NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter. Send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com.
***
If you’ve been approached to sign the petition overturning New Canaan’s summer restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers, here’s what your signature actually does — and what petition organizers aren’t telling you.
Your signature delays a decision that was already yours to make.
New Canaan’s ordinance wasn’t rushed through Town Hall. It was debated publicly for years — through committee meetings, public hearings, Town Council meetings, letters to the editor, presentations, news coverage, and extensive public comment. Hundreds of residents participated. One Town Council member noted it generated more public input than any issue she had seen during her tenure. After years of listening and deliberation, the Town Council approved the ordinance 8–4.
That is what democracy looks like. Signing this petition doesn’t protect democracy — it delays the outcome of a process that was already open, transparent, and fully followed.
Your signature also costs taxpayers $10,000 — for a referendum that is unlikely to succeed.
A yes on this petition triggers a special referendum expected to cost roughly $10,000. Given typical summer voter turnout in New Canaan, the chances of mustering enough votes to overturn the ordinance are low. Before signing, it’s worth asking whether that’s a responsible use of public money.
New Canaan would become a dumping ground for equipment banned everywhere else.
Here is what petition organizers aren’t telling you: most local landscaping companies already own electric leaf blowers. They need them to work in neighboring towns — Pound Ridge, Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich, and Westport — that have already restricted gas-powered equipment. Overturning this ordinance wouldn’t protect local businesses. It would turn New Canaan into the one town where the noisy, polluting equipment that landscapers can’t use elsewhere gets deployed freely — in your neighborhood, all summer long.
The ordinance gives New Canaan families the same clean air and quiet summers that residents of Westchester and much of Fairfield County already enjoy. Our community deserves no less.
If the goal is helping landscapers, there are better ways.
Grants, rebates, and equipment buy-back programs are all constructive paths to supporting businesses through the transition — without delaying a law that was thoroughly debated and lawfully adopted. The ordinance itself helps landscapers compete across Fairfield County by requiring the electric equipment they need anyway.
The process worked. Don’t undo it.
If you support cleaner air, quieter summers, and the integrity of the public process that residents spent years participating in, don’t sign this petition.
Sincerely,
Irene Hendricks