Caught between Town Noise Ordinance and Declined Request for Funds for Electric Leaf Blowers, DPW, Parks & Rec Issue Joint Statement

The countdown has begun to Greenwich’s summer gas leaf blower ban and the promise of peace and quiet.

The policy was a decades in the making, but was spurred in recent years by the group Quiet Yards Greenwich who initially urged the town’s Board of Health to act.

QYG argued that gasoline powered leaf blowers pose a health hazard to residents due to their ear-splitting noise and air pollutants.

The health board, who oversaw the town’s noise ordinance, did not exactly embrace the Quiet yards proposal.

In fact, that board voted to repeal the Town’s noise ordinance altogether, leaving the town briefly without a noise ordinance.

Then the RTM voted in January 2024 to restore the noise ordinancea and move noise to the purview of the Board of Selectmen. The ordinance included an amendment restricting the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in the summer.

Those restrictions applied to the Town as well.

Not long after the vote to approve the gas leaf blower ban in 2024, the Dept of Public Works and Parks & Rec sought a three-year variance from the summer gas leaf blower ban for town workers, citing the cost of purchasing the electric equipment.

They were granted a one-year variance.

Crew working a property in the R6 zone using gas leaf blowers. File photo

That one-year exemption is just about up.

But another bump in the road came in the form of the BET Republicans who referred to the ordinance as an unfunded mandate.

“While Parks & Recreation and Public Works typically utilize the majority of their operating budgets each fiscal year, current end-of-year projections indicate that sufficient adjustments may be possible to accommodate the purchase of at least two electric leaf blowers for each Department. This would increase the Town’s total inventory of electric blowers to six units.”

– Parks & Rec Director Joe Siciliano and DPW commission Jim Michel statement on May 1, 2025

The BET vote fell along party lines, with the chair Harry Fisher, using his tie breaking vote.

This put Parks & Rec and DPW in a bind, not unlike the situation resulting from Republicans on the BET denying funding for geothermal HVAC at Hamilton Ave School despite a 7-1 BOE vote, recommendation by AECOM, support from the BOE Facilities Director Watson, and the will of the 230-member RTM in the form of a SOMR endorsing Net Zero.

On Wednesday, Mr. Fisher along with BET budget committee chair Leslie Tarkington, were grilled by the RTM’s Budget Overview Committee about their vote not to fund that geothermal project.

Mr. Fisher told the an incredulous BOC member Mark Lewis, “We’re in charge of risk to the taxpayer. We didn’t want the risk of the geothermal system.”

On Thursday, DPW commissioner Jim Michel and Parks and Rec director Joe Siciliano issued a joint statement announcing their plans in response to the lack of funding for electric leaf blower equipment.

DPW had requested funds for 15 blowers and Parks & Rec requested funds for 21 blowers for a total cost of almost $500,000.

They said last fall, after an interim funding request to the BET Budget Committee to replace approximately 50% of the Town’s current inventory of leaf blowers with electric ones, the request was declined.

They recalled being directed to include the request in the FY25–26 budget, which they did.

But during April Decision Day discussions, the BET removed the requests from the budget entirely.

Mr. Michel and Mr. Siciliano said in their statement on Thursday that they considered requesting an additiona one-year waiver, seeking a revision of the ordinance through the RTM and option 3, reviewing the Town’s existing operating budgets to identify available funds.

“At this time, we are proceeding with option three,” they said.

“While Parks & Recreation and Public Works typically utilize the majority of their operating budgets each fiscal year, current end-of-year projections indicate that sufficient adjustments may be possible to accommodate the purchase of at least two electric leaf blowers for each Department. This would increase the Town’s total inventory of electric blowers to six units,” they wrote.

Mr. Michel and Mr. Siciliano said that while their decision represented progress, having a limited number of electric blowers will cause operational inefficiencies.

“Staff will work collaboratively to prioritize usage across Town properties and operations to ensure the most effective deployment of equipment.”

Gas Leaf Blower Ban

Starting at 6;00pm the Friday before Memorial Day through September 30, use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers in residential zones will be prohibited with an exception for properties of 2+ acres.

Fines will be issued this summer, with the first violation resulting in a warning.

Second violations are $100 and subsequent ones will result in a $249 fine.