With a rustling like dead leaves the monster stood from its folding chair and approached the lectern. It spoke with a disarmingly friendly female voice, addressing the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors at this morning’s meeting. 

“I’m here to thank you for backing down on the plastic bag ban,” the monster said. So many other places in California have banned plastic bags, it lamented. “I’m sure people in Arcata miss me very much.” Fortunately, the county has its priorities straight, the monster said. “What’s a little roadside trash in exchange for a lifetime of convenience? … It’s good to know that I have friends in high places in Humboldt County.”

The monster, of course, is a sarcastic PR mascot for local nonprofits advocating the elimination of single-use plastic bags, and as such its “thanks” to the board was a sort of passive-aggressive expression of disappointment over the board’s decision to back away from a countywide ban on the environmentally unfriendly sacks in favor of a resolution (pdf here) that merely encourages people not to use the bags and voices support for a statewide ban.

That statewide ban, Senate Bill 270, was scheduled to be phased in starting July 1, but an industry group called The American Progressive Bag Alliance managed to gather enough signatures in opposition to force a voter referendum, which will appear on ballots statewide in 2016.

The monster was followed at the lectern by Jennifer Savage, coastal programs director at the Northcoast Environmental Center, chair of Humboldt Surfrider and a LoCO contributor. Savage said she understood the board’s prior stance of waiting to see what happened with SB 270, but given the disappointing delay caused by the referendum, she said, “I think it’s imperative to move forward” with a local ban, as many other jurisdictions in the state have already done.

Following public comments, Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace defended the non-binding resolution, saying that he fully expects the statewide referendum to fail given the evolution of public opinion on the issue. County staff said that if the referendum does fail then SB 270 would likely take effect more or less immediately after the general election. “If that’s what we expect then we might be looking at perhaps one year during which we’d have [a countywide ban] in place,” Lovelace said. “So it became an issue of just a stopgap measure.”

He added that most of the major grocery stores in the county, including Eureka Natural Foods, the North Coast Co-Op and Wildberries, have already banished the bags. 

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn chimed in, saying that plastic bags aren’t really the problem; it’s the misuse of bags that needs to be curtailed. And he believes that education is the right approach. He also reiterated his opposition to a 10-cent surcharge on disposable bags, a measure that has been included in many other jurisdictions. 

Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell took the opportunity to address the plastic bag monster directly, saying it was mistaken about having friends in high places here. “Everyone is welcome here, including you, monster, but our resolution does put you on notice that the Board of Supervisors does not approve of your impact on the environment.”

With that, the board voted 4-0 (with Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass absent) to approve the resolution. 

In other matters, the board unanimously approved the reappointment of at-large Planning Commissioner Dave Edmonds to another term.

And the monster left peaceably.