The city paved an area along my fence & placed recycle bins. I believe some property is mine, they didnt ask, wont answer now.

One of your first steps would be to review your deed to deteremine if the city holds an easement across your property. An easement essentially means you own the property but they can use it for certain purposes. Common examples are for water lines and sidewalks.

If they have an easement, they may or may not have had to get permission from you to build. An easment might also have limits on what they can build or what they can put on property that may be yours. This step will depend on the language in your deed.

Be aware that knowing exactly where your property line and where the city's property is will most likely require a survey. Then you would probably have to have the surveyor calculate where any easements cross over your property to deteremine exactly where the city may have been permitted to build. This can be as expensive as just having a lawyer look over the first parts.

As far as actions you can take you can just keep asking the city. The guy who did the work is right- he is just following orders and will know nothing about it.