Just A Surveyor? Can't Be Too Careful These Days ... Maybe?

I am taking today/Thursday off.  I was intending to sleep in before ****e* comes over in the afternoon.  But around 10:30 I was woken up by a doorbell.

At first I thought it was someone selling roof repair or garbage services or something, so naturally, I waited him out.  But he rang again, and again, and then he knocked on the door.  That got me scared.  Are they coming to take me away, a-ha?

I finally got up and looked out my bathroom window.  I see a white truck with "USIC" across the street.  I got my phone, got ready to throw a punch if needed, then walked down to my front door ... but I didn't open it.

Through the door I asked him what he wanted.  This big guy in a highlighted vest asked to get access to the gas meter so he can mark the gas lines underneath the front yard in order to remove the tree stump there.  The tree was removed Christmas Week and when I came home to see it gone, it shocked the hell out of me.  But I thought the stump was going to stay.  I guess it's not ... but on whose say-so?

When I opened the front door I saw a second truck, one with the decal of the city on its driver's-side door.  Call me a fool, but I figured that these guys were legitimate, so I opened the side door that led to the gas meter so that this guy could attach his, um, meter thingy.  And then this same guy and this other guy driving the city truck could take these huge wands on their left hands, swing them around while walking all over the snowy front yard, and mark where the gas lines are with these huge wands on their right hands that sprayed paint.  The guy with the city left shortly thereafter.  The guy who hooked up his machine to the gas meter unplugged that meter, dumped his stuff in his car, came back out with flags, fired these flags into the ground like he was playing lawn darts, and then left.

OK.  So I assume that if these guys were kidnappers, they wouldn't go out of their way to dress as city surveyors and buy all this equipment.  It looked as though they knew what they were doing.  With that said, and with urging by ****e*, who got here this afternoon, I left a message with the city asking if they know this is going on.

It's no big deal.  Right?