By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG independent News
When the plastic bag ban was tabled by City Council in August, council members stressed that the ordinance wasn’t dead – just resting.
But it appears the ordinance will need a full resurrection to bring it back to life.
City Attorney Mike Marsh explained to council Monday evening that the ordinances for a single use plastic bag ban and for the creation of a sustainability board, were both tabled “indefinitely” – and that is not allowed according to Robert’s Rules of Order.
Normally, if council tables legislation it is delayed for a certain period – not indefinitely.
“That is my fault, and I didn’t catch it,” Marsh told council.
Council member Bruce Jeffers, who proposed the tabling for an indefinite period, said he would like to share the responsibility.
“I’d like to take part of the blame for that,” he said.
Marsh stressed that while the original legislation has disappeared from the council agenda, it can be re-introduced.
He suggested that council may want to wait to find out what the state legislature does on plastic bag bans before reintroducing the ordinance.
“These kind of things tend to come up in December,” at the state legislature, Marsh said.
The purpose of tabling the plastic bag ban was to not enact legislation that the state was leaning toward overruling, council President Mike Aspacher said Monday evening. Council did not want businesses to spend money needlessly, he said.
“The point was to not burden people with something until we knew it could go forward,” Aspacher said.
Council voted 5 to 2 in August to table plastic bag ban.
Voting to table the ban were Aspacher, Jeffers, Bill Herald, Mark Hollenbaugh and Greg Robinette. Voting to proceed with the ordinance were Sandy Rowland and John Zanfardino.
“I believe plastic pollution is a serious issue,” Jeffers said in August. However, instead of proceeding with the ban, he suggested the city wait to see how the state handles the issue.
Jeffers said he felt the ordinance should be tabled locally rather than trumped by the state. If the city would have adopted the plastic bag ban, and then the state overruled it at a later date, local business officials would be rightly perturbed.
“It would have aggravated a lot of people for nothing,” Jeffers said.
Robinette pointed out there was no need to rush the ordinance, since it would not have gone into effect until January 2021.
Also at Monday’s meeting, Municipal Administrator Lori Tretter reported the final paving downtown is expected to be done by the middle of October, with the entire project to be completed by the end of the month.
