Letter to the editor: concerns over leaf blower group activities

To the editor:

Last fall, the Leaf Blower Study Committee spent $829.81 of the taxpayers’ money to mail a flyer to every postal patron in Lincoln, describing the alleged risks of leaf blowers. The flyer said nothing of the benefits of leaf blowers or costs of restricting their use. The money was taken from the Selectmen’s printing budget and categorized as “educational.” Town taxpayers also paid to obtain an Internet domain name for the Leaf Blower Study Committee.

The Leaf Blower Study Group (its original name) was created by Town Meeting in 2013. Its commission required it to “study noise and air pollution relating to increasing use of leaf blowers for public and private property maintenance, to research alternatives, to study cost impacts to both public and private sectors, and to present findings and recommendations at Town Meeting 2014.” The requirement to study cost impacts to both public and private sectors was not sought by the group, but was added by motion from the floor.

In February 2014, the Leaf Blower Study Group (LBSG) prepared a report for the Board of Health, associating noise from leaf blowers with “immune system suppression,” “impaired cognition,” and “mental health problems,” among other maladies. The report said nothing of the costs of regulating leaf blowers. In March 2014, the Board of Health issued a general statement that “exposure to high-intensity, episodic or long-duration noise and air particulate and vapor dispersion from leaf blowers represents significant potential health hazards to our citizens.”

However, upon further consideration, nine months later the Board of Health issued a more qualified statement, saying that exposure to dust and noise generated by leaf blowers is a concern only in the paved town center and that, “in contrast, the board is much less clear that the use of leaf blowers in other areas of our town presents consistent or even frequent bystander health risks from noise or pollution.”

The LBSG quotes the first, more general statement in the flyer mailed to all residents and on its town-provided web page, where it incorrectly implies that it still exists under the authority of town meeting. The group does not quote or refer to the later qualified statement of the Board of Health, even though the later statement is referred to by the board as “final,” and the first statement has been removed from the board’s web page.

The group presented its report to the 2014 Town Meeting but again said nothing of “cost impacts to both public and private sectors.” Its life was extended for a year “so that it may present updated findings and recommendations at Town Meeting 2015.” The LBSG subsequently proposed a by-law to regulate the use of leaf blowers for the 2015 Town Meeting warrant, but withdrew it before a vote could be taken. The group’s report to Town Meeting admitted that “the proposed regulation did not gain broad support.” The group’s life was not extended by the 2015 Town Meeting.

The LBSG met with the Board of Health two months after the 2015 Town Meeting and were told by Board of Health member Patricia Miller, according to the meeting’s minutes, that “most people in town do not see this as a problem and this is a problem in only very limited areas in town. Although the board has acknowledged that leaf blowing is a noise and health problem, they are not ready to do a local Board of Health regulation, and any regulation needs to be approved by Town Meeting. The issue does not appear to be a largely popular issue.”

Town Meeting’s failure to continue the life of the LBSG did not end its existence, however—it was adopted by the Conservation Commission as a subcommittee five months later, on August 26, 2015.  At that meeting, the members of the renamed Leaf Blower Study Committee (LBSC) told the members of the Conservation Commission that they were “exploring education and regulation, particularly in Lincoln’s commercial areas.” The regulations would be enforced by either the police or the Board of Health. The LBSC told the Conservation Commission that “the Board of Health might be interested in regulating leaf-blower use in the town center and is looking for suggestions from the subcommittee as to the form the regulations might take.”

This claim was inconsistent with the position taken by the Board of Health only two months earlier, when it told members of the Leaf Blower Study Group that, “although the Board has acknowledged that leaf blowing is a noise and health problem, they are not ready to do a local Board of Health regulation and any regulation needs to be approved at Town Meeting.”

The failure of Town Meeting to extend the life of the Leaf Blower Study Group freed it from the town-meeting imposed requirement that it “study cost impacts [of regulating leaf blowers] to both public and private sectors.” The group had ignored the requirement, in any event.

The Leaf Blower Study Committee continues to meet and plan initiatives to regulate the use of leaf blowers. The committee laid the foundation for its next initiative with the flyer mailed to all residents at a cost to taxpayers of $829.81. The committee minutes show that there are plans to seek a Board of Health regulation limiting leaf blower use in the business center of town to two days a week during limited hours in the spring and fall, with outright prohibition at all other times.

This description of the life of the Leaf Blower Study Group/Committee is an example of how a special interest group with limited public support not only managed to survive as an official town body even after its existence was not extended by Town Meeting, but also gained access to taxpayer funds to  promote its unpopular agenda. This raises some fundamental issues of town governance: Why was the group permitted to ignore Town Meeting’s requirement that it “study cost impacts [of regulating leaf blowers] to both public and private sectors”? Why was a study group whose life Town Meeting failed to extend, and whose agenda is not supported by the Board of Health or the public at large, adopted as a subcommittee of the Conservation Commission? Why was such a group permitted to spend taxpayer money to prepare and mail a flyer to every resident of the town promoting its unpopular agenda?

Sincerely,

Michael R. Coppock
214 Aspen Circle

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Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.