The City of Dallas is developing an ordinance that may ban the use of gas-powered lawn care equipment within city limits.
The plan would phase out the use of gas-powered lawn care and landscaping tools in Dallas for city departments, contractors, businesses, and residents by 2027 or 2030 and mandate the use of equipment that does not use gasoline.
However, members of the public, including those who work in lawn care, have expressed concerns about the proposed ban, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
City officials discussed the proposal during an Environment and Sustainability Committee meeting on Monday, December 5. Their plan is to continue developing the proposal before voting on it during the committee meeting in May 2023, after which the ordinance will go before the full city council in June.
The proposal is being developed by the Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability (OEQS). On Monday, Director Carlos Evans shared a memo with the committee outlining the office’s plan over the next six months.
According to the memo, the OEQS plans to analyze how the proposal will affect the public, launch a public awareness campaign in February, and work with relevant departments to begin transitioning city equipment. The OEQS plans for approximately 20% of City equipment to be transitioned from gas-powered to electric by the end of 2023.
Councilmember Carolyn King Arnold, District 4, expressed the need for a public hearing regarding this proposal. She said she has received “quite a bit of input regarding the proposal as it relates to the average contractor and homeowner.”
“I’m not getting much support behind this proposal,” she continued. “In terms of a public hearing, are we going to engage the public as it relates to the proposal — especially as it relates to the impact to personal preference, the environmental issues?”
Arnold asked Councilmember Paula Blackmon, chair of the committee, to consider a public hearing to gather input from “those who have something to share with us before we make that decision.”
Blackmon, who represents District 9, responded that they are “really early in the process” and the “intent is to have a robust discussion” in an effort to balance the needs of the private sector with the environmental goals of the city government.
“We can’t make a good decision without hearing both sides of this equation,” she said.
Arnold noted that this proposed ban would cause an added expense for those who do lawn care.
“They are on their own. That’s their source of income. We are potentially pushing them into a new expense of new equipment, and they want their word [and] their position heard,” she said, “speaking on behalf of those who have questioned” her.
As many Dallas residents have voiced opposition to this proposed ban, Councilmember Jaynie Schultz advocated for a “public education campaign” about the alleged damage that can be caused by equipment like leaf blowers in terms of both the environment and hearing.
However, she added that the city government should take initial responsibility for being “100% compliant” with the proposal, testing it before “rolling it out to the public.”
The OEQS will continue developing the proposal and providing periodic updates to the Environment and Sustainability Committee until May, when it will go up for a vote. If it passes the committee, it will go before the Dallas City Council in June 2023.
This will be another issue where South Dallas will oppose the Democrat woke nonsense just like they did with the covid lockdowns and the I-345 demolition push.
Will they build charging systems for these lawn care companies that mow miles and miles of city roads. Will poorer people go out and buy an electric lawnmower. Every time democrats pass one of their virtue signaling laws, the poor suffer. This is more use of electricity that most experts say is already stretched thin. Hopefully the lawn care professionals will drop the Dallas contracts bc of the massive cash outlay for new equipment and people will see the stupidity. Stop voting for democrats.
And yet again one more stupid reason for me to consider moving as Dallas descends into idiocy. Janie is so woke she must never sleep.
Why not fix our streets instead of wasting tax dollars on this bad idea?
How about hiring more police officers instead of this bad idea?
How about working on the real issues at hand like the massive increase of homeless people and the influx in crime instead of this bad idea?
How about teaching the sanitation department not to destroy private property and when they drop trash, teach them to pick it up?
How about teaching the sanitation department to follow through with what they say they are going to do?
They are trying to push us out of our petrol vehicles which is just the opposite from what we are told and now our lawn equipment. Folks look up what it takes to create the batteries for a EV. It’s causes more damage before you ever even make the purchase!
Now they have this goofy idea, why do they think everyone has money to just toss and hand out every time our government thinks up something?
Born and raised right here in Big D and it is home but maybe it’s time to reconsider?
There are so many issues within our city right now and you guys are thinking electric lawn equipment!
WoW, you can’t make this stuff up!
What are these lawn guys going to do, carry a generator around to charge the batteries or run extension cords to power up lawn equipment? That generator will most likely be ran with petrol!
I am with Karen Roberts on the moving idea!
How about more trees, everyone seems to be cutting them down? You want cleaner air, plant more trees, temp will reduce, air will be cleaner. My neighborhood when I was a child, we had so many trees and now people are just cutting down these majestic trees that are perfectly healthy.
You guys need to back the truck up a bit.
Typical right, just like this EV push. The hybrid was never embraced, instead they just jumped straight to the EV and started shoving it down our throats. Why skip steps when trying to achieve better life for mankind?
And that is where the flag gets raised.
Have a blessed day and I hope all stay safe and healthy during these unsettling times.
10/4 my friend. The city has much larger problems and they want electric mowers???? This city team doing this study, how much money have they spent so far to come up with such a dumb idea.
This is more about politics than helping people. Why must city council feel it needs to take away by regulating or banning? If the city is really concerned, why not educate and encourage people to participate rather than take a dictatorial stance.
Because it takes all the fun out of being dictators.
So my $3,000 investment in a lawn mower, weed-wacker, and leaf blower, all gas powered because that delivers the most power, will be useless in five years???
It is great that the City is concerned about our ears and nose. The lawn teams come once a week and are on site for maybe 30 minutes. My neighbors run their mowers and other machines about the same. There mowers and blowers do not make as much noise as the cars that have loud exhaust systems. The noise from the cars is much much more offensive. The loud exhaust cars are on the streets 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Whereas the lawn guyes are 8 to 5 five days a week. The city should crack down on the cars with loud exhaust as most of the time the driver has his foot in it speeding up the street with a trail of unburned gas behind it polluting our air. CITY COUNCLE, IF YOU WANT TO HELP MY EARS AND NOSE GET THOSE CARS QUITE AND SLOWED DOWN. My bet is one of these cars is worth 20 lawn teams! These loud cars usually have 8 large cylinders where a lawn mower usually has one small one. The City should fix the bigger problem first.
It’s always a committee in the city of Dallas coming up with ridiculous ideas for the citizens to live by. Increasing fees, creating fees, taxes. They’re breaking us financially. Gas mowers are very effective. Electric mowers are slower and less effective as I see it for homeowners. Next they’ll be telling us we can’t use gas in our cars, or gas heaters in our homes.and businesses. God gives us clean air continuously to filter out the trash in the air. The wind blows leaves and debris all over the city, are they going to control the wind. Ridiculous!!!