Public Hearing to Consider Introduction of Ordinance Amending Alameda Municipal Code Chapter XXIV Public Health to Add Section 24-14 Prohibition on Gasoline-Powered Leaf Blowers.  (Planning and Building 20962710)
Public hearing to consider introduction of ordinance many amendments book chapter 24 Public Health to add Section 14 Prohibition on Gasoline Powered Leaf Blowers. All right. And do we have any public speakers on this item? We do not. I'm closing public comment and. All right, I see we have both Alan Thai and Andrew Thomas. Take it away, gentlemen. And brevity is the key word here. I'm going to turn over Tallentire did all the work on this. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor and city council members. I'm just going to make this very quickly. So there the city's Climate Action Resiliency Plan contains an action item to enact the ban on gasoline leaf blowers. Gasoline leaf blowers have been well documented as a source of greenhouse gas emissions. In Alameda, our Karp anticipates a reduction of 76 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. So and many cities have enacted similar bans, most recently Oakland and Berkeley. The draft ordinance that is in front of you would ban the use and the sale of gasoline powered leaf blowers starting on January 1st, 2023. So that's a lead time of 15 months. The city staff plans to use that time to further outreach to. Property owners and businesses and. Allow the conversion transition to electric alternatives. And we've discovered that there are about a. Hundred landscape companies that do business in Alameda and we have all notified them. And so staff is recommending the introduction of this ordinance and I'm available for any questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Tie. Councilmember her Spencer. Thank you, Mayor. I had asked before. Is the city still using gasoline powered leaf blowers? The city? I believe I believe the answer is no. Our contractors are not using. Gas leaf blowers. Okay. Because I did receive a complaint, I think some of us have at one of the parks there. I believe that they did work for the city. So I would like clarification. I saw two other hands. Mr. BURTON, did you have your hand. That I'll I'll defer to City Manager Leavitt. So he's got the answer. I was going to clarify that we are converting to gas. I know I'm running away from gas, too. So and I it's getting late burning though too electric in our contracts with our outside contractors where the complaints have come from, what I've seen tend to be where we have outside contractors working for either public works or parks. I think it's for public works and some of our ride away areas and we're trying to convert those contracts and we're trying to do it consistent with this ordinance. Thank you for that clarification. Councilmember Harris Spencer, then Vice Mayor of L.A.. Thank you. So I support this, but I, I hope that the city will finish the conversion of who we hire, who the city hires, as well as what we use, because we can be the leader on this thing. And so thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor L.A.. I just want to move approval of the ordinance as written, and then I hope that we actually follow and execute as the city and comply with it. Thank you, counsel, over there. So I'd like to second that with a quick comment. Finally, thank God, no more loud, obnoxious, odorous gas powered leaf blowers. Thank you, city staff. Thank you. All right, Councilman, relax. Okay. So I was. I plan to support the motion. My only potential change would be to consider whether we wanted to actually make it make make it go into effect immediately. But have enforcement not start until the 23rd? I'd say till 2023. So basically the same timeline for enforcement. But rather than giving a year and a half of people to be able to continue using leaf blowers, you know, people we can start making sure that part of the part of the education could be the phase in of people getting notices that, hey, these aren't allowed and we're going to start enforcement in the next year. So just throwing that out. So I actually would like to stick with the staff's recommendation. I have talked to some other cities where it's done and the education pieces is really important and the bilingual education and we are impacting people's employment. And so I bet. But the hope would certainly be that it happens sooner. But anyway, I but I do think the motion was as to the original ordinance, unless anybody wants to make amendments. Okay, let's. It is 1155. Madam Clerk, may we have a roll cover, please? Councilmember dialog. Yes. Aurora Spencer. Hi. Knox Light. Hi, Bella. I mean, as Ashcroft. Yes. That carries by five eyes. All right. Thank you very much, staff. Mr. Time, Mr. Thomas. Thank you so much. And good work, counsel, for moving things along so expeditiously. So we aren't going to be able to get to item seven E today. So, Madam Clerk, help me out here. We you have two options with this item. You could just have could just put it back on the regular agenda for the next meeting without you taking a vote and considering it. If you wanted to put it in that continued section, you could you would it would require council vote to put it in that section. So it's up to Council's discretion. Counsel What do we think? We can have a vote to add it to the Section six, which means, if I understand correctly, it's heard before the rest of the regular agenda items at our October six meeting. But we have to decide quickly because time is running out. My man, Vice Mayor. Yes. I moved to put it in Section six. Okay. Do you have a second? Councilor Herr Spencer. My second. Okay. Any discussion thing, then? Maybe have a roll call vote with member station? Yes. However, Spencer I Naxalites II, Valley High Mayor as Ashcraft. Yes. I'm curious my. If I might. Okay, that's great. Thank you. Okay. So the. We will take the city manager's comments and. And do we have the oral communications network?