Evanston City Council on Monday approved a plan to make a bulk purchase of electric leaf blowers, batteries, chargers and other equipment to help local landscapers who have had difficulty making the transition away from gas leaf blowers banned by the city since last year.
Council members voted 8-0 to allocate $180,000 toward the purchase – adding $100,000 to city staff’s original request – in an effort to reach more small businesses.
Local landscapers, many from the city’s normally low-profile Hispanic community, have sought a reprieve from the city’s ban on gas- or propane-powered leaf blowers.
At the March 11 City Council meeting, council members voted 5-4 to reject landscapers’ request for a three-week pause in enforcing the ban on gas-powered machines at the start of the landscaping season.
How the program would work
The city staff proposal approved Monday calls for the city to use the allocated funds to make bulk purchases of electric leaf blowing equipment through three companies.
Officials would then work with the companies to develop a voucher program so the local landscapers could buy the equipment directly while the city is billed the cost, explained Cara Pratt, the city’s sustainability and resilience manager, in a memo and presentation to the council at Monday’s meeting.
Ninth Ward Council Member Juan Geracaris, as well as City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza, Evanston’s first Latina city clerk, worked with local landscapers and officials, providing translation services and helping them navigate through the program.
Geracaris, participating remotely in the meeting, spoke of the “extra stress and strain” the process has had “on our small-business owners and especially their family members who are brought in to help translate and navigate our systems.”
He complimented the city’s sustainability staff for having established “a pretty low barrier” for entry for applying for the grant.
“But one of the things I’m a little worried about is the fact that it’s a first-come, first-served grant process,” Geracaris said. “I really am worried that while this bulk purchase will help a lot of small-business owners, that some people maybe are lagging behind and I don’t want them to get shut out of the process.”
The council member expressed hope the additional $100,000 in funding that council members added to the program could be used to cover future grant applications from companies as well as give staff the flexibility “to make sure we’re helping all the small businesses that need help and also speed up the process because we’re quickly entering the spring cleanup season.”
Aid should be for local firms: Reid
In further discussion, Council Member Devon Reid (8th Ward) said that while he appreciated that staff is looking to be flexible with the funding, “I think we need to really reserve this funding for Evanston-based businesses, not someone who gets a P.O. box in Evanston. You know, our job on the Evanston City Council is not to protect the interest of every single person in Cook County and in the region.”
Council Member Tom Suffredin (6th Ward), meanwhile, argued the issue is in need of a more comprehensive solution.
“Residents have made it clear, whether it’s quiet or pollution, they want compliant landscaping equipment,” he said. “Businesses have made clear, it’s [the change to electric] very expensive and they want to stay in business. What’s the cheapest way to get those overlapping goals met?” he asked.
Council member Bobby Burns (5th Ward) expressed concern that as the city moves forward on its Climate Resilience Action Plan, the response has been “subsidy, subsidy, subsidy.”
“We should not be planning this after the fact. So please, let’s get ahead of this next time,” he said.
Burns added that the cost to the environment has to be considered as well as the cost to small businesses that “are kind of struggling to make do.”
Suffredin maintained, however, that the council needs ”to resolve the total problem, not just individual aspects of it at every meeting. It seems like it’s inefficient.”
Ike Ogbo, the city’s Health and Human Services director, suggested that officials are moving toward that goal, noting that Monday’s discussion followed the city’s enforcement activities.
He reported that the number of landscapers cited for using gas-powered blowers recently has dropped significantly, to less than 20 in the past month.
On a motion from Reid, council members agreed to take a more comprehensive look at the issue as a special order of business at their second meeting in June.
His proposal was supported in a unanimous vote. Council then followed with an 8-0 vote in support of the $180,000 bulk purchase program.
Landscaper’s daughter cites ‘unjust’ barriers
During the citizen comment portion earlier in the evening, Adriana Gomez was one of the speakers addressing the issue.
Her father, Alvaro Gomez, who sat with her in council chambers, runs a small Evanston-based landscaping company.
Since the council’s denial of landscapers’ request for a temporary halt to enforcement, she said, “he has considered selling the house, the trucks and moving out of Evanston.”
Registering with the city to be eligible for the grant program, she said, “took additional time and money. The barriers that come before even being able to apply for any grant are unjust,” she said. “I don’t think the white majority of Evanston understands the severity that this has on us.
“My dad’s personal quote for electric equipment for his company is more than $25,000,” she said, her voice breaking. “I have yet to hear anything about how we are going to ensure the proper disposal of batteries and future battery repair costs and charging stations.”
Editor’s note: This story has updated to correct the date of the meeting at which city council rejected a pause in the gas leaf blower ban.
Perhaps the city wants to buy new blowers for all the apartment complexes as well.