Port Stephens Council put them there - with a crane, at a cost of more than $10,000 - to punish those responsible for cutting down 20 trees.
Irate locals are calling the green monolith "a monument to stupidity" and complain they are being treated like children.
And the council agrees, according to group manager, facilities and services, Mike Trigar.
"Obviously those people who weren't involved (in chopping down the trees) and now have their views obstructed are not happy, and we appreciate that position," he said. "But it's like if you can't find the perpetrator in school, so everybody is held back for detention."
Local Don Everett claims the council has gone power-crazy. "We don't like being guilty until proven innocent. This is Australia, not Russia or China," he said.
1 comment:
this might seem petty, but there is actually a good reason behind it. In nearby Sydney and in New South Wales, especially in coastal towns and cities like Port Stephens, there was a spate of people poisoning trees to improve their view or their house price when selling their property. Council would then have to remove the tree at their expense and any trees planted to replace them would be ripped out or killed. Trees everywhere where being killed off, especially as the real estate market took off. Streets lined with beautiful hundred year old trees were ruined by these arseholes. Suburbs were blighted by it. In the end the councils would cut trees back so that limbs would be falling on people and then hang a banner from it saying "this tree has been poisoned". Other councils planted trees and put up screens and made it clear that the screens would only be removed when the trees reached the same height as the screens.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-view-to-kill-for-but-tree-vandals-beware-20060222-gdn0m0.html
I think they eventually reined it in.
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