AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Of The Whole 11-01-22

[Nicole Morell]: do on dash 057 committee the whole meeting, Tuesday, November 1 2022 at 6pm is called to order Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. present six present one absent the meeting is called to order, there will be a meeting of the Medford City Council committee of the whole on Tuesday, November 1 2022 6pm and the Medford City Council chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss paper 21-057 to review draft language for a proposed ordinance regarding leaf blower use. The City Council has invited Attorney General Austin from KP Law, Victor Schrader, Director of Economic Development, William Forte, Building Commissioner, and a representative from the Medford Chamber of Commerce. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell. So as the meeting now stays, we are looking at a revised draft of a proposed ordinance around leaf blower use within the city. A number of minor edits that we motioned for the last time we met earlier this year, they reference the exclusions as far as municipal areas, some specificity around PPE use, as well as just a few recommended language if we wanted to adopt an eventual long-term phase-out of gas-powered leaf blowers being allowed for use In the city of Medford. This is for those of you watching who might be your first time watching a meeting like this. This is very much. This is a committee meeting. We're still debating on what the ordinance might be. And even then, it has to be go to a regular meeting and be voted on. So one of the motions from our last meeting was from Councilor Knight to ensure that We invited a number of landscaping companies. So Victor Schrader was very gracious in helping us out as far as seeing businesses in the area that we might be able to identify as landscaping companies and alluring them to this meeting so we can make sure we hear for them. Likewise with the Chamber of Commerce. So I want to open it up to my Councilors for any fellow Councilors for any comments they may have at this time and then also make sure We hear from members of the public who want to come out and speak to this as well as our new building commissioner thank you for joining us to make sure this is something that where we land is something that we can actually operate within the city of Medford and we have the bandwidth to do so. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President, I appreciate your definition of the process I think that's important I think that. I've been receiving a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails and expresses express to express their confusion and their some disdain that what how this process. you know, the intent of the process. So what I'll do is I'll share what some members of the community are asking or questioning. Is it, you know, when we look at the intent and we talk about noise, noise being one, the other being pollution, emissions, and we can understand that, but at the same time, where there's the it's really focused on the private entities and the businesses, but not in the homeowners, but not municipalities. And personally, I can see why that would be an issue. I know that working in a neighboring community that changed their ordinance and spent multimillion dollars to retrofit their trucks for charging stations, for their blowers and their equipment, it would absolutely, bankrupt this community, if we had to do it for our municipal vehicles in our municipal department so that's where the confusion comes in, because one the landscape is we're confused if the city entity can use these and. you know, to help their process along to save them money. Now the reverse happens where now businesses are contacting me and saying, okay, George, this is, this isn't right because now what happens is we have to now put the cost back on the, onto the residents if they need this service. And I will tell you, I've had one company talk to me, a Latino family, been in business for a long time. question that you know this community is supposed to be looking at, you know, equity and helping the immigrant community and looking at businesses with immigrant backings and now he's saying, you're actually going to force me to eliminate jobs from Latino families because my, my company is based mostly out of 10 employees. nine Latino family members that work for them, and he can't, he won't be able to keep them just for the fact that, you know, they're going to lose business. And the way their math comes out is pretty simple. It's, you know, if you would normally would take an hour with a blower, would now have to take four hours where they normally could do maybe five or six jobs. They now can only do two. And with that, it really hinders their growth and their livelihood. So they bring up a lot of different points. There's a lot of different variables in this that are very questionable in the sense that what's good for one should be the other, but then are we sure that, you know, some people say the noise, if that's, you know, then what's next? The lawnmower's next. Okay, the snowblower's next. And this is what the conversation, it just doesn't start, it starts with the leaf blower. And I know that we're using the ordinance from Somerville, and because people have read it, they've read Somerville's, they've called me and says, why are we using Somerville's? When we look at Somerville's ordinances, you can't, it's not apples to apples for communities. There might be two lawns in Somerville, legitimately. They also street sweep twice a week on every street. So whatever nothing rolls back into people's yards, whatever comes off the tree that falls in the street doesn't blow back into people's yards to put put it back on the resident. So, to look at it that way is totally different. So, I think the fear is. careful what we what we move for in the sense in this community, because there's going to be a trickle down effect where we start doing, we start doing this, then we have to start doing it for the private, the public entity. And then with the public entity, if it's going to be a be a blower, then it's going to then follow through a lawnmower, then it's going to follow through with a snowblower, it's going to fall and on and on and on. So, these are the concerns that I promised residents that I would share. I know this is an ongoing discussion and this isn't the final draft by far, but I also, you know, in this climate, now being full head into a recession, The good news is that we see this, that it is a phase-in process, but when you're looking at businesses, like some landscapers have told me, I know that this is a phase-in, but they're struggling right now. And, you know, again, it goes back to the families that don't have the strapping 53-year-old bald man that would help every neighbor. That would be me. So, but you have to look at, you know, that we have some families that really need the assistance from our landscapers in our community. They're a vital piece of our community. So it's, I'm sure my colleagues have other input, but I just wanted to share what messages I've received in the last couple of days, actually. So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: I just wanted to go briefly just to address just one or two things you said. Speaking for the chair, but I'm the person who originally introduced this paper. So I do just want to reference, and I know you know this, just for people watching, that this isn't a proposed outright ban. It's regulations on use. So it's a series of dates. A lot of those dates were companies would be asked not to use them are probably times of year where there's going to be snow on the ground and there wouldn't be use anyway. So I just want to reference that just so people don't think we're looking at an outright ban. And I was doing my research earlier because I get the same comments about lawnmowers and snowblowers. And one thing is leaf blowers, the electric, sorry, the gas leaf blowers, actually there have been studies done that they produce different than lawnmowers, different than snowblowers, sound at a level that permeates walls. And that's why I think we get these emails where we run to residents and they're not saying my neighbor's snowblower is driving nuts, my neighbor's lawnmower is driving nuts, they're saying my neighbor's leaf blower is driving me nuts because they operate at this frequency that literally is very annoying. And that's why we hear from people a lot about it. So I just want to reference those two things. Any other councilor Carvell?

