[Bears]: Committee of the Whole, February 21st, 2024. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: Present. Vice President Collins. Present. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Present.
[SPEAKER_00]: Councilor Leming.
[Lazzaro]: Present.
[Ellyn Lavecchia]: Councilor Scarpelli.
[Lazzaro]: Present.
[Ellyn Lavecchia]: Councilor Sam. President Bears.
[Bears]: Present, seven present, none absent. Oh, six present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George B. Hassett Drive, Medford, Massachusetts, and via Zoom. To submit written comments, please email ahertabase at medfordma.gov. The action discussion items tonight are 21-057 offered by former Council President Morell and President Bears's leaf blower ordinance. The draft was distributed to members of the council by the city clerk. It is attached to this meeting packet. It includes the draft ordinance based on the 10 motions that are November 15th, 2023, committee of the whole meeting, and it was also submitted to the city administration for legal review and the updated draft with legal comments from KP Law is attached. So we have that draft now. I'm happy to go through it. It reflects again, as I said, the motions made at our November 15th, 2023 meeting. We do have a few questions from KP Law. And we are joined by our new building commissioner, who we will hear from at some point during the meeting as well if we have questions. So just going to get this going here. How is this looking for folks on the screens? Can we see it? Could zoom in a little bit if helpful. Visible? Good. Great. So this is a memorandum from January 31st, revision of the leaf blower ordinance to reflect the motions from our meeting. Largely, this has stayed similar to the initial draft in terms of the title, obviously, the purpose and intent of the ordinance, and the definitions mostly. And these line changes that you'll see in here, these are the line change suggestions of KP Law Council. But the definitions, we have a definition of commercial leaf blower operator, We have electric leaf blowers, gas-powered leaf blowers and owners of large property. And then this is where it differs from the draft one and draft two, where all of the regulations were all compiled into kind of one lump section that was difficult to read and discern what applied to who. This separates them all out into sections, essentially three sections. One, that would be general regulations that apply to all leaf blowers. which I'll go through first, and then a set of regulations for the commercial operators, municipal operators, municipal contractors, and owners of large property, and then a much shorter section on the residential use of leaf blowers. But the general regulation on the use of leaf blowers, pretty basic stuff. Satisfy emission standards of the EPA. Not be permitted for more than one continuous hour a day in the city at a particular property. So if you're leaving a leaf blower on for an hour, it's consistently on without any stops. There's on parcels of 10,000 square feet or less, one leaf blower may be used at a time on parcels larger than 10,000 square feet, one per 10,000 square foot area. Here we have not causing any debris to be deposited onto other parcels or the public right of way. On this one, we have in no event shall leaves and basically debris be blown into catch basins or onto vehicles. We do have a comment from the legal counsel suggesting the removal of swept or raked here. Similarly here, the various debris shall be removed in a sanitary manner to prevent it from just being blown around by the wind or being thrown around and someone running through it or driving through it. There's some questions here again from council specifically on what the languages shall be removed by whom and what the sanitary manner means. So that's something we can come back and address. And then very explicitly saying that you can't use a leaf blower to blow around masonry or construction dust and debris, which as we know is pretty harmful. The section 3859 regulates municipal use, commercial operators, and owners of large property. Essentially, it says that any time of year, you can use electric leaf blowers, just subject to the noise and nuisance control ordinance of the city. So you can only use them 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., just like any noise-making ordinance. any noise-making machinery. Technically, the noise of nuisance ordinance already applies to leaf blowers. This is restating ordinance that already exists. Something from the last meeting regarding gas-powered leaf blowers is we had prohibitions on the specific time frame for use. in here have it being prohibited except between March 15th and May 31st and September 15th and December 15th. So that's the prime time in the spring and fall for property cleaning. And we have discussed that and had some public input suggesting that we widen that range and that was included here. Also subject to the noise and nuisance control ordinances, which is already true, but it's just stating it here. Commercial operators, municipal operators, municipal contractors, and owners of large property would adhere to applicable OSHA requirements with respect to use of PPE to make sure that everyone who's using these machines is following those requirements. And then section four gets into kind of the I would say the bulk of what this is about is having ensuring that the larger operators and institutional operators property owners are submitting an operations plan to the building commissioner and That would allow the building commissioner to ensure that everyone who's operating these in the city is following the ordinance, understand what their plans are to mitigate the impact and noise and emissions on the neighboring properties. include an inventory of what equipment they own and they plan to use, include how they plan to educate their users of the equipment on safety precautions and proper use of the equipment. There is a comment here of, you know, when shall an operations plan be submitted, by what date, how often does it apply, is it every year, etc. So we'll come back and discuss that. There's also a standard fee that would be paid for submitting an operations plan, which is just sufficient to cover the. Essentially, what the administrative costs are for having this system in place, and the council notes that this must be unreasonable in compliance with the Emerson college test, which is, I think, a legal court case test around what. Satisfies applicable administrative costs. So, you know, that again, that's a comment. That's just true. I don't think we have to put that in the ordinance anyway. It's just stating what the legal standard is for. For these charging fees for administrative processes. Here in section five, that the provisions of this section are not going to apply if it's using a leaf blower as necessary to maintain warranty or safety of a rubberized or similar