A Largo resident dealing with city-owned trees in front of her home that were damaged by Hurricane Irma was forced to reach out to the mayor and city commission directly after the city failed to return her calls.
- Bonnie Klees had to pay $800 to have debris from trees piled after storm
- Klees had paid to have trees trimmed until she realized they belonged to city
- City never responded to Klees's calls about trees
Bonnie Klees said the two trees in front of her home left a significant amount of debris following the storm.
"It was like 10 feet high and I had to pay $800 for somebody to come and pile it up," Klees told us.
Klees said before the storm she'd been paying to have the trees trimmed for years before she realized that anything between the sidewalk and the street, where the trees are planted, actually is the responsibility of the City of Largo.
When she called the city about the trees, she got no response. Unfortunately, the lack of a response came as no surprise.
"Well, it's not unusual," Klees said. "I've called there before and not really gotten a response."
We reached out to Kate Oyer with the city's Communications and Marketing department by phone, and also had to leave a message. We did receive an email from Oyer indicating she'd provide some information about the matter prior to our deadline, but the information never came.
Oyer later sent an email apologizing for not being available before our deadline.
Thankfully, Klees said she'd had much better luck reaching out to the mayor and city commissioners directly.
“I emailed the commissioners and obviously have done much better at getting a response with the commissioners than I ever did with calling them on the phone," Klees said.
She received an email from Assistant Parks Superintendent Phil Christman saying that the city would remove the trees in December.