A series of run-ins between celebrity developer Donald Trump and the California community of Rancho Palos Verdes is culminating in a lawsuit, observers say.

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Trump filed suit against the small city this week, claiming his plans to build a world-class golf course there have been stymied due to fraud and civil rights violations by Rancho Palos Verdes, which he says is refusing to let him build the course in the "Trump image," The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

One issue is a row of 12-foot-tall ficus trees Trump was forced to cut down earlier, but that's only one the complaints the developer has leveled in his $100 million lawsuit against the city, a picturesque Los Angeles suburb of nearly 46,000.

"I've been looking forward for a long time to do this," Trump told the Times. "The town does everything possible to stymie everything I do."

City leaders, however, said the lawsuit was just another attempt by Trump to bully the community.

"We have bent over backwards many, many times to work with Donald Trump," Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Larry Clark told the newspaper. "I'm sure this lawsuit is really going to anger a lot of the residents."