As workers in bucket trucks sawed down a stand of towering Siberian elms at Fort Marcy park early Tuesday, one upset observer offered a grisly alternative to the highly unpopular project: Throw Ray Sandoval in the wood chipper.

Sandoval is the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe’s chair for the annual Burning of Zozobra, a massive event that draws tens of thousands of spectators to the city park annually. The native Santa Fean has faced a firestorm of criticism over the tree removal, which he has described as necessary to obtain insurance for the event, coming Aug. 29.

In an interview in this week’s Around the Roundhouse podcast, Sandoval said he understands people are mad.

Up to a point.

“Everybody wants to pick on Zozobra because he’s the big guy in the room,” he said.

He claimed 10 trees we

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