service, or if it's performing operations and cleanup associated with special events, storms, and hurricanes. So that section is a small change here that council has suggested saying events including but not limited to instead of and the like. For residential regulations, I think we heard pretty loud and clear from folks that they really didn't, they couldn't in the last draft of the ordinance see what was being regulated for commercial or large property, what was the regulation on like a person using a leaf blower on their own property. So we separated that out and essentially the only restrictions for a resident using a leaf blower on their own property on the property in which they reside is, you know, you can use electric leaf blowers all year. The gas leaf blowers would apply during those same, you can only use them during those same periods, March 15th to May 31st, September 15th to December 15th. And then there would be de minimis use. Essentially, if you're not using it more than 10 total minutes per day, you can use it pretty much any time. So if you have a small, quick thing, you wanna spend five minutes a couple times a day blowing leaves or whatever you need to use it for on your property, that would not be subject to any sort of the regulations of the ordinance. This does include a phase-out of gas-powered leaf blowers, starting with commercial leaf blower operators and owners of large property in 2026, and starting with municipal and residential owners in 2028. Wheeled leaf blowers powered by four-stroke engines are not subject to the prohibitions of this section. And then finally, The enforcement section here is pretty standard. This is that the building department shall enforce. They're going to use Chapter 40, Section 21D, non-criminal disposition. The building commissioner or designee will be the decider on who enforces. And the fines start with first offense written warning, second offense, $100, third offense or more, $200 per offense. And Council has recommended that we remove and the Finance Director has also recommended that we remove this section on fines collected under the section to be placed in a special revenue fund for the purposes of further enforcement of this ordinance, that the administrative burden and the amount of fines likely collected wouldn't make sense to create that fund. And then the effective date of the ordinance, other than the provisions already stated, would be July 1, 2024, except for any contracts that the city has signed that are in effect, and there'll be the termination of those contracts. So that is the sum of it. At this point, is there any discussion by members of the council on this draft? Any suggestions or thoughts on this ordinance? Council Vice President Collins and then Councilor Callahan.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. I appreciate the overview since we looked at this last and since this is the first time that we're meeting about this in this current term. It's helpful to have the overview. I think that the comments that we've received from KP Law and some other partners have been helpful to get this closer to a finished product. In terms of starting at the beginning, you know, with the goals of this ordinance, I think it's clear throughout this process, you know, we've kind of tacked our way into a middle path between, you know, the goals of phasing out a very polluting technology while making sure that this is something that is manageable from an enforcement standpoint on the city side to make sure that it's a manageable time frame for large properties and commercial users to make sure that we're balancing the right regulations and restrictions for commercial users and for private users. And I think that our process has benefited a lot from hearing from constituents and commercial users in the past and hopefully tonight as well, as well as the Chamber of Commerce and making sure that we've been tailoring and tweaking this so that it's fair for different use cases. And over the past couple of versions, we've also kind of tweaked that in terms of what specific restrictions we're putting forward and also what metrics and measures we're using. whether it's the amount of months in the year that we allow use of the gas-powered leaf blowers versus electric, whether it's what we're using to measure if something is within allowable ranges or not. I'm glad to see kind of on that seam of fairness, making sure that this is fair for different types of users. I'm glad that we have removed some of the exemptions for municipal use of the leaf blowers. I think that anything that we're expecting of commercial users, we should expect of municipal contractors as well. So that's something that I'm happy to see. And I'm happy to see that this, I think, is the most readable version of the ordinance that we've had yet, which is, of course, super important because some of the people using this ordinance are just, a lot of them are just homeowners, residents who just want to know, is this okay? You know, is this what my community has in mind for, you know, reality testing? Is this a reasonable time to use this tool this time of the year? So looking at the comments put forward by KB Law, I have a couple of motions in mind just to incorporate some of those suggestions, but I'm happy to save those for after comments from my fellow councillors. Or I could just do it right now. Why not right now?
[Bears]: It's up to you if you wanna. We can wait, yeah. I'll go to Councilor Kelly and then Councilor Scarpelli. And I wanna note that Councilor Tseng is present.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I'm really happy to see these changes. I think the readability is very important. I remember hearing from some constituents that they felt that it was more lenient on the municipality than it was on residents. And this, I think it wasn't, but I think this reading of it makes it really clear that actually it's stricter on the commercial owners and the municipality than it is on residents. So I only have one very small question, which is about the use of wheeled leaf blowers powered by four stroke engines. I'm sure there's a good reason why they're carved out from any sort of phase out. So I'm curious what that reason is. And then I'm wondering if there is any phase out for those planned or if we're just, you know, maybe there's a reason why there's no plant phase out.
[Bears]: I can speak to one reason being the difference in emissions from a four-stroke engine than a two-stroke engine. Not to say that greenhouse gas emissions are a good thing, but it's less particulate. It's generally a cleaner burning engine. There's nothing in here that would plan to phase them out at any point, but it is kind of a different beast, if you want to say. for a different size of property, something you're taking over a much wider area. So, I'm sure folks could speak to that, but that's my understanding why it is not included.
[Callahan]: Thanks.
