Letter: One way or another, Scotts Valley can’t stop plastic bag bans forever

EDITOR,
Scotts Valley Secedes from Union! Could this be a headline following Scotts Valley City Council’s April meeting on the subject of single-use plastic bags? If you believe the anecdotal point-of-views of recent letter writers on this subject to the Press-Banner then this could happen.
Let’s set the reality straight: Senate Bill 270 working its way through the California legislature will impose a 10-cent fee on paper or reusable plastic bags while banning single-use plastic bags although on an exclusionary basis.
Unfortunately, this compromised bill stands a very high probability of passing. Sounds like a good idea but it falls way short of eradicating plastic-anything-bags that will significantly alter our convenience-programmed consumer mindset. For the record: One reusable bag equals 500 HDPE bags. Sounds like a good trade-off to me.
Scotts Valley, you will pay whether the state tells you what to do; whether those outside extreme environmentalists poke their nosey nose so deep into the Council’s neocortex that they finally do the right thing for you; or whether the Council does nothing, which is where my money is.
So what’s it going to be the good people of Scotts Valley? Will you forge a way in line with 30 percent of California — 11 million people and growing — or will you hedge and haw in your saneness?
The insular tone of these recent letters do not reflect what I appreciate about the environmentally aware people of Scotts Valley which, is to say, they care about what goes on outside of Scotts Valley.
For the same reason you cannot find a turtle swimming in Monterey Bay is the same reason you cannot view the Pacific Ocean from the back yard of a Scotts Valley home. It does not exist. Come all to the April meeting. Learn some facts; leave the anecdotes behind.
Haig White, Santa Cruz