RU OXAlum, it looks like things got settled. An apology, several thousand dollars, and so on:
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dl...ENEWS/61212003
and
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dl...612130663/1116
and a CBS station in Boston has a very short article, with a picture of the tree stump:
http://cbs4boston.com/watercooler/lo...347114846.html
Nobody contacted me for any advice about it. They probably didn't need it.