[Bears]: Go to Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Councilor Bears. I hope everybody rested up. I got to bed at five in the morning this morning, so thank you. I just wanted to share some comments from some of the residents and the negative impacts that they're gonna be feeling with their landscape companies. Most of the people that have reached out did stress that they are senior citizens that do have homes that need to be taken care of and at the same time are on a fixed budget. So this will affect people. I know that there are some benefits that when you look at implementing this type of an ordinance, when you look at environmental measures. But again, I still haven't. I've been researching this and I still haven't. received something that I feel comfortable about is what will happen to the batteries after use because from what we're what I'm what I'm investigating in neighboring communities that are doing this the biggest question is the effect in the environment when we have to destroy or bury these batteries and what impact it'll make on our environment. So there are still a lot of questions. You know, the other piece that, you know, everybody, some people make comments tonight that, geez, I'm glad to hear that the municipal side, we're going to be fading into something. I don't know, do you understand that The average cost is between two to four million dollars for a municipality to retrofit DPW trucks for charging stations and then replacement of these batteries. These are studies that were done just in our neighboring community that they pushed it through anyway, but Our neighboring community has a lot of money to, I believe I was told it was $3 million to retrofit their vehicles and phase in all of these new leaf blowers. And I know we have until 2028, but I tell you what, I don't see a very good outlook for our future finances in Medford with still no development and no actual uh, responsible fiscal responsibility that's being maintained by administration. So these are things that I find still, um, a little concerning. Another piece that I, I received was that, you know, I, I, I'm not there right now, but I'm assuming there's at least one landscaper that's been in the city for a long time. I would assume he's there. Uh, but for the most part, our landscapers aren't really coming out and, um, you know, they're disgusted in the fact that they're just going to move away from Medford and the impact that this is playing on their part because, you know, they use they use leaf blowers. I mean, that's that's how they get through power through and make sure that they can keep homes affordable when you use a landscaper. So. I have a home, I'm going to use my electric blower, but I do it for what's needed and move on. But I just think there's a lot of variables. I know it sounds easy, and it's great to check off a box that we want to put in this ordinance, that it supports the environment, that it's really going you know, prepare our community later and moving in slowly into the phase out. But these are, these are difficult times and they're going to be worse in the future. And there's a lot of variables here that I can't support without, without more, um, more work being done to prove to me that this isn't going to be, this is going to be safer for the environment. So, um, I appreciate your time and thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: Um, I think this is a great first step towards more environmentally appropriate behaviors across the city. And point of fact, I understand that the most environmentally conscientious way to take care of people's yards and what we do at my home that I own, not that that has an impact on anything, but we don't rake the leaves, we just leave them, and my yard looks very nice. And it's better for the ecosystem and the plant life and the insects and the wildlife as well. So that's always an option. That being said, I look forward to hammering out the details of you know, the word by word edits that we need to make to this. Is that something that we can do piece by piece? Do we have to make motions for each one? Okay. But yes, I'm excited about this. I think it's great. Especially I think the most significant one for the quality of life portion of it is one leaf blower operating on a property at a time. In my experience in West Bedford, what we have in the spring and fall is like four leaf blowers going at once, and it radiates in your skull, and it's very unpleasant. So that'll be great. Thank you for putting this forward, and thank you to former Council President Morell. So, yep, I'm a big supporter of this ordinance. Thank you.
[Tseng]: Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Tseng. Thank you. I think a lot has been said in this meeting and in meetings past about the environmental effects of leaf blowers and the quality of life effects with the festival levels that we're seeing in Medford. I think that's the reason why we've seen so many letters and emails into the council, at least to the previous councils, about quality of life with leaf blowers. in the city and the need to act on it, and I know that's the spirit with which former Council President Morell introduced this. Now, with that being said, we also recognize that as a council back then, that we needed to reach out to other stakeholders, too, who had different perspectives on the issue, who might not agree with the final product that we passed, but we recognize that in good faith, we needed to make adjustments that would let them you know, continue in a reasonable manner and to let residents who want to use certain types of leaf blowers, especially electric leaf blowers, to function and live as they want to. Now, you know, oftentimes we're pulled in many different directions on issues like this, but it's our job as a council to sit down and figure out how we balance those interests and how we create a compromise that is reasonable, accessible and just in a policy manner speaking, good. I believe that this draft, having read through it before coming to this meeting, reflects that. I think it's in a much, much better shape than what we saw late last year, which I know a lot of residents had concerns about. We integrated those concerns and feedback and changed quite a lot in between these versions of the draft. I think it's just important to set out that the history of this piece of text and the compromises that have come with it as well.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further comments from members of the Council? Mr. Commissioner, do you want to say anything at this time or does anyone have any questions for the Commissioner? Neither nor. Okay. I will recognize Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. I'm happy to field, you know, I think that we have, having gone through this ordinance in great detail over past meetings, even though some of the members of the current council are not there for those, I think that we're at a point in this ordinance where we can think about finalizing it, reporting it out to committee. I have a couple of motions to make that I think get this to a place where we can report this out to regular session, but I think, you know, because we've spent so much time on this already, we have plenty of space to continue to focus in on any aspects in this meeting if we need to, to make sure that everybody is feeling comfortable and up to speed before we take next steps on this. Towards that, I have a few motions to incorporate some of the suggestions from legal counsel. Let me just orient myself here. In section 3858, First, in subsection five, council noted that it's a bit confusing that this language refers to sweeping or raking because that's the only place in the ordinance that refers to sweeping or raking. Otherwise, we're just referring to blowing leaves. So I would motion to delete sweep or rake, which is the suggestion made in the red line copy. And the intent there is just, you know, we've done a lot of work to make this ordinance more readable and very clear in its intent, especially for, you know, there's a wide range of people who are gonna be consulting this, city staff, contractors, residents. And we, I think, you know, simplicity is always of the essence so that two people reading the same document get the same impression out of it.
[Bears]: So just note Council Collins, you could make one motion with all of your changes. So just for the clerk's ease, we've started a motion, you've read the first change, you can keep reading and then we'll just consider it a single motion.
[Collins]: Great. In the same section 3858 subsection 6. It was noted that, so this says deposits of leaf, dirt, dust, et cetera, shall be removed and disposed of in a sanitary manner, which will prevent it from being dispersed by wind vandalism or similar means. A little confusing. I think that rather than trying to define what sanitary matter means, I would, Sorry. Motion to delete in a sanitary manner and replace that with in such a manner so that it reused shall be removed and disposed of in such a manner which will prevent it from dot, dot, dot. And I'm happy to pause. Yes. Great. And then I have a couple. Oh, right. Thank you. So my thought here is for the shall be removed in terms of who's accountable for doing the removal shall be removed and dispose of. I think we could either identify the property owner and the contractor or Well, actually, maybe this is a question to my fellow Councilors for your perspective. If there's a named party that's responsible for doing the removing, should it be the property owner? Should it be the person?
[Bears]: We have been using the phrase municipal operators, municipal contractors, commercial operators, and owners of large property. You could just change the last one to property owners. It could be an or.
[Collins]: One second.
[Bears]: Or it could just be simpler. Any thoughts on that?
[Collins]: Well, I think in that section, I think that the phrase owners of large properties is in that section, I think, important, because there are specific regulations for large properties.
[Bears]: I would suggest that you could just leave it as property owners.
[Collins]: What? Are we trying to call out the property owner, the landscaper, or both?
