City officials say there's more than one side to a local saga that pits an elderly gardener against the law.
"It's not just his garden . . . that's just one of his problems," said City Attorney Clint Balmforth, who said Truman Cope has been a thorn in the city's side for years."Nobody's picking on him because of the tomatoes in his front yard, for crying out loud," said Balmforth.
Cope, 77, faces 12 days in the county jail plus $700 in fines unless he cleans up his junk-strewn back yard by Friday, clips several strands of barbed wire strung up around parts of his yard and digs up a vegetable garden that grows in front of his house and includes a potato patch on the "park strip" between the sidewalk and Truman Street.
Balmforth said Cope has been combative and uncooperative for years with city officials who have tried to enforce zoning laws upon him, an assessment shared by Jim Davis, mayor of South Salt Lake for 14 years before he left earlier this year to take a job with Salt Lake City.
"He's a guy that uses a combination of his war record and his age to play the game of not being mentally or emotionally competent and using that to manipulate people," said Davis, who called Cope's latest round with the city "ridiculous."
Davis said neighbors have a legitimate beef with Cope, who he said is a religious zealot.
"He's come over to my house to put curses on it," said Davis, and Balmforth said Cope more than once has behaved similarly in court.
"He likes to call down the wrath of God upon me," said Balmforth.
Cope, a devout Mormon, said he grows vegetables in abundance because that's what a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged followers to do some years ago.
Cope's confrontation with the city has made him something of a folk hero among some South Salt Lake residents and garnered the support of at least one City Council member.
"If he'd asked for a variance, I think they'd consider doing that," said Balmforth, who said the laws Cope is accused of breaking serve an important function in South Salt Lake.
"Without a landscaping ordinance nobody's property would have any value or protection," said Balmforth, who said one household of Cope's neighbors has objected vehemently to his habit of planting vegetables in his front yard and filling the back yard with junk, which is hidden from street view by a plywood fence.
"All the man does is scream and yell and call you names . . . the rodent control in his yard is terrible, there's trash and debris . . . the neighbors have tried to sell their home but they can't because of Mr. Cope."
Municipal Judge Paul Thompson, who imposed the deadline and sentence on Cope, said judicial ethics preclude him from talking in detail about the case but said, "There's a law on the books, it came into my court and my job is to adjudicate and rule on that."
"There are certainly two sides to this."
Balmforth said Cope, by lending his yard a decidedly rural ambience, broke a pact he signed in 1983 that afforded him a city-sponsored $12,000 housing rehabilitation loan, the repayment of which Davis said has been indefinitely deferred.
"One condition was that he keep the front yard landscaped, but he breached his word."
The city attorney also said that for years Cope used his back yard as a toilet and that in 1983 several city employees devoted considerable time hauling trash from the back yard.
He said it's possible Cope will do jail time.
"Truman Cope has never obeyed a single rule in his life," said Balmforth, who said Cope has been in jail previously on similar confrontations dating to 1983.
"He's going to clean up his yard and get rid of the barbed wire," said Balmforth.