Faced with nearly two dozen cars damaged by falling pine cones in recent years, the Mountain View Whisman School District is moving ahead with plans to remove nine trees that line the front of Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary School on North Whisman Road.

The school board voted unanimously at a Thursday, Aug. 18, meeting to remove the Canary Island pines, despite objections from some residents to cutting down the mature trees, which are roughly 60 feet tall.

The board had originally planned to build a protective structure to shield parked cars, but the $635,899 construction contract that came before the board earlier this year was about $238,000 over the planned budget. The district has already spent about $84,000 on the project, which is being paid for with Measure T bond funds.

To avoid the cost of constructing the parking structure, the board opted last week to instead spend between $30,000 and $60,000 to remove the trees. District spokesperson Shelly Hausman told the Voice that landscape design, irrigation and tree replacement could cost an additional $100,000 to $120,000, though that is a rough estimate at this stage.

Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph told the board that he knows removing trees is unpopular and that the staff's recommendation to do so came only after exploring other options.

"We do take our stance as environmental stewards very seriously," Rudolph said. "Our recommendation is really the last ditch effort that we have … to keep the cars safe and reduce our costs."

Board members expressed similar sentiments.

"I also hate cutting down trees, but we have explored all of the alternatives and it just doesn't seem like there's a suitable one," board president Laura Blakely said.

Whenever trees are cut down, the district's practice is to plant at least two times as many new trees. For this project, the board instructed staff to maximize the number of trees planted at Vargas, going beyond the two-to-one ratio, if possible.

Some local residents opposed the plans and urged the district to seek alternatives. In a letter signed by 21 people, GreenSpacesMV asked the district to look at options like grant funding to help cover the costs needed to keep the trees, which the group said are important to creating a pleasant learning environment for kids.

"While we appreciate the mitigation measures you have proposed should the trees ultimately be removed, we don’t believe this is adequate, and that meaningful mitigation is truly not possible given the age and scale of the trees," the letter said, adding that replacement trees will take years to mature.

Five public commenters also spoke at last week's meeting, four of whom were opposed to removing the trees. The speakers brought up benefits that the trees provide, including helping to cool the area, improving air quality and giving students the chance to coexist with nature.

The trees sit along what used to be the eastern perimeter of the rear field at Slater Elementary School, which the district closed in 2006. Since the district opened Vargas in 2019 on part of Slater's former campus, at least 21 cars have been hit by pine cones, including nine this year. The district has paid between $225 and $3,000 to repair each of the cars, Rudolph told the board.

District staff have tried alternatives to removing the trees, including harvesting pine cones, but that hasn't succeeded in stopping damage to cars, Rudolph said. The district also contends that falling pine cones could pose a danger to people passing underneath.

One option that the district considered was to install netting, but the California Division of the State Architect, which oversees school construction, wouldn't allow it, Rudolph said.

Because schools are state property, the district's decisions around the trees are exempt from local requirements, like getting a city tree removal permit, Rudolph said.

When planting replacement trees, the district intends to pick drought-resistant and native species. Although the board instructed district staff to maximize the number of new trees, the size of the campus creates constraints. Vargas is the district's smallest school, sitting on just 4.7 acres. The campus includes a turf field and solar panels, which limit where trees can be planted.