[Bears]: I think we're trying to... If you want to unmute, and then Councilor Lazzaro.
[Callahan]: Yeah, could we say, you know, the user of the leaf blower?
[Bears]: Suggesting Councilor Lazzaro.
[Lazzaro]: You could say operator, you could say responsible party. I think we should go with operator.
[Bears]: Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: So that would be, shall be removed and disposed of by the operator in such a manner, which will. And then whenever the clerk is ready, I'll keep going.
[Bears]: You can continue.
[Collins]: Great. 59 subsection 4, which starts commercial leaf blowers, municipal operators, municipal contractors, and OLP shall submit an operations plan by, I think, September 1. That provides a good amount of leeway before we really get into peak leaf removal season. September 1. And just for context, that's the operations plan that's submitted by the operator to the building commissioner, a mitigation plan for, you know, we're going to be doing leaf removal with these tools on this property. Here is how we are going to mitigate the noise pollution. Here is how we are going to use the equipment. Here's how we're going to make sure that the equipment is safely used, is the plan, or is the content to be included in the plan.
[Bears]: There were a couple of other questions here. It was how often each year. I said, Councilor Callahan just yes.
[Callahan]: Suggesting suggesting each year by September 1.
[Bears]: I think each each year makes sense. Do we want to say each year annually?
[Collins]: I don't know. I think that annually by September one is feels common to me.
[Bears]: Yeah. I don't know if it matters. I just, I don't think it would really sorry.
[Tseng]: I don't think it really matter. I think each year would open the question up to each calendar year or each, um, each block of 365 days. So annually is just clear in that sense. But any further thoughts?
[Bears]: Great.
[Collins]: Next. Possibly last from me. Section 3862 subsection 3. As you noted in your overview, running this by the administration, it's felt that it's not cost effective to set up a special revenue fund for the potential fines collected by this. So my motion will be to delete that section. Great. And I think that's it for me for now.
[Bears]: And do we also want to accept the other inline changes, not necessarily the comments on the right, but the inline changes proposed by Council?
[Castagnetti]: I would accept.
[Bears]: OK. And if that's fine, if we can just have that be an amendment to Councilor Collins' motion. There's a couple additions, adding section 3861, removing the word fuel, removing the word any, which comes up twice. Okay, is there a second? Are you good? Is there a second on the motion? Seconded by Councilor Callahan. We'll hold it for discussion. At this point, are there any other talks of discussion by members of the council or motions by a member of the council? Seeing none, Mr. Commissioner, do you have any comments after the motions that have been made that you'd like to share with us?
[Scott Vandewalle]: Briefly, my name is Scott VanderWaal. For those of you who haven't met, I'm just in my third week, I think, just briefly in here. So just getting up to speed on everything and dealing with some other issues. We did have some conversations earlier about how to implement this and follow through and what the intentions of this ultimately are. And I think they can all be addressed. and we talked about some of these changes. I'm comfortable with what I've heard. I think the whole goal is to keep it focused and to make it not a punishment exercise, but an education exercise in which if we have to take additional steps to teach folks, we're happy to do that. So I'm pleased with what I've been listening to in the conversations and I look forward to it.
[Bears]: Great. Thank you and welcome and appreciate you being here to serve the city. We'll now open it up to members of the public who would like to speak. You can come to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom. We have a few folks on Zoom and we'll take your name and address for the record. If you have any comments on the draft ordinance and any changes that you may like to see or if you, anything else you'd like to say about it. Good evening again. Good evening, name and address for the record.
[Patrick Kierce]: PS 178, Woburn Street, Medford, resident, 50 years. Just wondering, how many complaints have you received about leaf blowers?
[Bears]: in like me personally or the city? I'm just wondering how many complaints they received. I mean, I've certainly received many in my personal capacity and as a Councilor, I don't know. Can I have a number? Commissioner, do we have a statistic on that? No, we don't have a statistic on that.
[Patrick Kierce]: We don't have a statistic. So if it's 10,000 and we have 76,000 residents in Medford, I believe as far as 2022, then 66,000 of them haven't complained?
[Bears]: Well, I don't know how many people will be filing individual complaints.
[Patrick Kierce]: So I'm just saying you're going off the complaints, but you're also going off maybe 66,000 people that haven't complained in Medford. So it's just a thought. You're going off who's calling in. There's a lot more residents than probably the complaints that are coming in. I just want to say I've been landscaping here with my family. It is a family business. We've been here. over 30 years with my father working in Medford. We come into a cleanup. I have generally 12 to 14 guys with me. I have at least six to seven of them raking up leaves first. For people in Medford that maybe can take care of themselves, but don't have the time, or I have older customers, how do you expect them to clean up their places after all this is done? I understand, yes. Put them in your beds, it's more degradable. But not everybody can do this. Buildup of leaves also causes insects, mosquitoes, moisture. So there are other things to think about as well. So when I do come into a cleanup, that's what I'm saying. Springtime. We're using blowers just to do a final cleanup on the properties themselves. Everything is picked up, loaded into a truck. I don't use any leaf suckers during the springtime. Do we do them during the fall? Absolutely. If it's not, I have guys climbing trucks with heavy bags of leaves or canvases to dump into a truck, which is dangerous. The leaf suckers, yes. Do they have noise? I run them when I pick up the leaves, and that's how we run it. So we've been doing this for a long time. Yes, we use electric batteries in other cities. If you want to use that during the summertime, I have no problem with that, but you're still not taking into the fact what it takes to make an electric battery and to get rid of an electric battery. The phase-out, I'm just wondering, could you tell me what that phase-out was of, was it all gas blowers, all leaf blowers for commercial operators by 2026, so in two years?
[Bears]: It was gas by 2026, but electric would still be year round allowed.
[Patrick Kierce]: So you're trying to phase out all gas blowers in two years from Medford?
[Bears]: For commercial operators and owners of large property, and then four years for the average resident and for the city.
