To the Editor:

Well, they did it.

Eight of the twelve Newtown Legislative Council members (all the Democrats) voted to curtail the free exchange of legal goods among free citizens. Their goal? To change your behavior to something they deem more acceptable.

By October, Newtown businesses will be banned from providing you plastic checkout bags and be forced to charge you a 10-cent fee for paper.

Listening to the arguments presented during pertinent Legislative Council and Ordinance Committee meetings was very disheartening. It sounded like this (with my editorial comments in parentheses):

Why ban plastic bags?

*They’re littered. (Should we just ban everything that’s littered?)

*When incinerated in Connecticut’s trash-to-energy programs, they emit toxins. (They don’t use filters?)

*They never break down in landfills. (Nothing really does, as designed.)

*Plastics are in the sea. (Could a stray Newtown bag escape storm drain capture devices and get to the sea?)

*They gum up the works at Newtown’s recycling station. (Perhaps try a friendly reminder to residents that they’re not to include them in the single stream recycling, but they can be recycled at grocery and other stores?)

*We’ve survived without plastic bags in the past. (We’ve survived without cell phones and cars, too.)

*It’s easy to switch to “reusable” bags. (Being “easy” for one doesn’t make it easy for all, nor advisable.)

Why a fee for paper?

*Without a fee, once we ban plastic bags, residents will just use paper, and paper might be even worse! (Masterminding at its finest.)

*We’re trying to help the businesses. (If you want to help the businesses, don’t tell them how to run their businesses.)

Meanwhile, nobody quantified how banning Newtown’s plastic bags would improve Newtown’s environment and the health, safety, and welfare of Newtown’s residents, per the stated purpose of the ordinance. Nor quantified the harm Newtown’s plastic/paper bags are causing to Newtown’s environment and residents.

How can you solve a problem if you don’t first define it? And how can you entertain alternate solutions? (They didn’t.)

A suggestion by one council member to put the ordinance up for a vote by all residents was quickly dismissed, as were the silent votes of the thousands of residents who currently choose to use (and reuse) the now banned plastic bags.

From what I witnessed, it was clear that this authoritarian ordinance was largely based on emotion, scare tactics, groupthink, the desire to be/appear virtuous, and sadly, hostility towards fellow Newtown residents.

Pertinent facts, logic, reason, and governmental restraint be damned.

And they’re not done — they made it clear that they’re just getting their feet wet — there are many more of our behaviors they wish to control.

Unfortunately, the only way to stop the Legislative Council’s further command-and-control over Newtown’s businesses and our behaviors is to change its composition when we vote in November; to elect only those who will be prudent in their use of power over us, so we can Reduce, Reuse, Recycle on our own terms.

Sincerely,

Cathy Reiss

42 Obtuse Road, Newtown         June 12, 2019