Unemployed Woman Sues City Of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden

Flashback

While some stories of front yard gardeners battling against the local brass to keep their edible plots have happy endings — Ron Finley’s parking strip garden in South Los Angeles and Adam Guerrero’s veggie-heavy urban greenspace in Memphis being two recent examples — that sadly isn’t the case with Denise Morrison, a greenthumbed Tulsa, Okla., resident whose extensive edible garden was largely cleared away by authorities while she was awaiting a court date to work out a citation stemming from a complaint.

The story — hat tip to TreeHugger — is equally aggravating as it is sad. Once upon a time, Morrison’s front and backyards were filled with more than 100 plant varieties — KOTV lists flowers, apple trees, pecan trees, grapes, lemons, stevia, strawberries and several types of mint as constituting just a small part of the garden— that Morrison used not only for food, but for medicinal purposes as well to help treat her diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis.

In August of last year, Morrison received a letter saying that the city had received a complaint about her garden. Morrison took the initiative to meet with city inspectors to see what could be done, but those meetings turned out to be, well, fruitless. They ordered her to promptly remove everything from her garden (including a junked car sitting in her driveway) even though, according to city code, plants more than 12 inches tall can indeed be grown on one’s property provided that they’re edible. With that, Morrison called the police so that a citation could be issued — that way, the conflict could be worked out in court between the city and Morrison. On Aug. 15, Morrison appeared in court, but the judge delayed the case until October.

The very next day, the city — in apparent violation of court order — sent a team of workers to Morrison's home to clear out the garden. The workers removed nearly every matter of plant life including Morrison’s flower beds and fruit trees. As you can see from the before and after photos published by KOTV, the damage done by the city is dramatic. So much for self-sufficiency, eh?

"I came back three days later, sat in my driveway, cried and left,” Morrison told KOTV. “Not only are the plants my livelihood, they're my food and I was unemployed at the time and had no food left, no medicine left, and I didn't have insurance. They took away my life and livelihood."

Just last week, Morrison finally appeared in court regarding the initial citation issued last August. The garden portion of the citation was dismissed by the judge — talk about too little, too late — while Morrison plead no contest to having an operable vehicle in her driveway. Morrison has now filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city. In it, she claims that code enforcement officers, swooping in before the scheduled court day, acted without cause.

Needless to say, only good vibes to Morrison as she continues with her lawsuit against the city. The code enforcement department should be downright ashamed of itself and, in my opinion, forced to help Morrison replant her garden. And it looks like some other folks feel the exact same way.

Originally Posted On: http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/blogs/torn-up-tulsa-garden-results-in-civil-rights-lawsuit

__________________________________________________

Follow up to this story

Federal Judge Rules Against Woman in Garden Suit

A north Tulsa woman had her case droppedin a federal court this week against a City of Tulsa department that claims she violated a city ordinance when she overgrew her front lawn.

It's a case of she said, they said that has spanned all the way back to 2011. And this week, Denise Morrison found out from a federal judge that her lawsuit against City of Tulsa employees would be dropped in their court.

"They ruled against me saying that I should have taken it to an appellate court before I took it to their court," Morrison said.

Channel 8's Kim Jackson spoke to Morrison last summer who said her whole front yard has been dedicated to her love of gardening. A garden which sprung forth spinach and mint and because of that, she says it can grow as high as it will, because it's edible and not mandated under the city ordinance.

But City attorney Gerry Bender told KTUL.com that's not the case when we spoke to them on Thursday. He said during initial observations a horticulturist stated that the yard was more than a garden with herbs - but also had lots of trash and junk.

Bender said a decision was made by the City to trim Morrison's yard after repeated warnings were given and multiple meetings. Neighbors also made multiple complaints and 11 cubic yards of material were removed, including:

   - Loose tree limbs

   - Rusty shed pieces

   - Trash

'They cut down food and they didn't just cut down all of it. Say for instance, like this right here, the highest thing I had, apple mint. They didn't cut down the height of it, they just cut down patches of it," Morrison told Kim Jackson last summer. She said some of her vegetation didn't grow back, some of which she used to treat her diabetes and arthritis.

So Morrison went and filed a lawsuit at the federal district court against members of the City. At court hearings, Bender said several exhibits and documents were presented that the judge would need to "decide the case from both sides." He added that there was plenty of case support for the City against Morrison.

During their final appearance in federal court, Bender said the judge reviewed all the evidence and ruled the City's judgement was entitled by law.

"There was no violation of her constitutional rights in her case," Bender said.

On Thursday, KTUL.com spoke to Morrison who said she would file an appeal of the judge's decision bringing up the issue of corruption in the city.

"I'm going to make the public aware that what happened to me, if this ruling stands, could happen to them too," she said. "There's nothing to do with neighborhood inspections in this case."

Originally Posted On: http://www.ktul.com/story/21768645/federal-judge-rules-against-woman-in-garden-suit