09/18/2026
More from Tuesday's Huntington Town Board meeting on gas-powered leaf blowers.
Powerful testimony from Kevin Boodram, owner of Serenity Robotic Lawn Care — a landscaper with more than five years of experience using electric leaf blowers.
He spoke about a daycare where children wake up crying and cover their ears when the landscapers arrive. And he explained why this is personal:
“I started Serenity because I couldn't concentrate in school because of the noise.”
Then he put the debate in stark terms:
“There are going to be some grown men and women who get up here tonight and argue that their right to play with gas leaf blowers in the summertime is more important than the right of literal children to sleep, than the right of students to study, than the right of adults to work from home.”
And his bottom line:
“The electric equipment works, the compromise is fair, and enough is enough.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐘:
Hi, my name is Kevin. I'm the owner of Serenity Robotic Lawn Care. You just heard from our foreman, and earlier you heard from some of our customers.
And I just wanted to say thank you to the members of this board, whether it was being involved in previous iterations of the ban or the current iteration. Thank you for bringing landscapers together and involved in this conversation.
I want to thank my fellow landscapers who were involved in contributing, my mentors and colleagues, and really making this a compromise. And it truly is a compromise.
We use electric leaf blowers, mowers, and trimmers. So for us, we know that it works, but I also understand that for some landscapers, getting them to work for cleanups requires them to retrain their crew and rethink the way that they do their cleanups. So I understand it might take some more time for them to transition to that.
But thankfully, they are willing to change, and this bill has changed. It's a fundamentally different ask than the previous one, but there are some hardline critics who haven't changed their complaints.
And to those people, I'd say that I have over half a decade of experience using electric leaf blowers. I have more experience using electric leaf blowers than everyone in this room combined. And for us, it hasn't been an issue using them.
𝐀𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞.
Earlier this year, I spoke with a daycare center in East Northport who told me that when their landscapers show up, the kids are waking up, they're crying and they're running around covering their ears, saying that they can't wait for the noise to stop.
And that was personal to me. I started Serenity because I couldn't concentrate in school because of the noise.
And think about that.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐮𝐩 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐠𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐟 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞.
Thankfully, we haven't had too many of those people.
Although the critics haven't changed their position, I haven't either. Shame on them for not being willing to compromise and shame on us for letting their behavior rule this town hall for too long.
Whether it's the students, whether it's the children, whether it's the people who work from home, this nonsense has gone on for too long.
They've sacrificed too much, and it's time for us to change.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡.
It's time that this town passes this ban.
