That is not what is being said. As unfortunate as it was, they did have the right to do with their property as they wished. They wished to cut down that tree, so they did.
If you don’t respect basic property rights, you should quit calling yourself a conservative.
What you are asking is the owner to shoulder the entire burden for everyone else.
If everyone else thinks it is important to keep the tree - buy it. The fact that they didn’t buy it proves they didn’t think it was THAT important.
Demanding someone else pay for my visual pleasure is what I call a “fine sense of citizenship”. BTW, “fine citizen” will you take me to a strip club?
I live less than five miles from this town, and the fact that it has a "town forester" is a joke. This is a town that is constantly threatening to secede from the county where it is located -- on the basis of the allegedly exorbitant county taxes the residents pay there.
P.S. That town is located right next to an enormous county nature preserve that protects one of the major watersheds in the northern New Jersey area. You can stand almost anywhere that preserve and draw a circle with a 200-yard radius, and you will have more trees than you’d find in the entire town of Millburn.