Quantcast

Gas powered leaf blower ban proposed for Norwalk

July 19, 2023
–
Liz Conti
Letters to the editor. Send signed letters to Nancy@NancyOnNorwalk.com with a suggested headline.

Listening to the public hearing as I write this, regarding the ordinance proposed banning the use of gas-powered blowers completely by 2027/2028 and in part as soon as September 2024.

There are a lot of landscapers and homeowners that were uninformed about this until yesterday when it was published that there would be a public hearing. At the public hearing there are a lot of landscapers speaking against this lunacy. Public speakers limited to three minutes and the experts brought in to speak about how leaf blower emissions literally kill were giving unlimited 20 minute-plus amounts of time to orate about unrealistic and fanatical statistics that were highly suspect and exaggerated.

It seems that this town’s woke leadership live in a fantasy world; most of the appointees have likely never got their hands dirty at work, like the crews of landscapers who take care of keeping this town looking so manicured.

This is also an outright attack on civil liberties and on the small business owner who is literally being raked through the coals by a woke liberal mob or climate loons. Next, they are coming for our gas powered stoves and grills. Our freedoms are being taken away daily as this town lives in an alternative reality that benefits a select few and jeopardizes the livelihood of the working class who is being subjected to increasing costs that are so burdensome, little is left to eat and clothe themselves and their families in the interest of a less than proven science relating to climate change.

We need change in Norwalk, but what kind of change are we willing to tolerate? The kind that neglects the working class in order to support special interests with no regard for simple common sense? Here is a thought, how about working “with” small local businesspeople and residents. Try including them on these Committees, not treating them with disdain and giving them little notice to come and speak out against these crazy proposals.

Make sure your VOTE is heard in November. Vote out these crazies that show disdain for the public! That is the change we need in Norwalk, not eliminating leaf blowers for God’s sake!

Liz Conti

More Stories

Comments

11 responses to “Gas powered leaf blower ban proposed for Norwalk”

  1. David Muccigrosso

    >>There are a lot of landscapers and homeowners that were uninformed about this until yesterday when it was published that there would be a public hearing.

    This is nonsense.

    The city code states that proposed ordinances are to be announced at public hearings. YESTERDAY WAS THAT HEARING. It’s absurd to complain about being “uninformed… until yesterday” because YESTERDAY WAS WHEN THE LAW SAYS YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE INFORMED.

    If your child receives a bad test grade and later that same day brings it home to you, it’d be INSANE to accuse the poor kid of hiding it from you. They brought it to you at their first opportunity! But that’s essentially what you’re doing here.

    If anyone’s being childish here, it’s the grown adults who are pretending that the regularly ordered process of law is a conspiracy against them. Grow up!

  2. Mike Murray

    I would start cutting down any trees in my yard that dropped leaves as soon as this ordinance passed.

  3. Cris Bowers

    As soon as I saw the writer condemn town leadership as “woke” I knew where this screed was coming from. This is not national politics and plenty of other towns have limited or banned leaf blowers. Can we dial down the outrage please?

  4. Martin Devaney

    Chairwoman Lisa Shanahan is what almost every person in America hates in politics. Someone who misleads and only listens and believes in her own agenda. She acted bored and barely paid attention to any of the valid points brought up by homeowners and landscapers during the meeting last night as well as the zoom meeting in June. The reason for that is her mind as most of her colleagues were already made up months ago. She didn’t hesitate to start with Covid noise complaints but not once in her opening statements has she brought up the dangers with the Lithium Ion Batteries that she is recommending that we should use. She was all over people who don’t share her opinion when they went over the three minutes but allowed so called experts to spend 15-20 minutes. She allowed one husband and wife to speak and show a video of her sitting in a chair from their backyard. Two people who lived in Dreamy Hollow for years and never said a word about noise pollution as long as their property looked good.

    All of the people who spoke in person or on zoom were well behaved until the end when it was clear that she wasted our time. There’s no honor in going after low hanging fruit while quoting the internet for yours and your friends talking points.

    Marty Devaney

  5. diane keefe

    I wholeheartedly support the ban on gas powered leaf blowers. The toxicity of their emissions justifies it. The landscapers can raise prices to pay for upgrading their equipment so they don’t impose undue costs on employees, customers and the Norwalk community. The sooner the better. I hope the Common Council votes”yes” on the ban to protect, children, the elderly and people with pulmonary and heart conditions from these noxious machines.

    I’ve been using an electric leaf blower for years. It doesn’t present a risk to my family. The battery life is not as long as I’d like but every year the technology gets better.
    Diane Keefe

    1. Mike Murray

      So wait until the technology improves to the point that they function better and last longer and are cheaper than gas powered blowers and then change the law. Changing laws in the hope that technology catches up is truly the opposite of a free market economy. Let the consumer drive the demand, not the government.

  6. Bryan Meek

    @David, some of them work 80 hours a week in the busy season and don’t have time to scour the city’s website daily or the one classified ad that ran one day where this was announced.

    Further, the city has a FB page where they tell us about everything good they are doing ad nauseam, but rarely discusses actual business of the city.

    You seem progressive, but making excuses for the antiquated approach on stakeholder outreach?

    I’ve never ever seen you at a city meeting and while I’ve been to several 100 I have never seen a chair call in “expert” witnesses who were really there for a sales pitch.

    1. John C. Miller Jr.

      Did you really expect something approaching logic from @David? I think we both know that the Ordinance Committee was attempting to push this through on the sly by not providing sufficient notice about this meeting to the people who would be the most impacted.

  7. John O’Neill

    I’ll repeat what I posted yesterday — Those that live in BIG houses with Large Carbon Footprints should move to a more modest living space before pushing this regressive tax to both landscapers and lower middle class homeowners.

  8. Liz Conti

    In respect to everyone’s heart felt opinions on this, it really needs to be a discussion where everyone has a fair voice! Those who work hard, laboring daily, should have their voice value as much as PhD‘s who make a living studying science. Political appointees who are in a position to decide should show appreciation of all voices not disdain for laborers who seem to be undervalued….in their “expert” and well presented views! It was obvious prejudicial socioeconomic discrimination and a pre-planned rather than an open minded decision.

    That is what really needs to change for the better matches in Norwalk but everywhere. We Need to value each other’s opinion… Even when we disagree, and we need to find where we do agree, and make compromises to preserve the institutions of freedom and our bill of rights, which include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens and inhabitants in the United States! We do better when we’re honest and respectful to one another and when we realize that freedom isn’t free and preserving what America was founded on is worth the respectful and productive exchange of ideas, that’s democracy as opposed to one party tyrannical rule!

  9. Thomas Belmont

    Major problem is noise. Too bad a noise muffler won’t be engineered to them. Also a mini catalytic convertor. Somebody get on that, huh.

Leave a Reply

Newsletter

Chalk Talk promo
Secret Link