You guys need to learn to turn it around. Two years ago, a contractor for my ‘green city’, that was hauling cement, crashed into my lot and took out a huge oak tree. They offered me nothing and my insurance company was stalling.
I offered to ‘settle’ for a few thousand bucks and they laugh at me in the face like I was insane. Little did they know my background in horticulture and landscape architecture. I know the true ‘value’ of trees. It’s not mythical either....there is a dollar amount per caliber inch depending on species.
All I had to do was go out and get a replacement bid for a 24” diameter tree, planted in the exact spot(which would have taken a crane)..and suddenly they were offering me 10,000 bucks to settle....LOL
Moral of the story...use their silly laws against them at every opportunity. My final settlement after they pissed me off was over 15,000.
They scratched my driveway...took out some crepe myrtles...etc. I was willing to let that kind of silly crap go...but they pissed me off.
If I had been smart, I would have sued for the ‘toxic oil’ the cement truck spilled on my land in the crash and gotten damages for ‘future’ generations!
LOL!
the resulting beetle infestation followed by a few forest fires changed that policy.