Gone with the wind | In Our Opinion

Published 1:30 am Friday, December 16, 2016

Our anguished cries for common sense have been heard!

And apparently over any loud noise coming from leaf blowers outside of Bainbridge Island City Hall.

At one of their last meetings of the year, the council rejected a move to place an “action item” in the city’s updated comprehensive plan that could have led to an outright ban on gasoline-powered leaf blowers.

We had pushed earlier for this leaf blower ban nonsense to be removed from the comp plan, a visionary document that will guide growth and development on Bainbridge for the next two decades.

Talk of leaf-blower regulations, we thought, would have been a trivial addition to such an important document.

At this week’s council meeting, Councilman Ron Peltier, the proponent of the leaf blower crackdown, said leaf blowers pollute more than a full-size SUV.

“I think what this comes down to is, are we going to take action on something that really does impact air quality?” Peltier asked.

“I am very interested in looking at possible stronger regulations on leaf blowers,” offered Councilman Mike Scott.

“But I don’t think this is the place to do it,” he added of the city’s comprehensive plan.

And with that, we were heartened to see that the addition of leaf blower policies to the comp plan were gone, gone with the wind.

Blown away, we were.

Still, there may be some future support to restrict leaf blowers, which are seen as a timesaving godsend by some, or the noisy blowhard next door, depending upon which side of the fence one is on.

Here’s hoping that when the topic comes up again, a council majority will say, “Frankly, my dear…”