Grass Clippings and Anonymous Neighbor

OOT, am I an inconsiderate neighbor ruining the aesthetics of the neighborhood or am I the victim of harassment by a pain-in-the-ass neighbor?

Wednesday, I was coming off a full day poker session and got home about 5:30am. My lawn really needed to be mowed (it rained Monday and Tuesday) so I stayed up and mowed at 9, grabbed my mail, and then went to bed. Woke up at 3 and went through the mail, separating it into "trash immediately" vs "open and skim before trashing" piles. I only check my mail like every 3 weeks or so there was a lot, all of it in the "trash immediately" category. I did notice there were two letters from the City of [My Town] addressed to "Resident". The first I ldo trashed sight unseen. The second was the last thing left in my hand after trashing everything else. I decided to skim.

It was a letter from Mike K__, the city's director of drainage and sewers, dated August 26th. It quoted a city ordnance about grass clippings and leaves not being allowed in the street. It then described how the storm sewers, treatment plants, and rivers cannot handle grass clippings and/or leaves. It mentioned that if I do not cease disposing of my grass clippings and/or leaves via the street I could face fines. It was a standard form letter they send to lowlifes. I fished the first letter out of the trash. It was from August 19th and about the same thing though a little bit less aggressively worded. Both letters asked me to call Mike K__.

I called Mike K__ immediately. I was angry. What a ridiculous policy! Obviously this sewer concern stuff was crap. When the city mows the medians and parks they aren't bagging the clippings; they go right in the street. And I was insulted as I was sure there was some neighbor behind this that probably thinks I'm a slob. I live in a really nice neighborhood. The houses aren't expensive but they're all pretty cute and well kept up. My hedges need trimming quite badly, I haven't edged my lawn since June, and I had a disappointing year from the annuals in my front yard. But I'm also not sitting in a kiddie pool wearing a Big Johnson T-shirt while shotgunning beers.

Mike K__ was totally cool. He confirmed that there was a citizen making a complaint. This person had complained to Mike's department directly and then to our city council member who got on Mike's ass. Mike said that he came out to my house on the 26th to see for himself and it was nothing to be concerned about. The ordnance is for people who bag an entire lawn's worth of clippings and dump them in the street or rake all of their yard's leaves into the street, not for standard mulch mowing that results in clippings getting into the street. I would not be getting fined.

Still, there was the pain-in-the-ass neighbor to worry about. I settled in for some XBoxing, unsure what i'd do about the clippings next time. Then Mike K__ called me back. He had received a photograph (!!) of my grass clippings from today, as had the city council member. The city council member wanted to know why Mike hadn't dealt with me yet. Basically, he recommended letting the terrorists win and that I should use a leaf blower to blow the clippings off the street and back onto my boulevard! I already blow clippings off my sidewalks and onto my lawn but this seems absurd to me. While we were talking I walked outside so I could get a look at how bad these clippings were but, as it was a really windy day, there was not a single clipping to be seen! So this person must have damn near watched me mow and then followed me with a camera to capture the eyesore clippings before the wind sent them on their journey to clog the sewers and kill fish.

So now I'm pissed again. I've never seen a neighbor standing in the street blowing things off of the street and onto their yard. Seems absurd. Also, if I'm standing out there doing that this asshat will know that he's won. On the other hand, Mike is pretty cool and I'd prefer not to make him have to deal with the petty **** on my account just as I'd like to not deal with it. And I'd prefer to not have my neighbors think I'm a total slob if this is some sort of faux pas, though i paid attention driving out of the subdivision this morning and spied 3 houses with grass clipping remnants in the street. And what's with this city councilman? Does it seem appropriate for an elected official to use city employees, who hopefully have actual work to do, to harass citizens for petty ****? I was gonna call this guy but I couldn't figure out which ward I was in because our city's website is terrible. I think I figured it out now but I'm no longer angry.

So what's my play? Be the bigger man and clean up my clippings for the rest of my life? Perhaps give it a few years and assume the Old in question has died and then resume not blowing dirt, rocks and grass clippings onto my lawn? Call this city council person and ask him to answer for his using city employees to harass me, maybe support this opponent if this happens to be an election year? Bag my clippings and haul them in my Benz to the yard waste dump? Come up with some elaborate plan to smoke out this asshat and then find something to tattle on him for?