'I speak for the trees'
<p>Bruce and Linda Meyer describe a neighbor dispute that involves a developer removing hundreds of trees from the Coeur d’Alene couple’s property on Fernan Hill Road.</p>
<p>A worker hired to remove trees from an easement area on the Meyer’s property stops work as Press staff approach the job site on Wednesday.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Linda Meyer likens what's happening to her property to the Dr. Suess book "The Lorax."
"When they get done, I'm going to make a big sign that says: 'The Grove of The Lifted Lorax,'" she said, pointing down her property line where hundreds of her Ponderosa Pine trees have been removed during the past couple of weeks.
Meyer's husband, Bruce, said the trees are being removed legally for the most part, but the way it has been handled is causing a neighborhood dispute.
When the Meyers purchased their house on Fernan Hill Road they knew their neighbors had a view easement and now they are exercising their right to remove the Meyers' trees.
Bruce said it all started when developer Larry Fluet wanted the city of Coeur d'Alene to annex a 22-acre parcel he wants to develop above the Meyers' property.
"I led the effort to kill the annexation," Bruce said. "We didn't want him to be able to build 32 houses up there."
But that didn't stop the development. Bruce said Fluet is currently developing 11 residential lots in the Woodlands at Frosty Pine.
After a prolonged lawsuit about a road easement, Bruce said Fluet started logging trees along the private road bordering the Meyer's property to build a stormwater swale.
In the meantime, Bruce said he worked out a legal agreement with his neighbor detailing how the trees would be removed, but on Wednesday some of the trees they agreed to leave in place were cut down as well.
"Larry Fluet met with them this morning and now the trees have been cut down," Bruce said. In his opinion, he thinks Fluet is retaliating against him for opposing the annexation.
Fluet - who is also developing the controversial Lilac Glen development which was annexed by the city last week - did not return a phone message Wednesday.
Linda said removing all of the trees is destabilizing the rest of the trees on her property. Because of the logging, Linda said, they lost three trees during a recent windstorm.
"This just reminds me of the book 'The Lorax,'" she said, explaining how she is going to modify an old wagon on their property to say "Once-ler's Wagon."
Linda is also erecting a third sign that says "Unless" like the sign Lorax left in Suess' story which he wrote was "a far away word; a far away thought."
Suess went on later in the book to explain: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better - it's not."
Linda, who is arguably a bit of a Lorax herself, understands there is nothing they can do legally about the situation, but she said the whole process is frustrating when it happens on their own property.
"This has definitely affected the wildlife around here," she said, adding that she has half a mind to make a bunch of "Truffula" trees to put in her yard but they can't be taller than 6 feet, due to the neighbor's easement.
"I guess the bottom line is that Dr. Suess is going to be proud of my wife," Bruce said.