[Patrick Kierce]: How do you expect us to clean this up? I mean, do you expect us to go out with rakes? Are you going to call the city and have all the The residents come down and just start raking everything for everybody. I don't understand how you're gonna phase out gas. I'll ask anybody, and if somebody can answer, how did you get here tonight? You walked, great. Anybody else take a car? So you use a car to get to work. Again, we have 76,000 residents, I believe, in Medford, maybe you can correct me on that. There's a building going up down past Wegmans for 350 apartments. Next block over, 350 more apartments. How many cars do we have driving through the city every year that you're talking about pollution? Do you hear any blowers now this time of year? You hear blowers in the springtime and the falltime. You're talking about pollution. Look at the city every single day. And now you're going to take one person, one group of people, and what's next? My lawnmowers? The residents' lawnmowers? You have to think beyond everything that else is going on just in this room here. It's not fair to the people that are out there. Again, business owner for how long in the city? A long time, probably longer than most people have been in the city here. For us to put EV batteries and to get a trailer ready is $75,000 for one trailer to keep it running a day. I mean, I have two cutting crews. I'm in Medford only one day a week. But what I have to do, spend $150,000 as a small company? to set this up, so I have all of these batteries that, again, how they're being made, and it takes so many resources to make a battery, and then where are they being disposed of? Are they being disposed of correctly after we drop them off? I've heard of people saying they're being dropped in the ocean. I mean, there's a million things that need to be looked at here. A phase-out, I mean, you just don't want landscapers in Medford in two years, because that's what you have, and if that's what you want, Maybe it'll change within two years, but we'll see. But phasing this out in two years, I don't know how you expect the city on electric to clean the amount of leaves and the amount of landscapers that are here that help clean up leaves from the city. They keep the basins clean. We clean up along the streets. We don't blow them into the streets and leave them. I mean, you've seen fall time here where homeowners, they take their leaves when they know that the leaf suckers come in, and you have all these leaves pushed out into the street. I've seen years where those leaves are pushed out in the street, and then it snows. And then kids are making food in them. And what are you going to do? Somebody come by and plows? But I mean, that's what's going to happen. Now we're going to have leaves pushed out to the street by every homeowner. That's going to have to be tried to be cleaned up by sweet streepers, which the sweet streepers, what time do they run? Do you mind, does anybody know what time a street cleaner runs?
[Bears]: Some of them at night, some of them during the big sweep all day.
[Patrick Kierce]: Night, what do you consider night? All night long, you hear them at four in the morning, you hear them at three in the morning, so does that stop? I mean, that wakes me up, I know they're running outside. So I mean, you're picking on one group of people now. So if you're gonna phase this out, again, I'm fortunate in other towns that the residents are actually, I don't even live in those towns, but they're actually fighting for the landscapers. I don't see that many people here fighting for us. I just hear people trying to tell us what we can do with our businesses. I just don't think it's fair what you're doing. I don't think you've thought enough about it. I support 14 people that work for us. 17 including my family. So they have been with us and they are, these people are my family. My workers have been with me for probably 12 to 20 years, because we treat them with respect, they treat us with respect. So what am I gonna do? Raise the cost of my work, and then my customers can't afford us, because I think we're pretty reasonable as we are now, and then we get pushed out. I just think there's more conversation to be had here. I don't mind doing the dates that you have now, but phasing us out, that's not right. Thank you. Thank you.
[Bears]: I'm gonna go to Zoom. I'm gonna go to who I think is Harold McGilvery. Name and address for the record, please. Apologies if it's not you, Harry. Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you.
[McGilvey]: Name and address for the record, please. Harry McGilvery, 4 Piedmont Road. I, uh, I support Mr. Kiss and the landscapers. I think that this is a real, a real, uh, overreach. Um, I'm not quite sure how eliminating this, uh, these leaf blowers are gonna save the environment when, when everybody else joins, joins in this endeavor and different countries around the world start, you know, using the same regulations that are used in the United States, then maybe it will have an impact, but I'm not seeing a significant impact by this resolution for the environment. Also, lithium batteries are extremely dangerous. In the last year, I have investigated four fires in the city that are directly related to lithium batteries. I, for one, would not be comfortable having a lithium battery in my attached garage because I just don't think they're safe, nevermind the fact that you can't dispose of them. It's not, they're not environmentally friendly to dispose of. So I just, this is a reach. I don't know how I can go purchase something off a shelf at a hardware store and then the city of Medford can tell me that I can't use that product on my property. I have gas leaf blower, I have a gas weed whacker, I have a gas lawnmower, I have a gas snowblower. I agree with everything Mr. Cass said, and I sympathize with him, that the city of Medford is doing this to him and his family. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you, Mr. McGilvery. I'm going to go to Mr. Castagnetti. Name and address for the record, please.
[Castagnetti]: Hello, Councilor Bears. Are we on?
[Bears]: You are on. Name and address for the record, please, Mr. Castagnetti.
[Castagnetti]: Andrew P. Castagnetti, Christian Street, East Medford, Mass. Through the Chair, I'm asking all the Councilors that are present and should be present Do you have any intentions of going after the lawnmowers and snowmobiles, excuse me, snowblowers?
[Bears]: Currently, this is just an ordinance regarding leaf blowers.
[Castagnetti]: Okay. It's going to be a hardship for some of these lawn care peoples and it's going to cost the consumers more. I understand that. But I remember on my honeymoon way back in lovely San Francisco, when it was nice, I used to be waking to 6 a.m. at the hotel by the leaf blowers, and it was not nice to my ears. And plus, the dust is bad for my nostrils, along with cigarette smoke, of course. I have no further comments about this. I'm going to take the fifth. As long as you don't go after our Second Amendment rights to carry firearms. Good night.
[Bears]: That is certainly regulated above our level. Mr. Cassidy. Thank you. Mr. Giglio on zoom name and address for the record, please.
