Dispute with the city and preparations

In 2001, the zoning commission and the town's trustees approved the construction of a cement manufacturing plant. Heemeyer appealed the decisions unsuccessfully. For many years, Heemeyer had used the adjacent property as a way to get to his muffler shop. The plan for the cement plant blocked that access. In addition to the frustration engendered by this dispute over access, Heemeyer was fined $2,500 by the Granby government for various violations, including "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line". Heemeyer sought to cross 8 feet of the concrete plant's property to hook up with the sewer line.

As a last measure, Heemeyer petitioned the city with his neighbors and friends, but to no avail. He couldn't function without the sewer line and the cooperation of the town.

Soon, Heemeyer leased his business to a trash company. Heemeyer ended up selling the property several months prior to the rampage. The new owners gave Heemeyer six months to leave, and it was apparently during this time that he began modifying his bulldozer. Heemeyer had bought a bulldozer two years before the incident with the intention of using it to build an alternative route to his muffler shop, but city officials rejected his request to build the road. Heemeyer complained the concrete plant had left dust on, and blocked access to, his business.

Notes found by investigators after the rampage indicate that the primary motivation for Heemeyer's bulldozer rampage was his fight to stop a concrete plant from being built near his shop. The notes suggested Heemeyer nursed grudges over the zoning issue. "I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable," Heemeyer scribbled. "Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things."

Heemeyer took about a year and a half to prepare for his rampage. In notes found by investigators after the incident, Heemeyer wrote "It's interesting how I never got caught. This was a part-time project over a 1 1/2 year time period." In the notes, Heemeyer expressed surprise that three men who visited the shed last fall did not discover the bulldozer work, "especially with the 2,000 lb. lift fully exposed." "Somehow their vision was clouded," he wrote.