Gardeners rev up for blower referendum

**If council sticks with the leaf-blower ban, gardeners will seek to put it on the ballot.
By JULIE RAWE

With a final vote postponed until April 14 on Menlo Park's proposed ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, the Bay Area Gardeners' Association is gearing up for a referendum campaign if the City Council approves the ordinance, which would take effect 90 days after passage.
"We will be ready for them," said association president Ramon Quezadas.
The council voted 3-1 on Feb. 10 to ban the blowers, but has postponed a final vote.
The gardeners' group, which claims to have more than 200 members, continues to meet weekly and is preparing to go door to door to gather enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot, said Mr. Quezadas, a gardener and leaf blower salesman from Redwood City.
To call a referendum, the gardeners would have 30 days after passage to collect the signatures of some 1,790 registered voters in Menlo Park, said City Clerk Jaye Carr.
The gardeners' group is urging the council to look at a compromise that involves replacing blowers with quieter machines over two years, and adopting practices to reduce the noise problem.
Members of the association are already following these guidelines, said Mr. Quezadas: "Don't start too early, don't run too late, don't go to full throttle."
Association representatives have approached the three council members who voted for the ban -- Chuck Kinney, Steve Schmidt and Paul Collacchi -- but so far the gardeners' proposals have fallen on deaf ears, he said.
Vote postponed

With tension still revving after a third night of a marathon public hearing on the proposed ban, the council surprised residents and gardeners March 24 by postponing a final vote until April 14.

"We need to have a little time to digest all that has been heard," said Mr. Schmidt.

Councilman Robert Burmeister, who cast the only opposing vote Feb. 10, urged his colleagues to quit stalling. "I want to know if there is any interest at all in the majority of the council to consider a compromise," he said. "If not, we could decide this issue tonight."

Mr. Schmidt said he considered the ban itself to be a compromise because a number of other noise-generating machines were not being outlawed along with the gas blowers.

Fellow ban backers -- Mr. Collacchi and Mr. Kinney -- did not comment on whether they were reconsidering.

The council voted 3-2 to postpone a final vote on the ordinance, with Mr. Burmeister and Councilwoman Bernie Valencia (formerly Nevin) opposed.

The bulk of the 114 speakers at the meeting opposed the ban, with several residents and gardeners urging the council to let the people vote on the issue.

"The way I see it, you do not have a decision before you, you have a mandate from the people," Menlo Park resident John Posthauer told the council. If the ban goes through and does not make it onto the ballot, "it will be the biggest travesty of democracy I have ever seen," he said.

Fellow resident Stan Scott disagreed. "Officials are elected to make these kinds of decisions," he said.