Last night, the Easton Town Council continued public comment on Council President Frank Gunsallus’s proposal to eliminate the 10-cent fee for paper bags that town retail businesses must charge their customers.
Three standouts for the Spy, representing very different points of view, were statements made by Alan Girard from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Sara Price of the Maryland Retail Alliance, who support the 10 cent fee charge, and Easton resident Shari Wilcoxon, who represents a local organization that supports the repeal.
The resolution was later brought to a vote, with three council members voting to maintain the 10-cent charge (Abbatiello, Curry, Davis) and two in favor (Gunsallus, Montgomery).
Public Comment Highlights (13 minutes)
Council Member Highlights and Vote
Charles DeMar says
What a colossal waste of time, money and resources for the council and the citizens of Easton. All of this bluster from Gunsallus and Montgomery over a DIME. You’d think that if David Montgomery wants us to refer to him as “doctor”, he’d use that economics degree to quickly ascertain that this was a stupid and wasteful hill to plant his flag on.
Ask yourself this; have you been to the grocery store and seen people take items back from the checkout line because they couldn’t afford a ten cent bag? Of course not. That’s silly. Nobody has to decide between food and a bag. Plus, no store will deny a free bag to someone in need. The town doesn’t audit stores, nor do they collect money from the fee and to my knowledge, no store has ever been cited for giving away a bag. EPD doesn’t have time to patrol the checkout lanes as the bag police.
Also, where were the droves of economically disadvantaged people at this meeting? Gunsallus, in the last meeting, pushed the vote back, so those people could “arrange for transportation”. None were there. I guess Gunsallus couldn’t give any of the a ride to the meeting. Clearly, he was lying…again.
Also again, it was Shari Wilcoxon showing off her ignorance, this time by claiming “90% of Talbot County residents” didn’t want the bag fee based on her echo chamber petition, then making a veiled threat to Abbatiello’s political future by saying that his fellow Republicans don’t support the fee. The problem is, Abbatiello is an independent. You’d think a person who sits on the Talbot Republican Central Committee would know that. Embarrassing.
Thankfully, Curry, Abbatiello and Rev. Davis are shielding us from this madness.
Darlene Handley says
Isn’t it ironic that they want to do away with plastic bags when just about everything you buy in the grocery stores is wrapped in plastic? Not to mention a lot of clothing is encased in plastic also?
Peggy Ford says
At least it’s a beginning! And a great example to our youth that we value our environment over convenience.
Brian Wroten says
Go do an earth day cleanup sometime and tell me how much you enjoy pulling plastic bags out of our municipal culverts.