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Dear County Council and Mayor Kenoi:
Once again (Councilman Pete) Hoffmann’s Hawaii Island proposed plastic bag ban has arisen from the dead like a vampire from the grave.
As it never received the necessary stake through the heart, but only a mild burial, it is now in it’s third or fourth blood seeking revival before this council.
The essential concern of the Conservative Forum for Hawaii, and most voters as well if you would bother to actually ask our approval before micro-managing our lives, is that the Council is exceeding its authority that the people have given you.
In essence, we have given you the authority to take our money in taxes and fees, figure out how to spend them, and forbid us from doing certain actions supposedly for our own good.
It is the last point that has gotten out of hand. You have already forbidden more than enough for our lives to run smoothly. How would you like it if there were a referendum and the people voted to prohibit just council members from using plastic bags? Would you feel that we were being arrogant, too intrusive, that we should not be playing that role? That the issue was not that important that we should have laws about how you live your life in these small details? That there were more important issues to spend time and energy on?
Well, that is how we feel when you do it to us on this and similar points, over and over and over.
When are you just going to leave us alone to live our lives in peace?
Just because Maui and Kauai and San Francisco and other progressive enclaves have done it does not mean we have to be so foolish also.
This has got to stop.
At a minimum, the people should be asked by referendum for our permission before further restricting how we want to live our lives.
In addition, this particular ban will raise the cost of living for everyone, and during the worst economic times in decades. Just once we would like to have the council make our lives easier, not harder. Just once we would like to have the council make it less expensive to live, not more expensive.
All this bill will accomplish (other than the smug satisfaction of knowing that people have been forced to behave more to the likings of a special few), will be to raise the cost of living for everyone and change the ratio of paper bag litter to plastic bag litter, but not the amount of litter.
And if a complete (and expensive) environmental impact statement is ever performed, as is required by law, the total environmental impact will be revealed to be worse not better. This has already been proven in other areas of the nation, if you’d look it up.
Do the right thing and kill this useless intrusion in our lives for good.
Take the high road of enlightened wise government, not the easy road of being busybody micromanagers.
Then you will be respected instead of resented.
Aloha,
Walter Moe
President, Conservative Forum for Hawaii
forumhawaii@gmail.com
I for one absolutely support the single use plastic bag ban as do many people I know. How can it not be viewed as a step in the right direction. I am thankful that someone like Pete Hoffman is farsighted enough to continually attempt to make changes for the good of the Aina.
Russell, your argument would hold more water if the bags actually were single use but they are not. Most people reuse those bags as garbage bags. If those bags weren’t available, then we would have to buy more plastic garbage bags than we currently do. End result? ZERO plastic saved. Like everything else I suggest you follow the money and you will see that these bag bans end up enriching the manufacturers of plastic garbage bags and reusable cloth bags and your legislators are undoubtedly receiving kickbacks from those special interests.
I think stores should charge customers for shopping bags whether the bags are plastic, paper, or some other type of disposable bag. That way sensible people will bring reuseable bags.
Many people throw away the single use bag without reusing it. So ban them. Yes, some clever folks reuse them as trash bags or shopping bags (the ones that don’t have holes in them). And some donate them to thrift stores. But when you look at the whole picture, single use bags are wasteful.