Letters to the Editor

Bag-ban debate

Mayor's idea difficult, but the end result is a greener planet

Editor, The Times:

I cannot understand the negative tone in the July 8 article on the proposed green fee for plastic bags and the styrofoam ban ["Fee and ban? It's time to talk," Times, Local News].

You and the business lobbyists at Tuesday's meeting claim they're worried about low-income families having to pay the 20-cent fee.

You forget that the fee is only for those who don't bring a bag, either a reusable tote bag, or the same plastic bag they received on a previous shopping trip (I've been doing this for years without a problem). You seem to think low-income folks are too stupid to remember to bring their bags.

Also, regarding your fear that everyone would have to use chopsticks because there would be no more knives and forks, again you are wrong.

Currently, plant-based utensils are available and used at many local establishments.

Change is hard. When recycling was mandated, people complained. When seat belts were mandated, folks moaned and bellyached.

Why do these "difficult" tasks at all? Because the end result is more important: a cleaner planet and a safer, healthier population.

— Allison Ostrer, Burien

A tyrannical ban

The tyrant Mayor Greg Nickels needs to be voted out next election. Instead of tackling important issues, the tyrant seems to want to tackle trivial nickel-and-dime issues.

Seattle faces many important concerns, such as overcrowding, price inflation, crime, horrible public education and deteriorating infrastructure.

However, the tyrant wants to control the public on plastic-bag usage during these trying economic times. Nickels needs to prioritize and tackle the important issues facing us instead of trying to keep us busy with minor busy work.

— Tai Oh, Burien

A chubby hand

The city's new ordinance concerning the use of paper or plastic bags is just another veiled way for our mayor to put his chubby hand into our pockets.

It will also give another bureaucrat a high-paying job.

Now, I try to be as green as possible; I use canvas bags to tote my groceries, I try to use the bus as much as possible, I recycle at work and at home and limit my use of electricity.

But I am tired of the overuse of the word "green," especially when it is taken advantage of by programs like this "bag law" to squeeze more money out of citizens.

So the new bag law is such that no matter what business you patronize, you will have to pay a bag fee of 20 cents. Five of those cents will go to the merchant and 15 goes to the city, of which we really have no idea of where it is going, exactly.

We should demand that our council and mayor spell out exactly where the millions of dollars are going before we shell out that 20 cents.

Also, here's a thought for the mayor and council: Instead of punishing us for using paper or plastic bags, how about giving us an incentive for bringing our own bags? That would be a more positive solution.

But then you will need to find another way to squeeze another dime from the people of this city.

— Robert Sondheim, Seattle

A royal blunder

Regarding His Royal Highness Greg Nickels: Who elected him? If he's not trying to tax something as trivial as a plastic bag, he's infringing on our constitutional right to bear arms by royal edict.

What next? Nickels mandates a regulation on the human exhalation of carbon dioxide? How about a tax for owning a car? Maybe Nickels will start making home visits to make sure we haven't set our thermostats above 68 degrees. It seems Nickels is hoping his legacy will be as a mayor with an overdeveloped sense of moral superiority who imposed his pet peeves on millions of Seattle residents.

When do we get to vote for a new useful idiot?

— Eric Pilon, Mercer Island

Critical-areas ruling

Writer wrong about ruling's impact

Mark Johnson has missed the point of the appellate court's ruling when he says that "every property owner who wants to remove a significant amount of forest vegetation from their property be required to demonstrate that their action does not" negatively affect the environment ["A critical ordinance: Ruling a wrong move; burden falls on owners," Northwest Voices, July 10].

The court clearly stated that the burden of proof lies with King County. If complex studies and administrative fees are applied, this will simply be a restructuring of the unfair taxation the court just tossed.

Of course this is the approach King County will take. Their pattern is to ignore court rulings. What's the worst that will happen? They will end up in court again ... and they can ignore that ruling ... and on and on.

— Sam Teasley, Black Diamond

Times editorial overstates deforestation

I would agree wholeheartedly with The Times' editorial "The land clash: can we preserve the green?" [July 11] were it based on good data. From 1995 to 2005, the percent of forested lands in King County held steady. "Excessive" forest destruction was not a problem and what was lost was balanced out by those of us who were letting forests grow.

The Times is perpetuating the myth that rural landowners are not good stewards of the land and should justifiably lose their rights to it. The facts do not support such drastic measures or opinions.

— Arie van der Hoeven, Redmond

Shades of Foley

King County Executive Ron "Tax to the Max" Sims, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that the King County critical-areas ordinance that steals land from property and homeowners warrants expenditures of millions to litigate the case up through the Washington State Supreme Court and probably the federal courts to overturn what a lower Washington court has deemed as unconstitutional ["County to appeal rural-area land-clearing ruling," Local News, July 11].

When Tom Foley, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, sued the people in defiance of their will about congressional term limitations, the voters threw him out of office. One can only hope for a similar result. So go Sims! It would be the best expenditure of county funds you ever initiated.

— Gary Kennedy, Des Moines

Conservation ruling

Cowboys vs. grouse

In her story about administration "redirect" on the Conservation Reserve Program lands, reporter Lynda Mapes writes that "in Washington, it pits two struggling species against each other: independent cattle producers and sage grouse" ["Conservation suit corrals grazing plan," Local News, July 10].

This is touching and clever; but it isn't true. A cattleman can be an accountant, a trucker or a software engineer. A sage grouse has no options beyond living as a sage grouse, with an obvious dependence upon "sage grouse-friendly habitat," in a land where it prospered before God created cowboys.

Let cattlemen do what everyone else is doing with their products: raise their prices and pass on the added cost of beef to the consumer. Even though that may be anathema to American agriculturists, this is the world that the rest of us inhabit.

— John Herbert Browne, Jr., Vashon