The affluent, liberal Chicago suburb of Evanston ignored the pleas of its mostly Hispanic landscapers and kept a gas blower ban in place.
However, the city kept its exemption from the ban, and the private golf course also gets a pass to use gas.
The City Council rejected a temporary reprieve from its complete ban on gas blowers, first put in place in 2021, during a meeting on March 11. Before the 2021 ban, they could only be used from March 30 to May 15 and Oct. 15 to early December, according to the city code.
The council voted down an eight-week hiatus from the law. Why not just use rakes, some members of the city’s climate change task force suggested at an earlier meeting.
“I know for a fact that there are skilled raking techniques that can be used that are very efficient and pretty rapid,” task force member Jerri Garl claimed. She’s a former Environmental Protection Agency employee, is a “climate justice advocate,” and believes “climate anxiety is real.”
Hal Sprague, a fellow task force member, agreed, according to the Evanston Roundtable. “If they can carry around [a] 30-pound thing on their back, they can carry a rake,” Sprague, a lobbyist for solar power, suggested.
No one is arguing the landscapers cannot “carry a rake.” They can also carry a spoon. That does not mean a spoon can replace a gas blower.
Juan Rodriguez, a local landscaper, called out the hypocrisy during last Monday’s meeting and explained why rakes and electric blowers won’t cut it.
“We understand that the city wants to be a leader in environmental issues, but at what cost will the city continue to do this? At the cost of all these family-owned businesses who are just trying to make a living,” Rodriguez said. “Who work 10 hours a day, five to six days a week, working hard labor.”
“Evanston needs to do better and stop using our landscaping community as an example. It’s no wonder that the golf courses and the city’s public works are still allowed to use gas-powered leaf blowers, because the technology is just not there,” he said.
The city has begun transitioning to electric blowers on its own — by upgrading its infrastructure to handle the charging.
The public works director said “the city has spent $37,000 to buy electric blowers and weed wackers for its crews this year and also had to buy a lot of batteries, add inverters to vehicles and more outlets to the shop,” according to Evanston Now’s paraphrase. This infrastructure almost definitely requires gas, by the way.
The city may push electric technology, but the current electric blower cannot handle commercial work, Rodriguez said.
Though the city offers some grants to buy new equipment, that will not solve the problem, Rodriguez said: “The technology is just not there.”
Landscaper Hector Hernandez criticized white residents of Evanston who are reportedly snitching on landscapers by taking photos and videos to report the use of gas blowers.
He said that “behind this new reform” is “harassment.”
“My company, like many others, have fallen victim to Caucasian citizens not only yelling, smiling, but also driving while recording several times to get the right shot,” Hernandez said.
He noted electric blowers are not “sufficient” and cause their own environmental problems. The lithium-ion batteries must be shipped to Arizona for disposal.
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Hernandez said it would cost $60,000 to transition to gas blowers.
And some still wonder why 1 in 3 Latinos votes Republican.
Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.