New Haven Independent

Zhao, speaking in broken English and without a lawyer’s help, showed up at a small claims hearing Wednesday with a videotape of the disaster footage and an envelope stuffed with paper evidence. When he asked the city to compensate him for his car before, he was denied. This time around, making his case before a magistrate puzzled at the city’s inconsistency, his odds appeared improved.

Zhao and neighbors say the tree, which sat on city property, had long been marked for removal. “There was a sign on the tree saying the tree should’ve been removed a long time ago.”

For how long? “Easily for over a year,” probably as far back as 2003, according to Tom Romanik, Zhao’s former landlord. He knows the tree well — he lived at the house at 318 Humphrey St. for 50 years. Testifying before a magistrate in a balmy third-floor hearing room, Romanik said his father hated the tree. “It was dying from the top down.” Every so often, limbs would come crashing onto the sidewalk or house. He said he called the city “at least twice” to speed up the removal.

Bruce Crowder, Zhao’s next-door neighbor, said the tree was in such bad shape it just toppled over on a windless summer day last year. “It was completely dead calm, you couldn’t fly a kite.” The wood was rotted through. A child could tear it away with bare hands.

Crowder appealed to the city for $1,000 in damages to his power lines and gutters. The request was granted. Zhao’s request for $4,200 for his totaled car was not. Zhao asked the magistrate why “the city paid for the damage to my neighbor’s house but they denied my claim to my car.”

The city’s attorney, Jonathan Beamon, didn’t have much to say in defense. He dismissed Zhao’s neighbor’s settlement as inadmissable. He questioned the validity of a petition submitted, where neighbors swore the tree had been marked for removal. “You have no expert testimony,” he said. “My understanding is that the tree [was to] be trimmed, not removed.”

The magistrate, who court staff identified as Robert Bown, didn’t look convinced. He said the city gave “no reason” “why it chooses to deal with certain victims of this matter differently than other victims.”

“I wish the city in the future can be more responsible … ,” ended Zhao, who still awaited a decision Thursday.