[Giglio]: Hi, this is Bill Giglio on Monmouth Street. I am also in support with Scott Cass. He does a wonderful job around the city. We just heard three people, George Scarpelli, the last caller Harry, and Mr. Cass talk about the dangers of the lithium batteries. Has any one of you looked into that on the council here and what have you found about the dangers of getting rid of a lithium battery?
[Bears]: Any thoughts or comments on lithium batteries from members of the council?
[Collins]: I think it's fair to say it's something we've discussed.
[Giglio]: Yes. So you haven't even looked into probably one of the major aspects of doing this, but you're ready to implement them and get rid of one aspect, but you have another aspect where you're going to be hurting the environment severely because they have, you know, because of the dangers of getting rid of these and the dangers of like the last caller said about starting fires. So we have, you guys have not looked into that at all?
[Collins]: No, I just said that we did actually.
[Giglio]: And what did you find?
[Collins]: I think we found that it's still worthwhile to put forward this ordinance that is targeted at specifically two-stroke engines, which are known to be one of the most polluting types.
[Giglio]: No, no, no, that's not what I asked. I asked, what did you, what did you, what information did you find about getting rid of lithium batteries? Of the dangers of getting rid of lithium batteries? That's my, that's my direct question.
[Bears]: You can recycle them at Home Depot. They're recyclable.
[Giglio]: And then, and then what do they do? Like what, what do they do?
[Bears]: They turn them into new batteries.
[Giglio]: And what, what dangers have you found with the lithium batteries?
[Bears]: They sell them at the store.
[Giglio]: No, I'm glad it's funny to you. Okay.
[Bears]: I see Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Yeah, I just, I've done a little research on lithium batteries and, you know, uh, There is, you know, a huge, you know, question about them. When you're talking about lithium batteries and what they contain, the metals and cobalts and nickels and the contaminants, they contaminate water supplies and the ecosystem if they leach out of landfills, because that's how they're truly disposed. We could drop them off at Home Depot, but then they go to a landfill. And the biggest thing that we're hearing right now is what Officer McGover did say, is that they do cause a lot of fires. You're seeing that more and more as they're demanded more and more in our communities. I did do a little, I did do some homework on the lithium battery. I think it's something that as I get more involved with understanding, you know, our environmental needs and footprints, I think that, you know, The comparison that studies have shown is that we'll see more damage to our environment in the future, in the long run. The measurements can't be apples to apples, because this is something that's at its infancy. And you'll see it later in life. And I think that's what is keeping me from moving forward with this. And the particulates in the air, You could, you know, you could, you could debate that as well. So how it's, how it's blown and how it's managed. You look at, you know, putting in some standards in place, people like the cast family, they make sure they are respectful to the community and they're respectful in how they're disposing and using these products. I know some aren't, some companies don't do that, but you know, that's more of, um, you know, the piece of enforcement, which, um, I know we have, we have our, um, we have our, um, building inspectors and our, our code enforcement inspectors going through their, um, going through their contract. And I would recommend that our new director re commissioner reaches out to their, his team and in negotiations, they should really, um, enlighten their enforcement officers that this is coming down the line because this isn't going to be easy this to add this to their plate again there's another reason that i find it you know um listen i know i know it's inconvenient for people because some people do take advantage of it and they could be loud but for the most part Um, you know, the conversations that I've had with residents, it really, you know, it's, it's, it's, it really doesn't make a difference. I haven't, I haven't heard a groundswell of changing an ordinance or implementing an ordinance for this. So, but again, I, I, I respect my colleagues and, and the, the, the evolution of this process, but, um, um, just wanted to share what, what I've learned. Thank you.
[Bears]: And Councilor Scarpelli, go to Ellen on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please.
[Ellyn Lavecchia]: Ellen Lavecchia, 27 Ramsehead Road. Just three points. One is, Have we, sorry if I missed this in the beginning, have we reached out to increase the budget for the, I don't know what the line item's called, but the maintenance for Oak Grove and all of the city properties, all of the schools and any other city owned property retained where leaves need to be removed. Do we know what the increase in cost will be to the city since it will take, you know, other people, landscapers are the experts here. It sounds like 2, 3, 4 times the amount of time to do the work that they're doing for us now. So, I guess my 1st question, I do have 2 other comments. I don't know if you want to just answer that 1st.
[Bears]: I'm sure we'll receive the school committee does the school budget. There's an impact on the city. That'll be addressed in the city budget when we receive it.
[Ellyn Lavecchia]: Passing this or not potentially passing this without knowing what that number is.
[Bears]: I think the city will work around what the legal requirements are to make sure that it keeps the property.
[Ellyn Lavecchia]: Okay. So it's no problem to find money for this, but we don't have money for a lot of other things we need in our city. Okay. So that's what you just told me. Cause they'll, they'll work around it. So that money comes out of thin air. That's great. I love that. I hope that can be the answer for other things as well. So on to my second point, um, The lithium batteries have been, there's been a lot written about how they are just as detrimental to the environment, the building and disposing of those batteries. Like, let's not pretend that they're not, because they are. Okay, we're just trading one. So that's the second point. The third point, and I'm just going to say it every time I see it in here, is I have to state how disgusting the condescension is, how disgusting it is answering people on this call today.
[Bears]: Thank you. We'll go to everyone.