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Councilor Capoli makes a lot of good points in there. But you know, The main concern here is, here we are, we're gonna spend a lot of time and money on legal fees to write an ordinance that who's going to enforce this ordinance for us? We have one code enforcement officer in the city of Medford. And he works nine to five or whatever. What do you do on Saturday when Rick Caraviello's blowing his lawn And Kit Collins calls it, hey, you know, next, my neighbor's blog, who does she call on a Saturday morning and say, Hey, there's somebody blowing the leaves out of the yet. Again, I mean, how much more work do we, do we want one person to do? That's, that's, that's the real concern. I mean, we're just overtaxing these people in the department, you know, until we get more people. to go out there and work. I mean, listen, that's, code enforcement's been a peeve of mine since, for the last 12 years, to get more than one person on. Because I think we get a lot more pressing issues than leaf blowers that the code enforcement officer could be doing. So that's really what, you know, I think. We're spending time and money on another ordinance we can't afford, I mean, that we can't enforce. And all we're asking, I mean, what we're doing is we're pinning neighbor against neighbor now. So it doesn't sit well with me when we do that.

[Justin Tseng]: Um, thank you President Morell and thank you to my fellow Councilors for, for the comments given so far I think a lot of the points are I think well taken. Um, I think it's important to outline that this is a process and that we're still in the midst of drafting this ordinance. Um, I think another important thing to. to emphasize, as you already have done, is that the seasons where leaf blowers may be of the most use are still, we're not banning them, we're banning the use from the season. So we really shouldn't fall into a rabbit hole, you know, talking about bans when this is more regulation than ban. Another point that you've already covered very well is that the decibel level of gas-powered leaf blowers is just so different, and the physics of these machines are just so different from a lot of other machines that people kind of raise questions about. And that is why we are receiving so many complaints about noise and about the environmental pollution as well. You've talked a lot about the noise pollution and, you know, these leaf blowers, the average decibel level of these leaf blowers is way above what's considered safe by the federal government. for people to hear and it's for a span of 15 minutes. And when we look at the emissions of the leaf blowers as well, I believe using these leaf blowers for an hour equals the amount of emissions that you would create, you would produce driving from Boston to Birmingham, Alabama. And which is ridiculous, right? But then again, our job is to balance interests. And I hear what the landscaping companies have to say. I hear what some concerned neighbors have to say. And I think it's important to acknowledge that right now. I mean, I understand what Councilor Carr-Viejo is saying about pitting neighbor against neighbor. Although that already is happening right now. And so what we're really creating is a structure to address the tensions that are already existing in our community and making sure you know we have something fair and a compromise between neighbors. And I think this is what this ordinance is really geared to do. I also hear the point about enforcement, and I think this is something that Councilor Caraviello and I really agree on is the need for more code enforcement in the city. But I do, and this might be just the philosophical difference but I don't believe that that question should stall us from taking needed action. Because when the noise and environmental kind of damage to our city is as severe as gas-powered leaf blowers can be, I think it is time to do something. And at the very least, putting it on our books and having it as something that we can enforce, I think, does make a positive difference in our community. Of course, the reason why we have meetings like this is so that we can, you know, again, balance interests and to make sure that we're creating a document that I think best addresses everyone's concerns and best negotiates everyone's concerns. And which is why I am looking forward to hearing more comments, but that's what I have to say right now. And thank you for the time.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. No, I see landscape is all of all of the city doing this, there's no one job that they're coming in, and they're spending an hour with the leaf. Most landscapes are in there. I don't know where you live, but I live in the same neighborhood you do, and all the landscapes that come to my neighborhood. They're pretty much out there in 1015 minutes with the least other maybe a little longer come in the fall. But I've never seen a landscaper sit in a house around my neighborhood for more than 15-20 minutes on the bad end. But they're pretty much out there. They're out there pretty quick, because they want to move on to the next. They're coming in with five or six guys, and they're out of there. So that's why I don't see anybody sitting there for an hour blowing leaves in a single family house.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Correo. Councilor Collins and Vice-Chair Bears.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Merlin. Thank you, everybody, for being here to weigh in. I we've gotten a lot of comments from residents about this ordinance both ahead of this meeting and also back when we first discussed it this term in May and really appreciate all the residents for weighing in. You know, we've heard from all across the spectrum folks were really concerned about the effect that this would have on residents and businesses and also folks who say, This is great. I'm so glad that we're taking action on this really polluting mechanism. And I think that it's really important that we're having these meetings. That's obviously what we're here to do is to hear from everybody. I'm hoping that we can have a conversation that kind of really, really focuses on both sides. Not that there's only two sides, but kind of both key ways of looking at the issue. To me, one of the ways to frame this is as a climate change action. issue as Councilor Tseng mentioned, these are incredibly polluting. It is true that we have a stated municipal goal of getting to net zero by 2050. Sooner or later we have to start taking actions to actually achieve that, or we're going to get to 2050 and say, well, other municipalities are really surpassing us, they're being environmentally responsible, they've planned for this, they've implemented it, and where are we? That's going to take a lot more than just regulating leaf blowers, but I just say that to sort of frame the conversation. And I think part of what is enlivening to some constituents about this issue, and at the same time, I think that we know on tons of topics, efforts to change our status quo and our routines, whether it's to be more environmentally responsible or more responsible in terms of public health or anything else, you're always going to have those side effects, sometimes some really severe important side effects that we need to take a really hard look at. I think that we can't not just let topics drop or say we can't make progress because of those side effects, but we also have a really sincere responsibility to mitigate those effects on individuals, on groups, such as the landscaping businesses in our community, lots of other groups like that. That's one of the reasons that I was glad to see a phase-in approach to a potential outright regulation against two-stroke motors. Just wanted to say that to frame the conversation as we get into this and the new draft language again. