You must live in a nice neighborhood. Stumps simply become wooden flower planters in my neck of the woods.

Never say never. Little maple trees grow into big ones, you just won't be around to see them this size.

Better to lose them now that during an ice storm in January.
Our last house we had a small leaf maple that stayed under 30ish feet but produced the most wonderful colors in the fall.

Agreed, tankfixer. I have a dying silverleaf maple in my back yard that has to come down. I love the tree, and wish I could do something for it, but woodborer beetles have already taken over (my greenhouse is now full of sawdust from it), and I'm not looking forward to it coming down in a bad storm atop the house. I can always plant a new tree in the space, preferably one more resistant to beetles and disease than this maple, and start all over again.

Did they get permits, how much did they cost, AND how much is the City of Portland going to penalize them for acting responsibly and having the trees removed, before there was a problem, unlike Portland Parks?

Plus one for Mark's re-Mark.

Some city bureaucrat will be out soon to dictate the punishment and the type & size of the required replacement trees that your neighbor MUST now plant.

And since the city OWNS those trees, the city is entitled to the cord wood generated (for the poor) and it will NOT be allowed to be burned for wood heat...well, at least not bu the person that cut it down.

If you want to be responsible, you need to ask the government first. And pay a fee for permission.

Alas, Silver Maples are a menace around homes & neighborhoods. They rot out from the inside, look ok, but loom as dangerous deadfalls. And tree planting selection has to be guided by proportionality to surroundings. Still, of course, sad to see good ol' trees be taken down & out of a neighborhood after years of steadfast companionship.

Good wood for a meat smoker

If the cities atitude is they own the tree then they also own the responability to remove it when it's dying.
Or pay for any and all damages if it falls.

Still even sadder to see perfectly good trees in our parks chopped by our very own Parks Bureau for urban development projects in parks or whatever reason they come up with.
In Pier Park, St. Johns, years ago Charlie Hales had red x's put on 75 firs and cedars to be chopped. As I have said before those trees are still there thanks to the people they were saved, but other trees in parks weren't.
I bring this up because Hales is no friend of huge trees, but a huge proponent of street trees and development. This is all a part of the smart growth agenda. Big trees are in the way of dense developments.

Mike H., you ain't kidding. Last spring, my neighborhood was hit with several bad storms (including a series of tornadoes so intense that friends in Australia were calling me to see if I was okay after they'd caught the alert on the news), and I ended up with about 500-odd pounds of branches in the back yard from my dying silverleaf maple. It beat the hell out of a brand new greenhouse (the greenhouse gave its life to save the pitcher plants I had inside), but after cutting up the debris with a chainsaw, I had plenty of grilling wood. I speak from experience: I've used a lot of grilling woods before, but I've never had anything so good with pork, especially thick chops and ribs, as silverleaf maple. When my tree has to come down at the end of the year, I'm hanging onto as much of the wood as I can manage.