[McGilvey]: Mr. McAleary? Can you hear me? Yep. Just if you could, it's Terry again, right? Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for letting me speak again. Harry McGill before Piedmont road method. Um, just a couple of quick points. You mentioned recycling home Depot recycles them. It's pretty known fact that the recycled batteries are more dangerous than the batteries when they're new. For some reason, they, they lose some integrity when they're recycled. And, uh, And then they're just more dangerous. I mean, if we had a fire chief, he could probably weigh in on this, because I know the fire marshal in Massachusetts issued a warning on lithium batteries, along with the Method Fire Department, after a significant house fire we had in the city that was directly related to a lithium battery. And lastly, Mr. Kass brought up, I think, a really good point. You know, how many complaints are you getting on this? When you say a number, what's a number? Like I think if I'm a city councilor and I'm gonna push, a resolution or a change, try to change something in the city. I'm gonna tell you, yeah, I've had 2,500 residents in the West, I live in West Method, and I don't hear leaf blowers. Maybe I'm just immune to it or something, like I'm immune to the train tracks. But I would say, yeah, I've had 2,500, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. I personally don't believe that there's that many people complaining about it. I believe it's a small number. I believe it's probably less than 500, but we don't have that data. How do you not have that data? All I ever hear is the word transparency. Well, that's not being very transparent. I would advise the council in the future, tell the people who tell the people how many people are complaining. I believe in, in, In democracy here, yeah. If the majority of people want them gone, yeah, then they're gone. But if we're talking about a couple hundred people that are complaining or it's an agenda, you know, because you want to clean the environment and you think that you're going to fix everything right here in the city of Medford, then, you know, let's be honest about it. Let's be honest about it. It's just one of your agenda items. Thank you.
[Bears]: Thank you. Any further comments? Councilor Tseng then we'll go to Mr. Kears.
[Tseng]: Councilor Tseng. Thank you. I think it's, you know, I want to reiterate Councilor Collins' point that we've talked, we have considered the question of lithium batteries throughout the creation of this process. Looking at reports from the EPA, from UPenn, from Wash U in St. Louis, from Yale University. they all ask us to think about, yes, there is an environmental impact to creating batteries and destroying them. But we also have to think of the lifetime of that use. And so it's not only the inception and the getting rid of the product. It's all the time in between the emissions that are produced in between as well, where gas-powered leaf blowers really do exceed electric. battery-powered leaf blowers by quite a bit in terms of emissions. We have to look at the whole picture. And while there might be one part of the picture we don't like as much, we should consider the lifetime of the project as well. Very similarly, we shouldn't let this one point dictate the whole debate. I would also like to remind the council that a number of us have been working on this ordinance for a while in the public eye, with it being posted on Facebook, with people having chances to chime in in favor and against. And we were re-elected. This is a representative democracy. And we were elected by a majority of the voters.
[Bears]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[Callahan]: Yeah, just wanted to add to that. But in addition to there being plenty of studies showing that over the life of the product, it is environmentally more responsible to use electric. It should be noted that battery technology changes and changes fairly quickly. So when we're talking about lithium batteries, the design of an electric leaf blower is different from the design of a gas powered leaf blower. And if we convert now to electric as battery technology improves, we will be able to more easily get the benefit of those new batteries, which, you know, I'm sure will be environmentally more sustainable because people are not quite aware of the problems with lithium batteries.
[Bears]: Councilor Callahan, Mr. Kearse, and then I'm going to go back to Zoom.
[Patrick Kierce]: Patrick, here's again, 178 Woburn Street. You said you've looked into batteries. What are the resources that it takes to make one electric battery? No, you didn't. What resources does it take to make one?
[Bears]: I prefer we not get into a back and forth, thank you.
[Patrick Kierce]: It's not a back and forth. He's saying he answered the question.
[Bears]: I don't think anyone knows the pound amounts of metals or electrical.
[Patrick Kierce]: 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds for the ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds for the ore of the nickel, 25,000 pounds for the ore of the copper, digging up 500,000 pounds of the Earth's crust. You're telling me that maybe because this is being done in other countries, it's not being made here, that we don't have to worry about this. You talk about the environment, one electric battery, 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust is dug up.
[Bears]: How big is the battery?
[Patrick Kierce]: One EV battery.
[Bears]: For an electric vehicle? Yes. Okay. So much bigger than what we're talking about here.
[Patrick Kierce]: So, okay, so cut it in half. 250,000 pounds of digging up the earth's crust for a smaller battery. What's the source, if you don't mind me asking? You can look it up right here. I'll give you the source after the meeting, but it's right here. Do you have the name of the source? If I had my glasses, sorry. You can look it up on vitalmix.com. Okay, thank you. Now, one of the people that was on Zoom, she mentioned the cost of cleaning up for Medford. Now, does anybody here know what the cost is for cleaning up the Oak Grove Cemetery for one season? You look really happy over there, look pretty bored. So nobody knows. I believe for just the Oak Grove Cemetery, it is $80,000 to clean the Oak Grove Cemetery. So you expect to clean that cemetery with electric batteries. I mean, I could bring out my blow dryer and it's gonna create more air than an electric battery, all the same. So that whole cemetery now needs to be raked up and tried to be cleaned. That cost will go up four times that amount. And please, you can get back to me on the number of what it is to clean up it. But I do believe that's the number, because I've been approached about it before. I just don't think, you know, you quote all these things, but I think there's more information out there that needs to be going through. Again, I'm not complaining. I will go with the months that you give me for using a gas blower to clean up leaves, but you have to be reasonable on your side as well. Phasing out gas blowers in two years, it's impossible. Impossible for the city and for homeowners to clean up. I just think that needs to be taken into consideration. And I'll be honest with you, I feel like I talk here, but it's only gonna be happening what you guys think. And again, I'm gonna ask this question, you can tell me if they can answer the question. How many votes did you get? If you don't mind me asking. Sure, that'd be great if you want to.
[Bears]: I asked the question last night and nobody could answer it. I got about 7,500 Councilor Collins and saying we're a little over 7,000. Councilor Lazzaro and Callahan were in the 6,000s as long as Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Leming was around 5,800. Yeah, it's also pretty much the highest amount that's happened in a recent municipal election for council seats.
[Patrick Kierce]: He said that he was voted in. So I'm getting to my point, if you'll let me answer it.
[Bears]: Let's not go with the back and forth. Thank you, Councilor Lazzaro and Mr. Kearse.