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Vice Chair Zimphers.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And it's a good point, let's talk about the status quo for a second. Status quo right now is unlimited, unregulated use of as many leaf blowers as you want for as long as you want, for whatever purpose you want at any time other than the noise ordinance. So, you know, can't do it on certain times, you know, in late at night, you know, I can't run six leaf blowers at midnight. Okay, so right now that's the current status quo of leaf blower use in the community. I think this as has been stated by folks before is an attempt to implement reasonable regulation. And again, this isn't a final product. So we're gonna get to a point at some point where we have a final product and there's gonna be input from the public and input from stakeholders. And that's what we've been doing already. A reasonable regulation to address noise, pollution and negative health impacts of leaf blowers in our community. Right now, and, you know, Councilor Caraviello said, you know, I don't see anyone in my neighborhood for more than 15 minutes. So that's great. Then this isn't gonna really affect them that much. The point here is if, you know, if I'm using a leaf blower in the middle of January to edge a lawn, a gas-powered leaf blower at 85 decibels that's highly polluting, is that the best use? Is that the best way that we want quality of life in our community to be? I mean, fundamentally, it's a quality of life issue. And I think that reasonable regulation to balance, you know, what people can have as a reasonable expectation of quality of life, with the fact that these devices are going to be using there's businesses that use them there's individuals that use them in the community uses them as well is exactly what the job of a city council is to legislate reasonable regulation. So as I said, the goals are to address noise, pollution, and health impacts. As the current draft is drafted, how does the current draft address those? One, restricts the time that you can use leaf blowers to the five months a year where leaf blowers are most likely to be used for the purpose that they're actually there for, which is removing leaf and yard waste. So a spring cleanup period of 10 weeks, and then the fall period of about 10 weeks when there's leaves on the ground. It says that 9 to 5 p.m. Sundays and holidays, 9 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday during those periods that, you know, essentially there is not much regulation other than, you know, please don't do over 65 decibels and we'd really encourage you over time to move away from gas leaf blowers. So during the peak periods of the years where leaf blowers are used, where the businesses who are landscaping businesses are using leaf blowers for the purpose intended, this ordinance says that's pretty much fine. We have some goals we'd like to move you forward toward over time, but generally when you're moving leaves with a leaf blower as a company that uses them, that's going to be allowed because that's the point of reasonable regulation. Now it says that Sundays and holidays, we don't want to allow it on Sundays and holidays. Maybe there's a reasonable argument that we should adjust that. But I think there's also a reasonable argument to be made that Sundays and holidays are times when we want our communities to be not noisy and not full of air pollutants that have been kicked up by leaf blowers, never mind if it's a gas leaf blower, the pollution from the leaf blower itself. And there's a lot of people who have Sunday gatherings at their homes or holiday gatherings at their homes who would much prefer to have a few people in the backyard without having leaf blowers in the neighborhood on those days. Second thing is it does is it's gonna require safety plans for workers by making sure that companies working in the community are licensed. So it's gonna say, actually you need to have a basic training for the people who are in your company and hey, My best hope is that most businesses are already doing this. They're providing the protective equipment, they're providing the necessary training. So this is just checking a box, but it's actually gonna catch any situations where workers don't have the equipment they need or the training they need because they're gonna be licensed with the city. And the third thing it's gonna do is it's gonna encourage the phase out over time of gas powered leaf blowers for not just private industry, but for the public as well. And I think other Councilors have made incredibly eloquent points about how two-stroke gas-powered leaf blowers are incredibly polluting and dangerous for the people using them and create negative impacts for people who are in the surrounding area. I see some areas of improvement, definitely, that can be made in this existing draft. Number one, I think that the de minimis time should be increased so that, again, as Councilor Caraviello noted, if you're using it for 15 minutes, that if you're going out for 15 minutes to move some leaves, you shouldn't be under the restrictions of this ordinance. So that's one thing. We've got some comments from the building commissioner that I'd like to see incorporated. And I do think we could simplify some of the language in here to make it a little more comprehensive and understandable. I think this is a very legalese document right now and it takes a reading or two to really understand it. And that's coming from me and I read a lot of ordinances. So I do think we could go, a little bit further and making it more readable. And I do have two folks that I would like to hear from. I'd like to hear from the PDS office and perhaps the development director, economic development director Schrader about the outreach that's been done to businesses and what the responses were. And I would also love to hear from our new building commissioner relative to his comments as well. So I thank you, madam president.

