Fredericton — The City of Stately Elms may have to change its moniker to The City of Just One Elm if it keeps removing trees like it did on Tuesday. Fredericton followed through with its previous plan and cut down 11 trees in Officers’ Square in the downtown area.

News broke of the disaster mid-morning when outraged citizens took to social media to voice their extreme displeasure. Many vowed to hold city councillors and Mayor Mike O’Brien accountable for this treachery.

“No one obtained my personal approval for this and I’m pissed,” posted an apparently pissed Harley Tripp. “It’s completely ridiculous that they’re cutting down trees in the city! There’s not many things I enjoy more in life than looking at trees from my apartment across the street, and now I’ll have to look in a totally different direction if I want to see any trees!”

Mayor O’Brien took full responsibility for the initiative, even suggesting that he was the only city official who even wanted to remove the trees in the first place.

“I just really hate trees,” he said candidly. “Always have, ever since I was a kid. My father was actually killed by a tree, you see. That’s why I moved to the city — just to get away from trees being everywhere.”

Our reporter asked O’Brien how he’s responding to the harsh criticism he’s been facing since this heinous act of cutting down 11 trees took place.

“Well, I’m the mayor, so there’s not much these losers can do about it. They should have thought about it when they voted me in. I ran a very anti-tree campaign and now I feel like it’s my duty to follow through on those promises.”

Local treeologist Marty Gregg met with the public late Tuesday afternoon to discuss the dire situation the city is facing in the wake of the tree removal.

“With the removal of these 11 trees, we see ourselves on the brink of a crumbling democracy!” he shouted passionately to dozens of supporters in Fredericton’s downtown. “By my count, we are down to just shy of 9 million trees in this city and if we don’t do something to change this now, we will have no choice but to move to outside the city to enjoy nature at its fullest.”

O’Brien defended his council’s decision to chop the trees, saying that Fredericton is simply keeping up with the longstanding tradition of tree-removal passed from generation to generation by the greatest New Brunswickers ever to live: the Irving family.