Council Talks Noise, Gas-Powered Leaf Blower Ban

City Council continued to talk about ways to decrease noise in city neighborhoods, with extra focus on loud cars at the Dec. 10 discussion-only council meeting. 

For months, council has talked about needing to address loud cars that residents have repeatedly complained about. Many residents have said noisy cars with modified exhausts interrupt sleep and are a nuisance downtown. 

Prior to the meeting, council requested City Attorney Anthony Chubb review the city’s noise-related ordinances to see if the rules in place are satisfactory. Mayor George Brookover, who works as an attorney, said he thinks there are already ordinances that would allow the city to punish individuals that make excessively loud noises. 

“It may not be necessary to reinvent the wheel on some of this stuff,” he said. “We may already have ordinances that can be worked with and/or modified to some extent.”

However, even if the proper ordinances are in place, the hurdle to ticketing drivers with noisy cars may be police staffing, City Manager Robert Belleman explained. 

Belleman said that following a complaint about loud cars that appeared to be racing on Michigan Avenue frequently, East Lansing police put officers in the area, but were unable to find those responsible. With staff shortages at ELPD, it will be hard to have officers spend a lot of time monitoring busy roads for noise.

“The biggest challenge for ELPD is they’re short staffed,” Belleman said. “They have more calls and more issues than they have personnel to resolve.”

Belleman said ELPD would still like residents to call in if they hear excessively loud cars, or cars that may be racing, as the department tries to pinpoint hotspots. 

In response to an email from ELi, East Lansing Communications Director Carrie Sampson said that ELPD is currently operating at 84% of its capacity, as there are 43 sworn officers for a budgeted 51 positions. The department is set to absorb another big loss as Chad Pride, who had been serving as interim police chief since May, is set to retire next month. Jennifer Brown, previously a deputy chief under Pride, has taken over as interim chief. 

Members of council considered the city doing its own monitoring of street noise. Altmann asked about putting cameras with decibel readers on streets with frequent complaints. 

Brookover asked Belleman to look into two things: What it would cost to install equipment to monitor noise levels in pinpointed areas, and for a legal review on the existing noise ordinances to see if they need to be strengthened if they are to be enforced. 

Altmann added that he would like extra attention to be paid to modified mufflers that “sound like gunshots.”

Altmann also encouraged the city’s lobbyist to push for state action that gets rid of hurdles that could make it hard to enforce noise laws. He said state law may require “unreasonable amounts of proof” to punish violators. 

Previously, when discussing the issue of loud cars, council members said that it is difficult for police to prove a car was louder than legally allowed because they do not have decibel readers in ELPD cars that can pick up readings from individual moving vehicles. 

Near the end of the discussion, Councilmember Mark Meadows said that he hopes the city can work towards enforcing more of its ordinances that appear to have become stale. 

“We passed the party noise and the party ‘garbage in the front yard’ ordinances years ago, I’m not sure that they are being totally enforced at this point in time,” Meadows said. “A lot of it has to do with having adequate personnel here to actually monitor these things.”

Council contemplates restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers. 

Also at the Dec. 10 meeting, council discussed restrictions on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in the city. 

According to the agenda report for the item, residents have complained about gas-powered leaf blowers because they are loud and emit pollutants. There is precedent to taking action against gas-powered leaf blowers, as Ann Arbor’s city council recently voted to phase them out, with a total ban in place starting in 2028. 

Some members of council indicated they’d like to go in a similar direction, though there was not a vote at the discussion-only meeting. 

“My take on the feedback we’ve gotten is that it generally is supportive of going in this direction [of a ban],” Altmann said. 

The city does not yet have a plan on what phasing out or banning leaf blowers would look like. East Lansing Environmental Sustainability and Resiliency Manager Cliff Walls said he wanted to “take the temperature” of council before working on the logistics of what enforcement and a phase out would look like. 

The conversation quickly changed to the city having its workers use electric-powered small engine tools, instead of gas-powered tools. Council indicated it would like to explore replacing all its stock of gas-powered small engine tools, not just leaf blowers. These tools include string trimmers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, chainsaws and pole saws.

Multiple council members said it makes sense for the city to make the change before mandating residents stop using gas-powered leaf blowers.

It would cost the city about $150,000 to switch from gas to electric-powered tools, according to a memo prepared by Walls. Altmann asked about the return on investment, including maintenance and other costs, if the city were to use electric powered tools.

Walls said it is hard to make a precise estimate, because maintenance and fuel costs are not specified for the tools that would be replaced, and it is unclear how long batteries for electric tools would last. However, electric tools are relatively low maintenance. 

“You have a battery and a button to squeeze,” Walls said. “There’s a lot less that can go wrong with it if you don’t have to change your filters.”

Meadows said he thinks it is worth the $150,000 to replace the tools, but asked Walls about the performance of electric versus gas-powered tools. 

Electric-powered tools sometimes are not as powerful, Walls said, but he believes they’re appropriate for the tasks the city would need them for.

Department of Public Works Director Ron Lacasse said that there would be challenges switching to electric tools, like the city would need to work out a way to keep charged batteries available for heavily-used tools. Lacasse also said some electric tools, like backpack blowers, are heavier than their gas-powered counterparts. 

“We’d be looking to kind of learn from what other people have already done,” Lacasse said. “It would be trial and error. It would be easily applicable to certain operations and a little harder to others.”

Looking ahead, members of council indicated they would like more information about specific tools that may be replaced, cost and what it would look to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers in the community. 

“I would certainly favor a cautious movement ahead on this issue,” Altmann said. “In part, so that the community understands that this is an interest of the city’s and that they have a chance to get used to it and adapt to the possible change.”