Fort Marcy Park tree take-down stirs controversy in Santa Fe

Ray Sandoval says some of his earliest memories are of the Burning of Zozobra, the 30-foot effigy that’s been set ablaze in Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy Park each year for over a century.

He caught his first glimpse of Old Man Gloom from atop his father’s shoulders when he was just 3 weeks old, and immediately became enamored with the enormous marionette, the dancers, the torchbearers and the energy of the crowd.

“I thought it was the greatest thing ever,” said Sandoval, who’s the chair of Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe, the organization behind the event since 1964.

Now a group of Santa Feans wants to ensure Sandoval also never forgets the fate of 12 Siberian elms that have stood watch over — and, according to generations of attendees, in the way of — the event since they first took root in the park sometime in the mid-20th century.

Tree-cutting crews arrived at the park early Tuesday morning to begin removing the trees. They worked behind the security of a barricade and the presence of police officers stationed to control protesters who have opposed the felling of the elms since a meeting last week, when Sandoval and fellow organizers with the Santa Fe Kiwanis Club said the elms had to come down after the event’s insurer made coverage of the event conditional on their removal.

“We tried everything we could,” Sandoval said. “This is a very important tradition to me, and I love the event at Fort Marcy, but the event producer in me says you have to look at what’s going to make it safe.”

Sandoval became chair of the Kiwanis Club in 2013. He said safety concerns were raised because crowds’ views for years were blocked by the elms, causing attendees to overcrowd a footbridge near the center of the park to gain a better vantage. After the bridge began showing signs of collapse in 2017, it was replaced with a 90-foot concrete span.

He said a sturdier bridge construction, the installation of a jumbotron and a reduced crowd capacity — from 65,000 attendees last year to 50,000 this year — did not fix the overcrowding issue, becoming a deal-breaker for the event’s insurer.

Sandoval said the event has been held at the park since 1933. Several alternate locations were considered, but Kiwanis determined none met the criteria for the longstanding tradition, set this year for Aug. 29.

Although Kiwanis Club garnered $200,000 from the Legislature in 2024 to transplant new trees to the park and plans to hold a public meeting to gather input on the replanting process on Aug. 21, some Santa Fe residents say the trees should have been saved.

Opponents to their removal say that cutting down the elms permanently alters the character of the park for an event that happens once a year.

“They may not be native, but they provide shade for the park. Cutting them down would increase the temperatures in the park,” Santa Fe resident Lynne Wallace wrote on Santa Fe Bulletin Board, a public Facebook group.

Even some public officials have joined the opposition.

“I am frustrated and disappointed regarding the matter of cutting down the Siberian Elm trees at Ft. Marcy Park,” said Michael J. Garcia, District 2 Santa Fe city councilor, in a prepared statement. “I wish there would have been a better compromise to this issue. I do want to clear up any confusion, the city council did not discuss this topic during a city council meeting nor did the city council take a vote on the matter …”

Oscar Rodriguez, a Santa Fe mayoral candidate and CFO for the New Mexico Finance Authority, agreed that more public engagement was warranted prior to cutting down the trees.

“I am one of those who was just really surprised that it happened so fast,” he said. “I guess I was expecting more discussion.”

Despite the public outcry, Santa Fe City Manager Mike Scott said in a statement that he couldn’t permit the cancellation of the Burning of Zozobra by preventing the trees’ removal.

Ryan Brenteson, master arborist and owner of Very Good Tree Service in Santa Fe, said Siberian elms aren’t native to the area but were introduced to provide needed shade in the City Different.

“They were brought in around the 1940s by our governor at the time for a fast-growing, drought tolerant tree,” Brenteson said. “It is definitely our biggest shade tree around here.”

However, due to their extensive and shallow root systems, Brenteson said elms are very difficult — and highly expensive — to transplant.

Sandoval remains steadfast: Removing the elms was unavoidable, he says, noting that tree removal is a normal consequence of various projects around Santa Fe and other communities.

“I’m really, really shocked,” he said. “Five months ago, 10 trees were removed from Fort Marcy Park for a pickleball court. Not one person seemed to have a problem with that, and nobody came back with a plan to replant. We’re not saying, ‘We’re going to replant saplings and in 20 or 30 years you’ll have shade again.’ We asked for $200,000 so we could replant mature trees to have shade again immediately and funding for irrigation for those trees.”