[George Scarpelli]: to use, everybody keeps talking about pollutions and emissions, but our city of Medford, our departments, those aren't pollutants, they're pollutants. So it's just not fair. If we're gonna do it, let's try to do it all. It's not, if that's the intent for it, because I keep hearing, you know, for the pollution, the emissions, the air quality, but Mr. Kass can't use his, But the parks department next door can come in through the park and use their gas powered blowers to move everything around. That's just that's, that's, that's disingenuine it's not that's, it's not. If we're going to say it let's say for what it's for. So, it's so okay so if it's for the noise. And if to the time, I agree with Councilor Bears. But this is great for the audience that we looked at I know Council, Council President did a great job putting something, getting something started looking at different, different departments talking to different department heads getting things rolling. Well, we're seeing that it's definitely an impact with the quality of life when it comes to people's livelihoods and the people that depend on these companies come in and support their homes or assist in their upkeep of their homes or whatnot. My suggestion would be, as we go through with this, that we invite the landscapers to come in and sit with us and say, who says it's the best time? Us?

[Unidentified]: I'm a phys ed teacher by trade. I don't know what landscapers need. We haven't talked to a landscaper yet.

[George Scarpelli]: Maybe bringing in the reputable companies we have in our community, sit down at a table with community members that have concerns, the senior citizens that have reached out to me, bring them at a table and say, okay, what's reasonable? We know we need to make some changes.

[Unidentified]: Right? But no, we're not summable.

[George Scarpelli]: But working together with those entities, the Chamber of Commerce, and sit together when we get to the next draft, maybe we ask, we have all these, there are 5,000 committees out there right now. What with this ordinance that definitely has some concerns and has some input on both sides, like we've all said, we've all said that. Because listen, if it's for pollution and if it's truly for it, then either do it or don't do it. If we're gonna do it and not offend the city, because we know we don't have the money to say, let's retrofit all of our trucks for the lithium batteries that then we then have to dispose of, which by the way, affects our environment later, everyone. It's that those don't disappear either. When they die, you don't take them and say, put them in the drawer and it will not affect our environment. Studies have shown those batteries might end up being worst impact to our community and to our environment. So there's a lot of impacts that we're looking at. So I appreciate that we're getting this going. I appreciate the dialogue, but if we're going to do it, let's be genuine about it. If we're going to do it, let's look at the city side and see what's going to take to make sure if it's for emissions, if it's for pollution, then let's look at everybody. If we're going to entertain an ordinance and not entertain all the entities, that's not right. That's not right. You're not being genuine. So if we wanna do that, let's visit that. If we wanna move on and look at the times and what equipment they can use, I bought my electric blower from Best Buy because I got a great deal. We might have landscapers that come in and say, listen, there are options we have. I know Council President Morell and I were talking a little while ago. There are different grants and vouchers that we can use through the state that might help us, might help our landscaping companies. Maybe there's something when we talk about the fees that we put onto our businesses, maybe those are lessons so our landscaping companies that are licensed in our city can afford a better solution for the community. So my recommendation would be, and I'll put it into the record, that I would motion that we sit down and we invite, even if it's to the subcommittee, but we invite landscapers, the stakeholders that are in the community, community members that want to come out and talk, and members of the Chamber of Commerce to say, hey, this is their best policy, because it might be somewhere in the middle. You know, some landscape company come say no we need a 24 seven, and it's allowed us. We know that's not what we want. Like I said, what I find exciting is that we're doing something. We're not sitting back and saying, we don't wanna do it, but let's have an educated, open, true discussion. If it's really about emissions, if it's really about pollution, let's bring the DPW commissioner in, let's sit down together and say, what are the cost effects if we change everything to eliminate gas powered blowers? And then look at our, partners that own businesses in the city and say, how does this happen? To do one and not the other, that's kind of a shame. The biggest parcel of land in this community is our cemetery. And imagine telling those guys, you can't use the blowers, or you can use the gas blowers throughout the whole cemetery. But over at Ricky's house, you're not allowed to on a 1,400 square lot. So I just want us to be realistic in the discussions that we're having. I know that buzzwords are great. It sounds great. You know, emissions, pollutions, air quality, but if we're gonna do it, let's do it. If you're not, I don't think it's fair. So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion from the council at this time?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, please.

[George Scarpelli]: right and different and different outcomes to to help guide this ordinance.

[Nicole Morell]: And I do want to note that Councilor Knight made a very similar motion the last meeting and I did reach out to economic development director Schrader to do the best they could as far as reaching out to the landscapers and as well as the Chamber of Commerce. I just want to note that those efforts were made for this meeting. Do you wanna take that motion now or we'll save it to the end of the meeting till we hear from folks that are here tonight?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, let's hear from people, yeah.

