5 ms·

This is all well and good, but i'd much prefer the city focus on things like cleaning up all the broken glass everywhere or addressing the unhoused issues befor

This is all well and good, but i'd much prefer the city focus on things like cleaning up all the broken glass everywhere or addressing the unhoused issues before taking on such superfluous tasks.

ganoushoreilly 6y ago
This is simply to make people feel good. Easier to tackle issues like this than to actually invest in solving real problems.
- munk-a 6y ago
  There are some good examples elsewhere in the article responses but this legislation may significantly improve health outcomes for landscapers and provide a non-negligible effect on the environment. Two-stroke leafblower engines pollute a lot. It's not just about making people feel good or allowing audiophiles to listen to records undisturbed.
rektide 6y ago
Legislating that property owners not use anti-human systems doesn't take much effort, is easy to knock out. Using a zero-sum mentality, that good legislation in one place is incompatible with doing work elsewhere, is harmful. Especially when the work you talk about requires not just legislation, but significant resources invested. Here, we only mandate that companies do the right thing, at their own cost. This seems like an easy win, something worth knocking out early. Blocking easy at-hand work on all the backlog of big important hard to do work seems illogical.
vvillena 6y ago
How is it superflous? It improves air quality a lot, and it's free to implement. Also, it's not an exclusive policy, it can be done in addition to the things you propose.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > it's free to implement It's free to the city's coffers. It is a multi-million dollar capital expense to the city's businesses and residents. I support the measure. But it's far from free.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    At the end of the day lawn service gets more expensive, but assuming the city can strongly enforce the law it should become more expensive more or less equally across the board so there shouldn't be any direct winner or loser from the policy. The companies would theoretically lose a few customers that could only barely afford the service in the first place, but I don't think it would cost many customers in the end.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > lawn service gets more expensive Assuming the lawn services can pass the cost along to customers. Given the low barriers to entry, I would not make this assumption. In reality, a mix of total wage decreases (i.e. reduction in hours, benefits and/or hourly wage), supplier payment decreases, profit decreases and price increases will incorporate the change. Also, if an outfit cannot afford the capital cost of upgrading their equipment, they will fold.
      - jandrese 6y ago
        If it costs some services more to upgrade than others then they will be in trouble. If enforcement is nonuniform than it will also be an issue. But if both of these can be controlled then it's really just those consumers that could only barely afford a lawn service in the first place that get left in the cold. Enforcement shouldn't be excessively difficult. Cops can write citations for illegal equipment, and if a company routinely ignores the citations they could get in real trouble. Give the companies plenty of time (a year or two) to phase in the new equipment as well. Make sure the change is well publicized, especially in Hispanic media. If the city was really proactive they could task an intern with calling every lawn service company in the city 6 months before the law goes into effect and make sure each one has a plan to transition in time. The enforcement is key however. These sorts of regulations will be ignored 100% if they aren't enforced. Escalating fines are necessary, they have to make it more expensive to break the law than comply, or the companies that cheat will win.
munk-a 6y ago
Why can't we do good? I'd prefer it if we solved global warming before putting in energy toward next-gen video cards but I do understand that some problems aren't simple (i.e. the unhoused issues in particular) and I don't think the easy problems should wait politely to be solved behind the hard and complex ones.
anigbrowl 6y ago
Most local government is parallel rather than serial.

This is all well and good, but i'd much prefer the city focus on things like cleaning up all the broken glass everywhere or addressing the unhoused issues before taking on such superfluous tasks.

ganoushoreilly 6y ago

This is simply to make people feel good. Easier to tackle issues like this than to actually invest in solving real problems.

munk-a 6y ago
There are some good examples elsewhere in the article responses but this legislation may significantly improve health outcomes for landscapers and provide a non-negligible effect on the environment. Two-stroke leafblower engines pollute a lot. It's not just about making people feel good or allowing audiophiles to listen to records undisturbed.

rektide 6y ago

Legislating that property owners not use anti-human systems doesn't take much effort, is easy to knock out. Using a zero-sum mentality, that good legislation in one place is incompatible with doing work elsewhere, is harmful. Especially when the work you talk about requires not just legislation, but significant resources invested. Here, we only mandate that companies do the right thing, at their own cost. This seems like an easy win, something worth knocking out early. Blocking easy at-hand work on all the backlog of big important hard to do work seems illogical.

vvillena 6y ago

How is it superflous? It improves air quality a lot, and it's free to implement. Also, it's not an exclusive policy, it can be done in addition to the things you propose.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> it's free to implement It's free to the city's coffers. It is a multi-million dollar capital expense to the city's businesses and residents. I support the measure. But it's far from free.
- jandrese 6y ago
  At the end of the day lawn service gets more expensive, but assuming the city can strongly enforce the law it should become more expensive more or less equally across the board so there shouldn't be any direct winner or loser from the policy. The companies would theoretically lose a few customers that could only barely afford the service in the first place, but I don't think it would cost many customers in the end.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > lawn service gets more expensive Assuming the lawn services can pass the cost along to customers. Given the low barriers to entry, I would not make this assumption. In reality, a mix of total wage decreases (i.e. reduction in hours, benefits and/or hourly wage), supplier payment decreases, profit decreases and price increases will incorporate the change. Also, if an outfit cannot afford the capital cost of upgrading their equipment, they will fold.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      If it costs some services more to upgrade than others then they will be in trouble. If enforcement is nonuniform than it will also be an issue. But if both of these can be controlled then it's really just those consumers that could only barely afford a lawn service in the first place that get left in the cold. Enforcement shouldn't be excessively difficult. Cops can write citations for illegal equipment, and if a company routinely ignores the citations they could get in real trouble. Give the companies plenty of time (a year or two) to phase in the new equipment as well. Make sure the change is well publicized, especially in Hispanic media. If the city was really proactive they could task an intern with calling every lawn service company in the city 6 months before the law goes into effect and make sure each one has a plan to transition in time. The enforcement is key however. These sorts of regulations will be ignored 100% if they aren't enforced. Escalating fines are necessary, they have to make it more expensive to break the law than comply, or the companies that cheat will win.

munk-a 6y ago

Why can't we do good? I'd prefer it if we solved global warming before putting in energy toward next-gen video cards but I do understand that some problems aren't simple (i.e. the unhoused issues in particular) and I don't think the easy problems should wait politely to be solved behind the hard and complex ones.

anigbrowl 6y ago

Most local government is parallel rather than serial.