A passionate give-and-take lauded the benefits of rental e-scooters at Tuesday’s Goleta City Council meeting, as well as decrying their deficits. On the one hand they were a perk for short-distance airport visitors, small-income chargers, and the environment, but on the other, bad news for public safety, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the environment. At the end of nearly three hours, the council voted unanimously to ban the scooters immediately, on pain of a $100 impound fee per scooter, but also agreed to work toward a pilot program for the region with other jurisdictions. The scooters disappeared from the city soon after.
More than 30 community members showed up to voice a range of opinions — in addition to the more than 300 written comments the city received — including Mariah Clegg, a sociology doctoral student at UCSB, whose rallying speech that scooters were “electronic waste, carbon-intensive to produce, with parts made from minerals acquired through bloody conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and ecological degradation in Chile — that’s where you get lithium,” produced scattered applause and caused the next speaker, who opposed the ban, to say she was now worried about e-waste, though she praised the scooters’ ability to get people a last-mile distance without using a car.
Bird and Lime were excoriated roundly by the council for dumping their products on the city without first seeking a business permit, and a representative from Spin, another scooter company, introduced herself and her company as ready to work on a permitted pilot program.