The Stanford Board of Representatives convened to consider three major agenda items involving veto overrides of ordinances passed by the 31st Board, alongside routine committee reports. The primary discussions centered on a new comprehensive tree ordinance and a ban on pet store sales, both vetoed by Mayor Simmons. While many representatives expressed strong support for the moral and environmental principles behind the ordinances, a significant portion of the board, supported by legal counsel and analysis cited by the Majority Leader, prioritized adherence to state preemption laws and fiscal responsibility regarding potential litigation costs for taxpayers. Procedural discussions regarding the timing of the tree ordinance vote and the restructuring of standing committees also occurred before the board concluded its business without overriding any vetoes.
All right, I think we're back on. So I'm going to let Representative Camparelli continue. I gotta figure out where I was. We cannot hear Karen. Ramiya, we cannot hear you. Okay, can you try now? Yeah, please try now and see if it works. Otherwise, we'll gonna go back. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, yes. Can everybody hear me now? Okay. The thirty-first Board of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass this comprehensive tree ordinance. It passed with unanimous support and only two abstentions. That matters. It reflects board consensus, careful deliberation, and a shared understanding of what is at stake. The ordinance was not rushed, it took three years to develop. It involved two public hearings and extensive public input. The administration was deeply involved in crafting it. Both director of operations and engineering were consulted, and adjustments were made specifically to address the concerns raised by residents and stakeholders, and important and most importantly, this ordinance does not take effect for 18 months. There is ample time to refine, clarify, or improve it if needed. Nothing about overriding this veto prevents future tweaks, but killing it now stops progress and sets us back. The support for this ordinance is extraordinary and unprecedented. Pollinator Pathways, the Sierra Club, on behalf of its 30,000 members, Save the Sound, Chris Donnelly, Deep's Urban Forester, the Connecticut Autobond Society, the Connecticut State Tree Group, Stanford's Environmental Protection Board, Robin Stein, the city's longest serving land use bureau chief, Aaron McKenna, Stanford's Associate City Planner, neighborhood groups, including Glenbrook, Hubbard Heights, and the Stanford Neighborhood Coalition. Nettie Compton from Mill River Collaborative, more than a hundred emails asking us to override the mayor's veto. On top of two public hearings and another hundred emails from residents urging us to pass this ordinance. And we cannot separate this ordinance from the city's own comprehensive plan. The city of Stanford spent nearly half a million dollars of taxpayer money on the 2035 Comprehensive Plan. The planning board approved it. The mayor approved it. Hundreds of residents showed up angry and afraid about density and housing impacts in their neighborhoods. I stayed silent during much of that process because that plan was packed with environmental protection. Protections that made growth more acceptable, made growth smart, protections that promise residents their neighborhoods would not be stripped bare in the name of development. The 2035 Comprehensive Plan explicitly calls for a tree commission. One of the mayor's biggest problem with this ordinance is the tree commission. Yet the 2035 plan asks for a tree commission. Tree preservation and green space and climate mitigation measures in conjunction with population growth. The people that crafted it, all experts, including our current planning board, understand that trees are everything to climate change. And that is why they added that commission when they when they prepared the 2035 Comprehensive Plan. And I applaud them for that. I I really appreciate all that the planning board put into this ordinance in terms of climate change. So I ask you this. How far is it to ask residents to pay half a million dollars for a plan, promise environmental protections, and then gut the very heart of those protections less than six months after passing it, and having them pay for it. Overriding this veto is about honoring our own planning process, about not pulling the rug out from under residents who were told that growth would be balanced with environmental responsibility. And this is also about environmental justice. Fairfield County received a D from the American Lung Association. Stanford's own data shows residents in the South, West, and East Sides of the City live on average 11 years less than residents in North Stanford. That is not an abstraction.