I am sorry to hear about your tree. I live a few blocks from you, and I didn’t hear about the “the largest public works project that Conshohocken had undertaken in years” either. My guess is that the reason we weren’t told about the project has something to do with how the contract for the work was awarded and who it was awarded to.

I have heard from a former council member that Conshohocken public works contracts are awarded something like this: The borough doesn’t solicit open bidding for the contract. The borough awards the contract to councilman Joe’s brother-in-law, because he “always does the street work.” Nobody asks any questions about how much his bid was for, and whether the job could be done better or cheaper. Later that summer, councilman Joe’s family stays at the contractor’s shore house for a few weeks. Or the contractor fixes Joe’s son’s house for free. You get the picture. So the Borough doesn’t want the taxpayers asking too many questions about these projects. If we’re not informed, we can’t ask questions.

Not being an arborist, I’ll just guess maybe it was a life-span issue they are just trying to be proactive about (to avoid the risk of that grand old tree coming down on you or your home and the risk of lawsuit. Does the borough have responsiblity for maintaining trees (when they still existed, that is) or is this the homeowners’ responsibility?

I agree with what Melissa wrote above — if you don’t know, you can’t stop them. However, it still amazes me that the local machine wouldn’t have had to at least give you a day’s notice to make sure your car wasn’t on the street or whatever.

Probably you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it from coming down, even if you had been notified. But you SHOULD have been notified, no doubt.