[Nicole Morell]: Victor, if you don't mind coming up first, I'm curious just if you could share with us the outreach process, because I know it's not, we don't have everyone cataloged the way we would like, so if you could share with us.

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, good evening, Victor Schrader, City of Medford Economic Development Director. What we did was we sent a notice out to our email list of businesses, which I just got an updated count on is 569. in the community. And then we also use the clerk's business license database to crosstab keywords like landscaper and came up with a separate list to reach out to. So we emailed folks that had emails on file and then those that didn't, we actually made proactive phone calls to them. So we sent a notice out last week and then we sent another one today with the draft ordinance when Council President Morell sent that to us. Thank you so much, appreciate it.

[Zac Bears]: Could you go into what the responses were, concerns, that kind of thing?

[Victor Schrader]: We didn't receive much feedback directly to our office. A couple of folks had asked if there was a draft ordinance for them to review. So we wanted to make sure we got that out. But we haven't done a survey, we haven't really engaged. So that's something we could help with if it's the will of the council. But at this point, it was really just pushing out notice of the meeting.

[Zac Bears]: But there wasn't like a tsunami of anger

[Victor Schrader]: not that our office received. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Councilors you wanted to hear from the building commissioner around the comments that we received regarding enforcement would be great.

[Nicole Morell]: Great. Thank you so much for being here. We haven't had the pleasure of meeting you and having had a meeting yet.

[Bill Forte]: Good evening, Madam President. Thank you very much for the warm welcome. And it's a honor and a pleasure to serve the city of Medford on this capacity. So I'm ready to roll my sleeves up and get to work. So I already started right here.

[Nicole Morell]: Wonderful. If you'd like to share.

[Bill Forte]: Thank you, Councilor. So I did send my comments ahead of tonight's meeting. And I just had a chance to kind of glance it over and, you know, get an idea as to what substance I see here. And just a few things that the council would would probably like to be aware of. The, the permit, there should be there should be a permit fee for registration and as far as I can tell what the language. It only appears that a person has to apply for a permit when there is an exemption outside of the regular hours, at least that's how I read the language right now, there is no permit requirement as far as I can see in here for. landscapers or contractors or anyone to be registered with the city to operate a leaf blower. I don't think that's the intent of the ordinance and I didn't see it anywhere in there. This permit would only be. only issued in certain circumstances, such as, um, uh, perhaps children near a daycare center, uh, where, um, you know, they can't do it during regular business hours, nine to five, because there's, you know, there's a, there's, you know, there's daycare, uh, or young children, uh, and they may need an exemption to do that. Um, you know, say from three in the afternoon until six, you know, during the, you know, the spring and fall season, um, that, that would be something that would be, um, looked at in accordance with the ordinance, it appears as though I have some discretion to issue a, you know, a waiver, if you will. And part of that process would be that there should be a permit or an application fee with that. And it would be, you know, a certain schedule of events so that a person wouldn't have to come back every time they wanted to. If they set a schedule where they had to go out and do this at Friday afternoon from three to six, You know that it appears as though I have some authority with the health department to impose some conditions on that. So, so that does give a little bit of discretion and I think that that part of the language needs a little bit of work. The other thing I want to point out to you is I have had some experience in other communities with sound decibel levels and these, these types of issues can be problematic. In order for an enforcement to be able to stick, in other words, if there's a continued violation and there's a person or an entity that continues to violate, and let's just say it gets down and dirty and we have to go to court, in order to enforce any kind of noise level decibel violation, the person who is using the sound meter has to be certified with a training course. that would basically initiate a specialty in my department, whether it be the health department or the building department, someone with a noise meter would have to be certified and qualified to be able to take that noise reading. I actually had some training on it, but I was not certified to do so. And so that would be one of the things that would be considered as part of this. The other thing, I think one of the councils brought it up was overtime. The occurrence of someone violating this ordinance would probably be on the weekend I'm guessing you know what I mean it would be basically on a Sunday and I see landscape crews all the time they have the best workers they're hard working and and they will work sunup to sundown during the season. That's, that's their season. So, I can see that this will probably get, you know, until at least it gets up off the ground. The first year or two there's going to be a lot of heavy enforcement with this and it's going to require overtime. My, my staff gets a minimum four hours overtime. It's almost like we would have to for the first year, have to put on a full time inspector over the weekend, just to enforce this because I would imagine that they're going to be called out more than once. And for the first year or so, this is going to be problematic. So just something to consider. Yeah, so I addressed that in my third comment here. And then I think that the ordinance needs a little bit of clarity on who's the enforcing agent for this. It should be the building commissioner, where we have the most active code enforcement activity, and where we are more I would say more effective with code enforcement. That's kind of what we do. I know that the health department obviously has some enforcement authority along with this, I would say jointly that we both would have our, you know, our enforcement, but in most cases and in most cities the building apartment is the more potent code enforcement entity that would would handle that. So, that's really all I have for now. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions. I did look at the language and I think it does need a little bit of work there about clarity and times and certain things, but that's what I see at least at first glance anyway.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. I appreciate it. It's very helpful. Any comments from the council at this time? Thank you so much.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Very nice to meet you all. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion from the Council this time? Happy to open up to members of the public. We'll also, you know, our landscapers and Chamber of Commerce would like to speak first as they were invited members of the meeting.

