Dear Editor:My letter is in response to last week’s front-page article in which a resident asked members of the Town Council to consider a ban on gas powered leaf blowers. The article further mentioned that the matter was being considered for recommendation by the Livingston Environmental Commission to the Township Council. As a resident of Livingston for 56 years and a landscape maintenance contractor since 1978 in Livingston, the article caused my phone to ring off the hook with calls from fellow landscape contractors asking for my opinion on the matter. Here are some facts to be considered. Battery powered outdoor power equipment technology and actual equipment is in its infancy and not ready to deal with the task of blowing leaves, wet or dry, for the size properties we have here in Livingston.If forced prematurely, on top of being in the only national labor crisis of my lifetime, on top of the endless supply chain shortages, you can expect a landscape maintenance service price spike of some 700 to 1,000 percent increase for a typical home in Livingston. At an average price of $200 per month, the service would increase to north of $1,500 per month due to the extensive labor increase, and massive amount of battery powered machines that are currently all undersized for what it would take to do the job with gas powered blowers.Livingston could become landscaperless overnight if gas powered outdoor power equipment is banned. No snow blowers, no backup house generators that many just installed and rely on in our endless power outages in the more frequent storms than ever before, which are run on the same type engine. This is not a matter with a quick answer; the industry is not ready for a shift in equipment to handle the size and scale needed to maintain the properties in Livingston, a town all my life that prided itself on curb appeal.This is a major step in the wrong direction for Livingston! There will be a discussion on the topic at the November 22, 2021 Council meeting. The Council and the Environmental Commission need to know the ramifications this will have on the taxpayers of Livingston that pay for this service for their homes to keep them clean and neat.The blower topic should really be a topic for an in-person meeting, not a meeting by Zoom. Many want to be heard on this, but ...
