The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
Anyone who has spent time working for, with or around small-town government will recognize many of the characters in the 2019 documentary “Tread.” The film tells the story of Marvin Heemeyer, a disgruntled muffler shop owner who, in 2004, used his skills as a metalworker and welder to turn an old bulldozer into a tank and razed the town of Granby, Colo. Heemeyer’s rampage was the end result of a decade of petty injustices he perceived were directed toward him by Granby’s “good ol’ boy” establishment, who he believed resented his business success and outsider status.
The movie starts with Heemeyer telling his side of the story via a cassette tape he left as a suicide note/manifesto. He initially ran afoul of the local powers-that-be when he bid on two acres of property with an old garage at a foreclosure auction in Granby, 16 miles from his home in Gand View. Unbeknownst to him, a politically connected businessman named Docheff also wanted the property to expand his concrete operation. A bidding war ensued, and Heemeyer won out, paying $42,000. According to Heemeyer, Docheff confronted him after the auction, essentially saying that he should watch his back.
Over the next several years, Heemeyer skirmished with the town board over a variety of code enforcement issues, the major one a requirement he connect to the municipal sewer system at the cost of $80,000. He believed he was being singled out by the town board over his run-in with Dorcheff.
Eventually, Docheff acquired an adjacent piece of land and proceeded with plans to build his concrete plant. This incensed Heemeyer, who spoke out vehemently against the plant on environmental grounds and sued to prevent it. He lost the case and was ruled against on the sewer issue, forcing him to sell the property for $450,000 to a waste management company. He was, however, allowed to keep a shed on the property for storage.
It was in that shed that he modified a Komatsu D55 bulldozer with steel plates and concrete – the media called it a “killdozer” – and on June 4, 2004, destroyed a total of 13 buildings, including the concrete plant, city hall and the newspaper, before getting stuck in the basement of the hardware store and taking his own life.
Make no mistake, some of what Heemeyer says on the tape is delusional, and he was clearly a troubled individual. But, when I compare the story he tells to the rather overly pat version offered by the town officials, and apply a little of my own experience in such matters, it’s not a stretch to suggest that perhaps there was a little bit of animosity over an outsider swooping in and preventing a local from getting a sweetheart deal on the property or that a little passive-aggressive code enforcement may have taken place. A handful of tell-tale comments from the officials indicate that Heemeyer’s paranoia may not have been totally misplaced.
The sad lesson of “Tread” isn’t whether Marvin Heemeyer was a hero-victim or a deranged sociopath, it’s that much of what happened could have been avoided if the parties had just spoken honestly with one another from the beginning. Instead, everyone hunkered down in their own little trenches and lobbed bombs across no-man’s-land.