[p1rND0ygKWg_SPEAKER_18]: Good evening, everybody. My name is Patrick Pierce. I'm 49 years old. I am born and raised in Medford. We have a family business of 35 years, which we were not even mentioned. No phone calls, no emails. We've been here for 35 years, so I'm not sure I did return your phone call.

[Nicole Morell]: You called me many months ago, I did return your phone call.

[p1rND0ygKWg_SPEAKER_18]: Yes, but for this meeting here, I'm just saying people are reaching out. We've been here that long. I wish I'd been a little more prepared to take notes going around all the council members, but to Georges that yes, I mean, we have families that we support. We have 14 people on our team. We start at seven o'clock in the morning and my guys are done by 4.30 in the afternoon. I understand the ordinance and the timeframe that you're looking for, and the meeting to sit down and talk would be very helpful for everybody. I mean, I'm not gonna throw some things like March 1st to like Memorial Day. We definitely need leaf blowers at that point. And I understand somewhat in that timeframe. October 1st, no, September 15th at least. I know somebody on the first Zoom meeting wanted to cut us down to December 1st. We work right the December 15 that there's no snow on the ground oak leaves don't fall until the middle of December. So, it's things like that sitting down with some landscapers would really be good for people talk about pollution. I'm 49 years old I've been using a backpack for over 20 years now, I'm as healthy and as fit as I can be. So they want to talk about pollution, then they want to move us to batteries and batteries themselves, as Georgia mentioned, they could be worse for the environment coming up. So, if you're going to do backpack blowers and then it's like they said snow blows and this and the noise, I can definitely understand those two areas, the beginning of the season, the end of the season. You don't hear a blower from December 15 to March 1, if there's no on the ground you don't hear it till April 1. If I'm fortunate enough to be out March 1 to start making money I'm lucky I have nine months out of the year to do that, and to support these families that we have. So, I'd be happy to talk more with the council and. working more on that. But you have to be realistic to what we do. A backpack blower to me costs $500. I have 10 of them. So you're going to get rid of all that money that I've spent on that. My lawnmowers, they cost $14,000 to $20,000 to do what we have to do. There is no way I would be able to do my business without the equipment we have. I might as well just work by myself and do a couple lawns here and there. It's impossible. If you take a look at Medford and Winchester, that's where a lot of my work is, in the 1940s. You wanna talk about pollution now. Look how many trees were in this town and that town. Go look at old photos. We are enormously, hundreds of thousands more trees than back in the 40s. So there's plenty of trees out there for, I understand what you're talking about with the pollution, but we also give back to the community too. There's certain things that this city does, like I watch a certain tree company, they come in here, no dig safe, they go right up on your sidewalks, they break your sidewalks, they plant trees, no dig safe there. My guys, we have people come into our office during the season and they have a hearing, I forget which company it is, they come in, they talk about eyesight, hearing, so all of my guys when they're using blowers have to have standard hearing equipment and eye protection. As you said, this is ongoing, and I'm happy to ongo talking about it. I have kids, of course, I want the world to be safe. But if you're going to do that, like George says, eliminate everything. Cars. everything. You cannot have electric cars. Their batteries are worse. I mean, so I've just, you start here with leaf blowers and the noise, it's just more conversation should definitely be had on it. That's all. I'm not the best speaker, but thank you very much. Have a good one.

[Nicole Morell]: Would anyone from the council, I'm sorry, the chamber like to speak?

