I'M BEGGIN' OF YOU, PLEASE DON'T TAKE MY TREE
KYLE — Kyle City Council called for a special meeting Saturday, Feb. 15, to discuss the future of the Porter Oak tree, which was previously set to be removed.
As previously reported by the Hays Free Press, council voted 4-2 to remove the tree — dubbed “Jolene” by city staff and “The Porter Oak” by residents — with an artistic piece or marker placed in its honor. Council members Lauralee Harris and Robert Rizo were the dissenting votes; though, prior to the final vote, Harris initially motioned to relocate the tree, which failed 2-4.
Following these votes, Kyle residents began protesting the removal toward the end of 2024, citing its history and legacy to the city. More than a month later, Mayor Travis Mitchell took to Facebook to announce the special meeting, in hopes of finding a middle ground for constituents and council.
More than 10 residents spoke during public comment, with many donning “KyleTrees.com” shirts.
“Something as precious and historical as this tree shouldn't be cut down. It should be left for our children and the children after them,” said resident Nannette Lucas, who explained that she has been driving by the tree for nearly 40 years. “It’s been there for 400 years, leave it be. Please do not cut it down, save it. I just think of all the settlers and all the people that have passed by that tree. It’s history; it’s Texas. Let’s preserve it.”
“This magnificent oak tree stands as a living testament to our history,” former council member Yvonne Flores-Cale emphasized. “Ultimately, this oak tree lies not within its monetary worth, but in the memories it holds, the story it tells and the powerful reminder of our duty to protect the natural world.”
After public comment, city manager Bryan Langley gave a presentation with three options to council members: remove the tree, as originally voted, relocate the tree or realign the road.
“It is within six inches of the roadway, so if you’ve ever driven in that particular stretch of road, you know it does interfere with traffic. It is a safety hazard, as we’ve identified, and it's been discussed many times over the last few years by the city council. For that reason, we’ve been looking at how to improve [Old] Stagecoach Road and how to mitigate the impact of this tree,” said Langley.
The first option to remove the tree would maintain the current design of Old Stagecoach Road — which, according to Mitchell, the city has spent more than $1.5 million on and would be a waste to discard — and would not impact the current schedule of the project. The financial impact would be an estimated $10,000.
“The second option we’ve looked at is simply relocating or moving the tree itself. We’ve looked at a number of options with council about a possible spot. We did identify a location in the easement owned by Six Creeks Subdivision. It’s just to the north of the tree,” said Langley. “There are six other smaller trees that are there that may be impacted by this move, as well.”
If council were to vote for this option, there would be a water service disruption to 14 homes, explained the city manager, but can be minimized to a few hours with an installation of an additional $5,000 value.
There would also be traffic impacts, as approximately 5,926 cars that travel this road daily would be detoured through the Six Creeks Subdivision for four to five weeks, read the presentation.
“One of the arborists did provide us information indicating that about 98% of their relocations are successful, that the trees survive. There’s other data out there from the forestry service that provides mixed information about the survival rates,” Langley said.
With this relocation, there would be a recommendation for long-term maintenance, such as automated irrigation at the new location, annual mulching and monthly inspections by a qualified arborist, for an estimated $1,000 per month for one to two years.
The additional costs for this project is $730,259 to $950,259 and would not impact the schedule of the road expansion, as long as it is moved by November 2025, said Langley.
The final option is to redesign the roadway around the tree, which would potentially displace four homes if the detention pond near the road cannot be modified or moved to other ponds:
Option 3A: other water basins can be modified to hold the additional water
• Would add an additional four to six months on the project
• Add an estimated $2.7 million Option 3B: the basins cannot be modified, but the detention pond can be expanded in the floodplain
• Would add an additional 1 to 1.5 years
• Add an estimated $3.4 million Option 3C: basins cannot be modified and a new pond can’t be constructed, so homes must be relocated to expand the current detention pond
• Would add an additional 1.5 to 2 years
• Add an estimated $6.4 million Three of the four residents residing in the homes that would be torn down for option three spoke at the meeting. One of which was Susie Campbell: “I understand the importance of trees. I also saw the options to save that tree. The option that removes houses from four families, I can’t support that. I found out yesterday that my house was one of the four marked out … on Facebook, no less, rather than a direct notification that it’s a possibility … That tree was there before you built all of that; the road you knew was going to need to be addressed and I just can’t support taking those houses because one of them is mine.”
Langley also acknowledged the lessons learned from this situation, as proper planning in years past would have avoided the problems the city is currently experiencing. Moving forward, the city will consider trees in the Transportation Master Plan, including tree surveys and rewriting the development code to address tree preservation.
Beginning the discussion, council member Marc McKinney asked whether there has been any money allotted for these changes with the tree in the budget, to which Langley stated that relocation of the tree could be accommodated in the bonds for the road, but the realignment would not.
“I’m trying to figure out: if this has been repaved and redone on Roland [Lane in Kyle] and we didn’t mess with any of these trees, could we still work around the Porter Tree,” asked council member Michael Tobias, who felt the engineering could be applied to Old Stagecoach Road, as well. “There’s got to be a very easy fix to this.”
Despite Tobias’ emphasis, Langley noted that the three options presented are the only three available to council.
“I think it should be noted that, while today we have strong public feedback on the nature of this tree, we also have strong and much louder public feedback on the nature of our roads,” said Mitchell. “The desire to build Stagecoach Road and fulfill the covenant with the voters has nothing to do with the desire to kill a tree or to cut down a tree … Ultimately, for me, it has always come down to trying to build the pedestrian infrastructure and the road infrastructure … A compromise is probably the only real solution.”
Council member Bear Heiser noted that when council voted on the item previously, the option to remove the homes was not on there because it is a “nonstarter.” It has only been added since community members wanted all of the options to be considered. In the end, he agreed with the compromise of relocating the tree.
“In the big picture, I feel like option two — that we are about to vote on — is the best thing for the tree … I don’t feel like it is the best thing for the future citizens of Kyle, current citizens of Kyle.
We were going to replace this tree with dozens of trees and 50 to 100 years from now, this tree may not be around, but we could have had dozens of trees for our children’s children’s children to play on and under,” said McKinney. “I feel like the correct solution is not to put this burden on taxpayers. I feel like we can and should raise private funding to pay for the moving of the tree, at least a portion of it. It’s always for me been a part of being responsible for taxpayer money.”
Rizo explained that he also believes that moving the tree is the best option, as it also poses a risk for falling onto the road and creating an accident.
“Hopefully we’ll do our best to continue to try to conserve trees throughout the city,” concluded council member Rizo.
Council members voted to pass option two, to relocate the tree, 6-1, with council member Miguel Zuniga dissenting.
Taking to Facebook after the vote, Zuniga noted that his support for option 3A is because he does not believe curving the road would lead to the removal of homes, as there would be plenty of time for assessment: “I believe it's an environment injustice to move a large heritage oak from a location chosen by the earth, in the face of development it withstood the odds and from an acorn it became a strong oak tree. That's what makes it unique and special and part of the history of the road, now moving it to avoid minor detention pond upgrades and to say that it was going to cause that much water to be diverted I couldn't agree with. If the road is still being designed, then why not just get the proper detention pond answer analyzed? I do hope to see the tree survive the transplant, but we know that new roots will not grow for a tree that old. The one thing that is for certain is that we have disrupted nature for development and may have risked shortening the life expectancy of the tree.”
To listen to the discussion, visit bit. ly/4k1FoEQ.