[Patrick Kierce]: So you were voted in with those votes. That's great. I voted too. But again, 7,500 votes. And I'm blaming the city. I'm blaming the residents. I'm not saying I'm blaming them. You got 7,500 votes out of 76,000 people. Maybe 76,000 about 60,000 people 60,000 voters. There's 40,000 registered voters and it's we that was And then I'm blaming the residents. I'm not saying anything towards that. But maybe a lot of the residents just don't know what's going on in the city, is what I'm saying.
[Bears]: It was the highest number of votes for people on the school committee and city council since we switched to plan A government in 1987. Absolutely, that's great.
[Patrick Kierce]: That's the highest number. What I'm saying, though, it's 7,500 to 60,000 or 40,000 voters. So I'm just making a fact. And I'm not saying anything about how you got voted in. I'm saying it's the residents that maybe don't know what's going on in the city. And again, I'm trying to work with this leaf bowl. I understand the noise pollution. I'm sorry if this has given you a headache.
[Bears]: Well, we all worked and spent in sums of money and raised money to try to encourage more people to vote. And I think we'd all be very happy if more people did. I'm going to go to Anthony on Zoom.
[Anthony Lavecchia]: I am Rebecca 27 Ram said road method. I have a question out of the seven of you sitting behind the real right now. How many of you use lithium batteries on a daily basis? And I would guess the answer is zero. The average lifespan of a lithium battery because I daily basis is 12 months. If we can get 14 out of them doing good. So let's all get your head out of the cab, Doug, for the six of you. You have to realize we are here. We understand we need to do something. But eliminating this in the cost that it's going to incur to the city, for the schools, for the people that barely can afford their houses now. And we're not gonna clean up and the leaves are great on the grass and all that. Guess what? There was a huge rat problem in the city of Medford. And guess where they like to live under leaves and stuff like that. So why are we dealing with that? No one can answer it. Because it's an agenda item that you want to check and say, Yes, we're going to do this. Does the building department really have the time or the money to sit there and take an inventory of Pat's leaf blowing equipment? And he's only one person toughs another person. Come on, let's be real about this whole thing. If we're going to do it right, do it right. But don't just put things in to make yourself feel good.
[Bears]: Thank you. Any further comment by members of the public? Any comment from or any motions from members of the council? Councilor Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Thank you for everybody who's spoken tonight and in previous meetings for and against. You know, I can only speak for myself as one Councilor, this isn't the project that I initiated it was initiated by former President Morell know that all of our projects come out of constituent feedback. You know, from one form or another, this is one of those projects. You know, I think that this project is really the product of compromise, like a lot of like almost like every single one of our ordinances and resolutions and projects in this chambers. I think we've worked hard to get from our starting point, which I think was much more onerous based on, you know, examples that we found in other neighboring cities to try to get this to a place that was a better fit for our community. We've made several I think pretty major adjustments to make sure that the balance of restrictions on commercial operators and residential users was more appropriate to make sure that, you know, anything that was expected of commercial operators would also be expected by municipal contractors and, you know, essentially to say we have a tool here, we have the appetite here to, we're hearing from constituents that we want this source of noise pollution to be, you know, to have a lever to pull to make sure that that's at a reasonable level at reasonable times. And we want to take this technology, which is known to be one of the most polluting, you know, I don't think anything, anybody expects us to solve global warming in Medford, but we, I think we've, it came from the community that we have the opportunity to take action on something that is known to be especially polluting and say, let's you know, let's start to rein that in. And this has been a public process to create a timeline. For that we've gotten a lot of feedback on it. Coming out of that we have this draft that we further amended tonight after the feedback from our new building commissioner, city staff, and legal counsel. So I just wanted to thank all the constituents that have weighed in on this over the past, I think, possibly
[Bears]: this is the seventh public meeting on actually the eighth public meeting public meeting over the past eight public meetings on it.
[Collins]: It's critical for the ordinance project to get, I think that many bites at the apple and that much feedback. So with that, I would motion to report this out of committee as amended.
[Bears]: On the motion, we need to take the motion to adopt the amendments first. Sorry about that.
[Scarpelli]: Sure.
[Bears]: So we do have the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Callahan. to adopt the in line amendments of the legal counsel as well as the amendments that you have verbally stated tonight. And when you're ready, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Scarpelli]: No.
[Bears]: Yes. Yes, 60 affirmative one of the negative emotion passes their motion from Councilor Collins. Motion to report the paper out of committee as amended. Seconded by Councilor Callaghan. Oh, sorry, my apologies on the motion Councilor Callaghan discussion.
[Callahan]: No, yeah I am seconding but I'd also like to discuss.
[Bears]: Yes.
[Callahan]: Thank you. Um, I just want to comment that there have been many public meetings on this. There have been many, there have been dozens of people speaking very eloquently in favor of passing this. I personally believe that there are more residents in Medford, who are incredibly frustrated with both the noise and pollution of gas leaf blowers than there are people who do not want this ordinance to be this to move out of committee and to move to the City Council for passage. And I also really want to reiterate that the very well respected institutions and scientists in climate science have studied whether battery powered leaf blowers or gas powered leaf blowers are which one is environmentally better in the long run. And they have determined that electric powered gas blowers are better for the environment in the long run. And they include all sorts of things in that determination, including the dangers of lithium batteries, including, you know, all the metals that go into those. So We do not need to debate things here and talk about individual metals that go into them because we are not those experts. Those experts have come to conclusions and those conclusions are that it's better to use electric. And I certainly do believe that between the environmental impact and the noise pollution, that this is what, passing this is what the majority of Medford's and residents want, which is why I support this.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by Councilor Callahan, was it just to report out of committee or to report out of committee and adjourn? Sorry, on the motion of Councilor Collins to report out of committee and adjourn, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: Councilor Callahan? Vice President Collins? Yes.
[Lazzaro]: Yes.
[Scarpelli]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Councilor Scarpelli?
[Scarpelli]: Yes, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[Bears]: Yes, I mean affirmative. None of the negative. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned.
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