Oakland: vote on pesticide ordinance POSTPONED to 3/22

Hello Everyone.

The pesticide ordinance was to be discussed at the
Public Works Committee meeting today, but was pulled
from the agenda at the last minute, and postponed
until March 22, 12:30pm. Because the requirement for
an Environmental Impact Report has been added to the
ordinance, and probably also because the new version
does not address concerns previously voiced by
Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who chairs the Public Works
Committee, the ordinance will be reworked for the next
phase of the discussion. This means that this item
will NOT be discussed at next week's City Council
meeting, March 15, but will also be postponed there
until at least March 29.

To give you an idea of how the ordinance has been
amended at this time, the City's claim that "spraying"
is not implied by it has been invalidated completely
as they now describe the process as involving
"spritzing"... If you look it up in the dictionary it
clearly defines spritzing = spraying. So far the
edibles have not been removed from the list of plants
to be treated, either. These are only two of the
serious points of contention, and the bottom line
remains: Pesticides are poisons which are supposedly
banned on Oakland's public property. I'll be sending
out announcements for the next meetings where public
comments can be made to City official, and hope some
of you can make it out to support the effort to keep
this ordinance from being passed. In the meantime
please check out eastbaypesticidealert.org for details
on this and other pesticide issues. As always, you may
also contact Maxina Ventura at
beneficialbug [at] netzero.com or (510) 895-2312, or find
me here or at (510) 444-0193.

Be well,
Isis