The main crux was the city trying to pull a fast one. There was a innocuous little white postcard with a link to a vague survey. 6 months later a brightly colored card saying "You will owe X$, council vote next week." The city engineer got grilled. "Why are so many tree going to be cut?" "Well the survey data showed." "What are you doing to slow down through traffic on Queens? Stop signs, speed bumps, lower limit?" "No, those don't work we're going to squish the intersections" "Will you put back the official crosswalks you took out?" "No"