City of Palo Alto, Calif., Faces Lawsuit from Duped Gardeners, Say BAGA and OPEI

The Palo Alto (Calif.) City Council is facing a potential lawsuit after rebuffing local gardeners. The Bay Area Gardeners Association (BAGA), in cooperation with the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI), has threatened to sue the city of Palo Alto, Calif. in order to end an illegal ban on the use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers in claim forms filed under the California Tort Claims Act with the City Clerk’s and Mayor’s Office in Palo Alto yesterday.

Before the ban went into effect in June 2005, city officials had agreed to allow gardeners working in Palo Alto to purchase and use gas leaf blowers provided that they were the cleanest and quietest models available. The council also asked gardeners to participate in a training program and obtain operator certifications. The gardeners, detrimentally relying on the direction of these City Officials, purchased nearly $4 million worth of new blowers in order to comply with the city’s demands. To the gardeners’ dismay, the City Council then abruptly voted to prohibit the use of gas blowers altogether. 

“We’ve been duped. We did everything the City Council asked of us, we bought the cleanest and quietest blowers, attended their proper-use training seminars, and they have turned their back on us,” says Juan Carlos Prado, president of BAGA. “We made the investment to comply and now our livelihood is in jeopardy.” 

Not every member of the City Council supported the new measures. At the June 2005 City Council meeting where the ban was imposed, Council Member Jack Morton acknowledged the work gardeners have done to comply with the city’s mandates, saying, “We should not as a legislative body kind of lead people down a garden path and then literally close the gate when they get there.”

“In addition to the efforts the gardeners have made, the manufacturers of leaf blowers have been proactive and worked to make blowers that are markedly quieter and cleaner," says James McNew, Vice President, Technical and Marketing Services, OPEI. "Today, exhaust emissions from leaf blowers have been reduced by more than 85 percent. On some models, the sound levels have been reduced to the equivalent of a conversation.”

Numerous officials stated on the record at the June 2005 meeting that their major goal was to eliminate gasoline blowers approved for sale in California by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) despite the fact that the blowers were certified with CARB’s stringent Tier II emission regulations. The city council’s action stands in direct violation of the Federal Clean Air Act, which bars individual municipalities, like Palo Alto, from setting their own emissions standards for “mobile sources” like leaf blowers.

“The Federal Clean Air Act prohibits a patchwork quilt of emission regulations,” explains William M. Guerry, Jr., attorney for BAGA and OPEI and a partner at Kelley Drye Collier Shannon. “The City of Palo Alto needs to comply with federal law, keep its commitments, and reimburse the gardeners and blower manufacturers for enforcing an illegal ordinance.”

“For months now officials have ignored our efforts to reach a long-term solution. They have left us with no other choice but to file suit,” Guerry says. 
 
Since the ban was introduced, both the City Council and the Office of the Mayor have repeatedly disregarded requests by BAGA and OPEI to work with the city to develop a viable alternative to the illegal ban. A lawsuit would seek to reverse the ban, as well as recover the $4 million that gardeners spent on new equipment, the additional $1 million the gardeners have suffered due to lost income, plus an additional $500,000 in damages that blower manufacturers and dealers have suffered in the past year due to a dramatic decline in leaf blower sales.