Harrisburg's Green Urban Initiative is looking to hold city officials accountable for bulldozing its community garden at North Sixth and Curtin streets in the city's uptown section.

GUI is a local nonprofit that seeks to plant community gardens within walking distance of residents.

And its uptown garden fell prey to bulldozers after City Council President Wanda Williams ordered public works employees to demolish the garden Wednesday morning.

Williams said neighbors accused GUI of not maintaining the plot properly and claimed criminals were using the raised planter boxes to hide drugs and guns.

GUI members disagreed, saying if anything, neighbors in the high-crime area were appreciative of the effort.

Jim Akers, GUI’s treasurer, questioned whether council even has the authority to demolish the garden.

“I think that there was a really gross injustice done at the city,” Akers said. “I would like to hold personally responsible whoever directed that that work be taken.”

GUI has three other gardens across the city.

“Because we did have such an investment there, I want to know how the city is going to make it good. There’s enough lawsuits and acrimony in the city, I’d like to see (the city) put water in at one of the other gardens and do something positive,” he added Thursday night as the group met to discuss the matter at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore.

And the group’s president Jason Zubler said the organization had at least $1,000 in materials invested on the uptown plot it leased from the city through its Adopt-a-Lot program.

Still, Williams said she has no intention of making amends with GUI, saying the garden was filled with overgrown weeds and was a nuisance.

“Neighbors called and complained and it’s not like it was something that could be appreciated as a thing of beauty,” she said.

“And it’s not a priority as far as reconciling with [GUI] because there are more significant problems to deal with like the city’s fiscal crisis,” Williams added.

Mayor Linda Thompson’s spokesman Robert Philbin wouldn’t comment on the situation, saying only that the matter is under review in the city’s law bureau.

The Adopt-a-Lot program requires officials to give anyone 30 days notice before tearing down a project.

The garden was planted in April and Williams said she told GUI in May to dismantle the garden after Sylvia Rigal and other neighbors complained.

Zubler said GUI spoke with council about its concerns with the garden, but the organization never was told to dismantle the garden.

“If (council) would have just came to us, we could have discussed how to proceed,” he said. “We offered to meet with them.”

Rigal lives next to the vacant tract that housed the garden.

She said weeds grew so high around the garden that she couldn’t see the street corner.

And that posed a safety threat because she no longer could keep an eye out for criminal activity in the crime-ridden area.

Thompson barricaded the opposite street corner over the summer for several days after a series of gun battles broke out in the area.

Rigal said the mayor played a big role in the demolition, too.

“They set up the garden and it looked like a bunch of coffins without a lid,” Rigal said. “I said ‘I think you are disrespecting our community by coming up here without first asking anybody if they wanted to be involved.’”

Harrisburg resident Ellen Crist was the garden’s coordinator.

She happened upon the city’s demolition work shortly after the garden disappeared on Wednesday.

Hoping to whip up some stew and pickled eggs, Crist went to the plot hoping to grab ingredients.

When she got there, the carrots and beets she planned to pick were gone, along with everything else.

“I looked and said ‘what happened to the garden?’” Crist said. “It was sad. It had vegetables and flowers and I had just planted tall flowers.

“Neighbors appreciated the garden and told us “God bless you for doing it,’” she added.

The situation should have been handled differently, said Councilwoman Patty Kim.

“The gardeners, they should have had time to at least harvest what they were growing all summer. This was complete disrespect,” Kim said. “I realize it’s a high crime area but a community garden is supposed to attract more positive traffic. This is just really unfortunate.”

Several neighbors in the immediate area of the garden said they would miss the garden.

“I thought it made the area look nicer,” said Sherry Emerson of Sixth Street.

“It was nice,” said Taryn Miller, who also lives near the garden on Sixth Street “It brought some brightness to the hood.”