that 2 different tree-care companies and an Ameren arborist all found her tree to be sound and healthy — then the City had no right to harass her like this and put her through the ringer with court summonses, threats of penalties, etc. And now the City has cut down the healthy tree in front of her property that she liked. I wish she would have fought for that one, too, but I guess I can understand her exhaustion. I hope she doesn’t leave Brentwood. We need people like her. As for her neighbor, he might be happier in one of those new subdivisions in Wentzville, where no tree is taller than 5 feet.
I’d guess that the “problem neighbor” is a blue hair that attends the coffee with the mayor meetings or attends church at SMM. That group seems to have more influence that the average Brentwoodian.
In the city of warmth we have devolved into an environment of personal attacks generally put forth without concern or investigating facts. It would better serve the community if people who put forth these opinions came to understand the nature of decision-making in the city and showing some respect for the professionalism that can be found within the staff
Brockman owes some people an explanation for his irresponsible stewardship.
And the scary thing is — any one of us could be next. Such harassment of homeowners is wrong and needs to stop. This same man, Mr. Brockman, is the man who spoiled Magdalen Avenue a couple of years ago by cutting down the last shade trees on our street. The trees were alive and green and largely hid Ameren’s power poles. Now the street looks like a barren wasteland and the power poles stand out like sore thumbs. The best way to fix Brentwood’s problems is to elect responsible new officials who can fire bad employees and adopt professional policies. We have an opportunity to do this in 7 weeks. Let’s not squander the opportunity.
Are you sure it was Mr Brockman ? Some years ago after severe weather caused significant power outages, Ameren UE came under intense pressure to improve dependability of service. As a result. Ameren responded with a very aggressive program of eliminating substantial amounts of vegetation in their legal right of way easements. Are you sure it was not Ameren UE who impacted that vegetation ?
When I called City Hall at the time, I was told Mr. Brockman made the decisions on which trees to remove. But I never spoke to him, so I don’t know for sure that this was his idea. So your point is well taken, and if this was not his idea, then I was wrong to blame him and I owe him an apology. The city grants Ameren easements on city land, but not ownership, so I don’t believe Ameren can legally remove trees on city land without the city’s approval. But it can trim them.
As I understand, Ameren can do what it wants in the utillity easment (tree lawns). That is why several years ago during their aggressive tree triming campaign, they didnt have to ask the homeowner or the city for permission to trim or remove trees in the easment. Same thing goes for the gas, water, and sewer companies.
So that’s what happened on Magdalen Ave! I knew something had changed. It now looks baron like an alley in the City of St. Louis. Trees can cover a multitude of sins.
Amen! The street is stark and ugly now, and no replacement trees have been planted. Ameren used to trim those trees every 5 years or so, and did this for years, and this seemed to be a good solution, so I can’t see why the company would suddenly want them axed. Very sad.
Kathy…Ameren stopped trimming for years, then we had a severe storm and electricity was out all over St Louis. After that they started an expensive campaign to trim back all the trees near electric lines. That is why when you drive down some of the streets you will see the entire mid-section or one side of a tree removed to make room for the lines.
Did she contact her Alderman and share her desire to maintain the easement front tree ?
The elected official by definition is there to represent her interest in City Hall.
Very sad.
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