City will switch to 100 percent renewable energy
The City Council Tuesday night voted to use all renewable energy at city facilities, stop the use of pesticides and herbicides in all the city’s green spaces, and consider a possible ban of all gas-powered landscaping equipment within city limits. It all began with a discussion of leaf blowers. The Manhattan Beach Village Homeowners Association requested an exemption to the citywide ban on leaf blowers. The gated community proposed a pilot program that would allow the use of electric leaf blowers, which are both environmentally less impactful and less noisy than their gas-powered counterparts. “This ordinance is over 20 years old,” said Scott King, a board member from the MBVHA. “I believe the technology of leaf blowers has changed since then.” Mayor Steve Napolitano, who was on the council that originally instituted the ban due to noise pollution, was amenable to the proposal. “The question is are we going to continue to play the game of cat and mouse with those folks, or are we going to see if the technology is better?” Napolitano said the city grapples with enforcing its many bans — on smoking, plastic bags, polystyrene, mylar balloons, and plastic straws — and that the leaf…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com