[Maury Carroll]: Good evening everyone my Carol president of the Chamber of Commerce. I'm encouraged by the conversation that I heard here tonight. I think it's imperative that you get together with the landscape is the people that use this equipment. These people provide a great service to the community, as well as their livelihoods and the families that they support. And it's incumbent upon, if we're gonna move forward, if the city is gonna move forward with an ordinance like this, that there's a happy medium for everybody. It's not to come in and just say, okay, you can't do this anymore. You gotta think of the additional added expense to the, to the homeowner or the person that uses these services, if these companies have to come in and readjust how they're doing things or they have to put, you know, just change everything the way their way of life is. You know, that's like taking a leaf blower out of a landscaper's hands, like a ton of dentists who can't use a drill in their teeth. You know, it's just, it just doesn't make sense unless you have the proper conversation and you get together with the people that, that's their business. No one wants to hurt the community or pollution or anything, but you can't ask a body that does not involve in the business to make decisions for someone that has a business. So that's all I'd ask. Keep inviting us to that. Let's have conversation and we'll be there with you. Okay, thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: And I'm just gonna go briefly. We'll go to Vice President Bears first.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Maury. Thank you, Patrick, for your comments. You know, again, I think basically what I said is what Maury said, right? Like, we're looking at trying to find reasonable regulations. Completely right that I'm not a landscaper. George is a landscaper. You know, part of the reason that part of the, what we asked for at the last meeting was outreach to as many landscapers as we had on our list was to solicit that feedback. You know, I think there's a lot of openness to adjustments in the timeframe. You know, you say March 15th doesn't work. March 1st is when you maybe go out if there's no snow, right? Like I have no problem adjusting the ordinance around that. I do wanna say like nothing in here and nothing anyone has talked about is banning lawnmowers. You know, there's just, no one has suggested that. I think the one thing we need to avoid is the slippery slope fallacy, right? Like we have a specific purpose here. For us, all the emails that we've received about people who are concerned about regulations going in on leaf blowers, I can show you an equal number, if not greater number of emails from people who are really frustrated by noise and particulate and issues with the gas powered leaf blowers, right? And then one other thing in here, just to talk about it too, right? Well, I don't have the draft right in front of me, but the draft ordinance does talk about moving away from gas leaf blowers over a period of time for commercial, for private owners and for the city. So all, when we say do it for one and not other, all are included in that. It's all mentioned in the ordinance. So again, our job is to balance interests. And one of those interests is certainly public health. Another one is certainly our business community and economic development. And I think that we can reach a regulation that hit somewhere in the middle of what people on one side want and what other people want. Mr. Kearse mentioned someone came on to a previous meeting and wants basically just no leaf blowers anywhere ever in the city, you know, that's a position that someone has. And there may be a position of a business that has, we want as much possible freedom as we can have to make the decisions that we want as our business. And it's our job to find somewhere in the middle where businesses can do their work and where the interests of people who want noise and pollution addressed is addressed. So I think that's the goal of this process. And I don't think anyone here was thinking we're gonna finish this tonight. So at least behind this rail, I don't think anyone thought that. So that's where we're gonna move forward. you know, part of the work that we do here is that we may reach a compromise where there's pieces of it that some folks are happy with, and pieces of it that other folks are happy with, and pieces that some folks aren't happy with, and pieces that other folks aren't happy with. So it's difficult work, and I think we're sitting here ready to do it. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. And I just want to know, I sometimes take issue with the reference to families, and absolutely, we all have families we're trying to support. I hear from families, though, who say, I don't even take my kids outside anymore because it's so loud, because there's particulate blowing in the air, because I'm worried about emissions. And I believe them, because I have a 10-month-old son, and weekly, daily, I'm chased out of my yard. I can't go in my yard with my 10-month-old son, because there's leaf blowers. in every yard around me, you know, boxed in by leaf blowers. And I'm sharing my truth. I'm sharing my experience. And I don't and I don't take my son out because there is particulate matter blowing in the air. He's 10 months. And I'm just going to share that I'm here to represent the voices of residents who have reached out to me. But I live this too. I live in this community as well. Please come to the mic if you'd like to speak.

[p1rND0ygKWg_SPEAKER_18]: So you keep mentioning the people that have called you. Do you have a number of how many people have called you to the number of people that live in the city. Okay, so if we made 1000 people.

[Zac Bears]: There'd be no reason to have a government. If we asked everyone in the community, their opinion on everything, every time something happened, there'd be no reason to have a government. Okay, I'll stop paying my taxes.

[Justin Tseng]: Well, good luck. To be fair, by that logic, we can't support the lawnmower businesses either, because the lawnmower businesses haven't sent us 60,000 emails. I mean, we have a representative system of government, which our job is to balance interests. It's to listen to you guys and to listen to the people who are concerned about the noise and air pollution. So.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion from the council, I can go to members of the public on Zoom if anyone would like to speak. Please raise your hand on Zoom. Going to Martha Andrus, name and address for the record, please.

[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, hello, I'm Martha Andrus. I live at 45 Kilgore Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts. And I just want to comment that I'm one of the people who's called Nicole about the amount of noise from leaf blowers, so I'll be in that category, but I am very pleased to see Pat Kearse and hopefully other companies that do work in Medford and landscaping contributing to this conversation because We obviously need the services. And at the same time, that has to be balanced with controlling the amount of noise and pollution that the gas, particularly the gas-fired leaf blowers create. I think, you know, Pat's running his business the right way. I have also seen other landscapers who, with no protective equipment, who just take the leaf blower and go up and down the driveway. There are no leaves left. They're just using up time with the blower. So if there's some way to incentivize people to use the blowers when they are truly needed and not just using them because you got a tool in your hand. I think that would be very valuable to the community. I work in environmental health. I know how much damage noise does to children, air pollution does to children. and other vulnerable populations. So, you know, it's real, it's not over sensitivity and I'm looking forward to this group getting a workable balanced ordinance. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Anyone else, any other members of the public would like to speak, please raise your hand.

[Adam Hurtubise]: not seeing any time so I believe we have a vote on the floor from Councilor Scarpelli and I know um personally thank you Mr. Clerk could you read back the motion and then we can vote on it

[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli, I seconded by... Second. Vice-President Bears, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. And then Vice-President Bears, you had a few motions?

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, thank you, Madam President. I'd move that in between this meeting and the next meeting, we request that legal counsel increase the de minimis time from five minutes to 15 minutes.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bears, is that all done?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Just that one motion? Okay.

[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Vice President Bears is seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Aye.

[Nicole Morell]: All those opposed? Motion passes. Sorry, that was a no. Do you want to just register as a no? Yeah, just register as a no.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I think the reason why it's not because they don't get it. I think that until we get some answers on what we're planning to take the law on,

[George Scarpelli]: I think some answer that we can wait to see as we move forward this discussion with hoping that we have a city solicitor that can answer that question on salary, instead of keep giving KP law, at least knowing how much with. So as simple as that question may sound, they might charge us five hours. And we don't know what, how much they're charging us right now. So I'm a little apprehensive in it, not just because it was, you know, it was on this topic, but I think that moving forward, anything that's going to be recommended to go to law, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to pose against because I, we still don't know what we're paying these people. So I apologize, but I appreciate it. I hope you understand.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any further motions from the council?

