Patricia and Clarence Cox have worried for years about the possibility of the large tree in front of their house toppling over.
And then, last month, it happened.
The couple was inside their home in the 1100 block of 17th Street in Niagara Falls on July 18 when they heard a strange and unsettling noise.
Patricia said it sounded to her like the neighborhood was about to get hit by a tornado.
“I never heard a sound like that before in my life and it scared me so bad,” Patricia said.
As she approached a window to look outside, she did not see a funnel cloud.
Instead, Patricia saw a tree coming her way.
“We ran because I saw the tree in the window and I said. ‘It’s coming down.’ I said, ‘Honey, that tree is falling on us.’ “
The couple rushed outside and over to a neighbor’s house, where they got their first look at the large tree leaning up against the side of their home, covering a front entrance and several windows. At first, Patricia thought her home was also on fire before she realized the downed tree cut a utility line, causing it to fall onto the lawn and smolder.
Patricia said and her husband had feared the possibility that a stiff wind or strong storm would bring the tree down. They believe that, had the city acted sooner, the situation could have been avoided years ago.
While city employees did come out a couple of times to take a look at the tree and did patch part of the sidewalk the tree’s roots had damaged, Cox said they never tended to the tree itself.
Due to its condition, Cox said she considered the tree a safety hazard just waiting to happen.
“I said so many times, ‘You guys need to get rid of that tree. It’s dead. Eventually that tree is going to fall,’ “ Patricia said.
Philip Wells, a spokesperson for Mayor Robert Restaino’s office, said neither the city’s Department of Public Works nor the city’s 311 complaint system had a record of complaints about the tree in question during Restaino’s tenure in office.
Patricia insists she and her husband called the city numerous times in hopes of having the tree removed. She provided the newspaper with copies of emails she sent, one in 2023 to Council Vincent Cauley, and another in 2024 to Niagara County Legislator and Minority Leader Jeffrey Elder, D-Niagara Falls, asking them to get involved.
“Something needs to be done about this tree immediately,” she wrote in her email to Cauley. “We are taxpayers and I have had my daycare business at my home for 27 years.”
In her email, she attached several photos and pleaded: “This is the tree that is killing my front yard.”
Cauley recalls talking about the tree with the couple during a visit he made to the house after he received the email. He also provided the Gazette with a copy of the follow-up email from Sept. 20, 2023, which he sent to the mayor and City Administrator Anthony Restaino and encouraged the administration to give the Cox family’s tree issue “urgent status.”
“I am aware of the shortage of resources at our disposal. However, I believe prioritization of those resources is in our control,” Cauley wrote. “I believe that in the case of the Cox family at the address below, this longtime constituent, ardent taxpayer, small business owner and resident should be upgraded to the urgent status. I have seen the situation in person, of course. They have a history with the city, and in the name of being proactive, I am in hopes that we can address the situation after years of effort to rectify a perilous situation on their behalf.”
Cauley said the incident at the Cox’s house highlights what’s been a consistent pattern in city government in recent years — lack of attention to basic resident concerns that, in some cases, can involve neglect that leads to property damage or even worse.
“I believe we can and should be addressing these types of things sooner,” he said. “If we were a little more proactive and we were prioritizing basic services for city residents — landscaping, trees, roads, infrastructure — I think it could be avoided and I think it’s important that we try to do something before something like this happens.”
In light of so-called “TreeGate,” last year’s controversy involving the use of city funds for the removal of a tree located in the right-of-way in front of Mayor Robert Restaino’s house, some people on social media have criticized the current administration for not acting sooner.
In fairness, Patricia said the tree has been a problem for many years, noting that previous mayors didn’t do anything about it either.
“They don’t have any recollection of them coming to my house and walking across my lawn? Why did they come out and fix the sidewalk then?” she said. “It wasn’t under this mayor. They were told about it way before that.”
“I’m not talking about (Mayor Robert Restaino) because this started even before he got into office,” she added. “It started way before this mayor even came. If you are going to blame him, you’ve got to go all the way down the line.”
The couple’s house was condemned immediately after the incident. The tree has since been removed and the condemnation has also been lifted. Repair work is now moving forward and Patricia said she’s happy to report her in-home daycare has reopened following a few weeks of delays.
“I hate that I had to miss money and nobody is reimbursing me, but I’m so thankful to God that I can go back to work,” she said. “If I couldn’t, I would be devastated.”