Well, February has come and gone and Councilwoman Gale Brewer has yet to introduce the bedbug legislation she said would introduce. For those of you following this story, in January, many newspapers reported that the Councilwoman planned to introduce in the City Council some legislation in February that, if passed into City law, would regulate such things as the sale of used mattreses to ensure they are bed bug-free and the commercial transportation of used mattresses in the same storage unit as new ones.
I’ve been receiving quite a few e-mails inquiring as to when the Councilwoman is going to do what she said she was going to do, so I figured I’d call her office once more and get some answers.
Her chief of staff assured me that Councilwoman Brewer would soon draft and introduce this piece of legislation to the Council’s Health Committee. Well, the Health Committee already held te first and second meetings of 2006 last month, and no mention of Brewer’s bed bug legislation was mentioned in the media or in the Council website.
I called her office today and a staffer informed me that Brewer wants to schedule a public hearing on this matter before introducing such legislation to the Health Committee. They added that her chief of staff would get back to me with more details.
In defense of the Councilwoman’s decision to gather public testimony on this matter before drafting any legislation, I think it’s a sensible move on her part because the testimony she will recieve on how bad the bed bug problem is in New York will give her a stronger case when she tries to convince Health Committee members to support the legislation. I know there are a lot of New Yorkers who are itching (pun very much intended) to find out exactly when this legislation is going into play and exactly how the legislation will address the bed bug problem.
I will provide an update as new information becomes available, and I will especially provide the times and dates of this public hearing once it has been scheduled.