SANDPOINT — After declaring a 100-foot spruce at 113 N. Fourth Ave. a public nuisance last week, Sandpoint officials reluctantly moved to cut the tree down..

Workers cut the tree into pieces and sent the remains off for disposal, Sandpoint urban forester Stephen Drinkard said.

 “We had the money through a stimulus funding grant to do the removal,” Drinkard said. “And so, with regret,  we took the opportunity.”

In order to safely carry out the removal in a residential area, Mike Richardson of Richardson and Dirk’s Tree Care scaled the tree using safety ropes, painstakingly cutting away branches and then removing portions of the trunk from the top down.

Residents say that the tree started out as a promising addition to the community. However, it stood in the public right of way and, to make matters worse, construction workers irreparably damaged the tree’s roots during the construction of a new sidewalk.

Drinkard says that’s situation took a turn for the worse.

“We had a number of experts look at the tree and all of them saw it in decline,” he said. “If it was blown over in the wind, it could kill people and ruin houses and cars.”