The plastic pollution revolution gasped and died at last night’s two-day City Council meeting that lasted almost as long as plastic bags have been a popular form of shlepping.
There is going to be an ordinance banning the see-through frippery – probably in early spring, predicted Mayor Andy Weissman.
For awhile, though, it was dicey as to whether Council members would have a chance to sleep before striking up the ban.
Yawning, stretching and supping libations designed not to distort, Council members were tempted to sit on each other’s laps and exchange bedtime stories before they mercifully adjourned at 2 a.m.
By that time, the anti-plastic bag crowd was safely home, nestled softly, smilingly deep inside their dreams, mirthfully envisioning a world free from the suffocating chains of plastic bags.
“I am guessing March or April on the ordinance – after we go through a public information process,” Mr. Weissman said.
He predicted that “large businesses” will have six months to adapt, and “small businesses” will be given a full year.
The large and small parameters have not been defined.
It was reported that 45 California jurisdictions have adopted the ritual bans, but it is not known how closely Culver City’s regulations will parallel the most popular ones.
The City Council meeting was only slightly scripted to arrange for the no-choice outcome. It was like a movie you have seen 20 times, or like listening to a recitation of each date on five years’ worth of calendars.
Chambers Are a Magnet
When sensitive environmental issues are on the Council agenda, environmental groups and their most strident advocates flock to Council Chambers in impressive numbers.
By no coincidence, 34 of the 37 persons who addressed the Council felt more strongly about imposing a plastic bags ban on Culver City than they did about drawing their next breaths. Out in the lobby, passion was selling for five cents a glass, four cents a loaf.
Nearly half of the testifiers represented environmental groups. They told horror stories that would have given Dracula ghost bumps, showering a blizzard of both useful and abstract data upon the unprotected heads of the overwhelmed Council.
Something like 12 billion plastic bags are deployed in California every year, the student-heavy audience was told. Only five percent of the old bags are recycled, except for those who wed vulnerable, aging bachelors.
There was unadvertised but not unexpected live entertainment.
Numerous activists provided free demonstrations of the folly of plastic baggery, pulling “proper” bags from tiny hiding places, waving them in the air as if they were gigantic flags on the Fourth of July.
The most imaginative speaker shlepped a huge plastic bag with smelly plastic bags inside. Without awaiting an invitation, she walked along the facade of the dais, waving the putrid plastic beneath the delicate noses of the Council members.
Signal Achievement
“I have not carried a single-use bag in 18 years,” another woman boasted, and the audience cheered the allegedly prize-worthy discipline.
Many speakers, you may assume, not only went on at booklength but auditioned for the role of a talking mime.
To keep the Council from remaining in session until 2 a.m., Mayor Weissman implored the advocates to say “ditto” instead of having 37 people repeat each other.
Numerous speakers obeyed the mayor, affixing a “ditto” to the end of their three-minute sermons.
Cooler Temperatures
For all of the passion that burned across the audience, the dais was not a passion pit.
Meghan Sahli Wells, the most ardent campaigner among Council members, said she has been on the bandwagon for two years.
Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper said his ban membership was not insured until Sunday when he telephoned his 87-year-old mother in San Francisco. She gave the regulation her blessing. Reeling, “almost in shock” at her unexpected response, Mr. Cooper said “that sealed it for me.”
Mehaul O’Leary lauded his colleague for employing a tactic that he uses regularly – calling his mother in Ireland for advice.
Jim Clarke said that since his mother has died, could he call Mr. Cooper’s mom.
Mr. Weissman said the Council he leads long has been telegraphing its intentions to endorse a ban that will include a cost for paper bags.
COUNCIL NOTES – State Assemblyperson Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City) will host a community comment meeting on fracking, Friday morning, 9:30 to 12, at the Vets Auditorium. This is part of the run-up to developing a fracking ordinance…