[Zac Bears]: I don't have a copy of this thing with the comments from legal counsel for some reason.

[Nicole Morell]: I do. The one in drive does have the comments.

[Adam Hurtubise]: That'd be great.

[Zac Bears]: That'd be great, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to see, sorry to keep us all here longer. I don't know if someone can vamp for me.

[Adam Hurtubise]: It helps you see the changes. The yellow really wasn't as strong.

[Zac Bears]: I'm good, I'm good.

[Adam Hurtubise]: You can be very intense on your own record.

[Nicole Morell]: I'm keeping this though. Before we adjourn, just because we're here and since we're talking about sustainability, there is an event on Saturday at the West Denver Community Center for your pumpkins. So don't trash it, smash it, and then Garbage to Garden will be there to collect these smashed pumpkins. So if anyone's frustrated after this meeting and wants to smash a pumpkin or has pumpkins to get rid of, that's on Saturday. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Before we adjourn, I actually just have a question or clarification either for us to discuss at the next meeting or perhaps just to be answered within these chambers. I just want to make sure I'm clear on the current draft of the ordinance, what the discrepancies are between regulations on residential business and municipal users. I would agree with comments that have been made that this is a pretty dense document. I'd also like to see it simplified, but I didn't make a motion to that effect because I'm not sure who the best person to do it would be yet. Is it correct that the, the discrepancy right now is that the phase out of gas powered leaf blowers for city users is a year later than?

[Nicole Morell]: Well, I think the major discrepancy is that any, all of the city, all the municipal properties are exempt from this. So that's where all the strikeout is. And we just replaced it with municipal properties rather than listing every single park and the cemetery and Hormel.

[Kit Collins]: Okay, thank you. Does that answer your question? I believe that it does. I don't know if this needs to be a motion, but I'd like for that to be a topic of conversation at our next meeting, as well, to interrogate if the scope of that exemption makes sense, if it does, what the specific reasons are that it needs to be as exempt as it is, just so that we can better understand why we're making that exemption, better communicate to our constituents why that is the way that it is, if that's how it stays.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Vice Mayor Bears. I would also just add,

[Zac Bears]: So in section C is the phase out and the city's not in there, but the city is referenced in section G, where the city shall not replace any leaf blowers under the date of this order, or the city shall not replace. Yeah, basically after this is adopted, the city cannot replace leaf blowers with any leaf blowers that are above the decibel limit. So it looks like there's kind of two different categorizations of what equipment would be allowed.

[Nicole Morell]: And I can make sure whenever our future meeting is scheduled to invite Commissioner McIver, who provided kind of like that that first black and white inside of just being like, we wouldn't be able to do this, and we could have a deeper conversation of what what that actually looks like cancer saying, I think I'm to the same kind of effect is cancer Collins question.

[Justin Tseng]: I'm also kind of wondering how we'll integrate the feedback from building Commissioner Forte in this draft. Again, I don't think it needs to be a motion, but I think for next time we should think about who's going to do the writing of it. And I was wondering if maybe I know with the tree ordinance, with some other ordinances, we've asked the city staff to weigh in and maybe draft some language. I wonder if that's something we wanna do now or if we wanna wait on that for a sec. So that was my main point.

[Nicole Morell]: And then- Yeah, if you'd like to make that motion, I would think that would be helpful so that when we do come together with stakeholders, we have the background from our department heads. So we're not so excited we've landed on some solution we then find out we can't execute on.

[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, so I would, I would motion that we ask the building commissioner and other relevancy departments to draft language, some language for the ordinance.

[Nicole Morell]: I think just additional feedback. So on the motion of Councilor Tseng to invite the building commissioner, as well as other relevant departments to provide comments for the current draft before our next meeting. Second by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes.

[Justin Tseng]: And then on section C, I do wonder if the wording, I mean, so it says effective the state, you know, this shall be prohibited. There are exemptions in there. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if that's enough to cover the exemptions, but I do wonder if we have to restate them. I just wanted to put that, just put that out there that that's something that's been on my mind.

[Nicole Morell]: Yep. I think that's something we could follow up with legal counsel on that, that language, or some of us think we could follow up with legal counsel on that. That language was drafted by legal counsel, but to your point, I don't know if it covers, you know, all the exemptions.

[Justin Tseng]: And then Councilor bears already kind of covered the de minimis thing. I just wanted to put on the record that I am open to looking at changing the dates to make it more flexible for companies. I, it's, I believe I was, I don't know if I asked for the December 1st last time. I did, I think I did ask someone if, why, why we settled on the dates that we have. And at that meeting, they explained to me, you know, after, after December 1st, there's still a lot of work to be done. That's why it says December 15th year. I am flexible to, you know, to, to making sure that the dates that we choose do not hinder businesses too much, but it also does, I mean, reading the text, I do think it's pretty, and hearing the testimony, I do think it's pretty apparent that most of the dates, like by far, most of the dates that businesses do operate, we do have exempted here.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further discussion? So going back to the motion from Councilor Scarpelli to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Oh, sorry, second. Second by Vice Mayor Bears. Meeting is adjourned.