Indeed...you said it all. Thanks Jack.

No bag is infinitely reusable. Therefore:

Shall the sale of all bags that are not infinitely reusable be banned in Portland?

Shall it be a crime to use a bag to transport garbage to the trash can if the bag itself is also left in the trash can?

Shall it be a crime to drive a car to the store to buy a bag to transport garbage to the trash can if the bag itself is also left in the trash can?

Beyond sad - tragic. They (electorate)won't wake up until it's too late. Believe me, I'd like to be more optimistic than this.

Hey, Sam! Seriously here, get a grip.

Look at bojack.org and the $10,308 we owe per person. Per. Person. With interest.

So tomorrow while we all are in line at Fred Meyer self serve why do you think it matters if it is plastic, paper, cloth, handheld -- we can't even afford the scanner, the food, the bag, any of it (BTW at IKEA they don't even offer you a bag choice).

How quaint, a survey over a nickel. How about a survey about how we're gonna retire $6,082,152,497 in unpaid bills?

I anticipate all the regular negative comments on this thread while those behind the same comments line up behind Sam or the next "progressive" thinking candidate at the next election. It is sad that voting for the right social issues will always trump fiscal responsibility and common sense in Portland.

Don't sugar-coat it. There are rarely any meaningful differences among the candidates on "social issues." Portland voters are often just... well, pretty stupid.

"Mayor Creepy"...that pretty much says it all!

Proposed survey question to be asked of all Portlanders:

"Mayor Sam Adams was found to have had an inappropriate relationship with a 17 year old boy, including sexual contact. Do you favor Mayor Adams retaining his position as the Mayor of Portland, Oregon?"

Is anybody game enough to create a profile of the average Portland voter?

"Fred Meyer plastic ban won't affect Clark County"

http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/jul/22/fred-meyer-plastic-ban-wont-affect-clark-county/#comments

Vancouver is open for business. Come on over and shop all you want, we've got plenty of FREE BAGS to take back to Portland!!

Man, talk about a loaded question.

Remember when they banned Styrofoam cups? I was up in Vancouver, BC at an ice cream shop and they were using Styrofoam. There was a note on it that started, "Why Styrofoam? Because it is safer for the environment than paper." They then went on to say that it was untrue that Styrofoam damages to ozone layer.

How about a little science. The plastic used to make bags for Safeway comes from (mostly domestic - some Canadian) natural gas, not imported crude oil.

Is "hiz honor" also banning the compostable 'plastic' bags made from corn? What about those obnoxious styro peanuts that are used by all the shipping places? Will the big box stores stop selling 'zip lock' bags an other food storage containers? What about banning balloons?
Sam the tram is an idiot! and so is the entire city council!!!

I'm not real clear about this, but I don't think the ban covers plastic bags in the produce or bulk foods departments. If that's true, then someone could come to the register with vegetables and bin food in dozens of plastic bags . . . buy boxes of plastic bags and add a cart full of products over-packaged in plastic . . . and have it all smugly tucked into a paper sack.

Sam is like the kid who's told to take a bath and who goes into the restroom, runs his hands under the faucet a couple of times and considers the problem solved.

Window dressing.

I will halfheartedly defend the city's electorate by pointing out that in recent years, the choices offered haven't exactly been galvanizing. Based on the campaign he ran, there was no reason to think Sho Dozono would have been a capable or competent mayor.

Mike (the other one):

"Sam" and "progressive" in the same breath?

Surely you are joking!

The real reason I've heard that a plastic bag ban is useful is not that they're environmentally objectionable, but rather that they're omnipresence gums up the recycling sorters, making recycling inefficient and more costly. The bags are "soft" so they mess up the recycling handlers. Of course, the poll question leans on the "green" reasons, which are suspect. I wish (ha!) that they would have gone with the fact rather than the emotional appeal...

Roger,

One thing we know for sure Sam knows how to run a campaign and do whatever it takes to get elected. He also knows how to run amok with the public process and let us not forget where he learned that so well under Katz.

How has this all turned out in our city and our nation when we select people based on their ability to campaign?

When plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will have plastic bags!

"Don't sugar-coat it. There are rarely any meaningful differences among the candidates on "social issues." Portland voters are often just... well, pretty stupid."
===

I love this blog. Bojack is not afraid to call Portland voters stupid, straight up and to their faces.

Any arguments?

I can't argue that Portland voters are stupid, retarded even. But I guess that is a slam against the mentally challenged, who can be excused for their behavior.

Portland voters have no excuse for re-electing SamRand to office.

Roger, your point about Sho D. is right on. I kind of groaned when I heard that Cogan might run for mayor, but then I realized that it HAS to be someone like that to beat Adams. It has to be someone with name recognition who has been part of the machine. If Adams faces another Sho type, he'll win again no matter how sick the city is of him.

Portland voters aren't stupid per se. If anything, they suffer from classic liberal arts over-education which leads them to over-think everything and turn rather simple pocket book decisions into complex "the world is grey/you don't get it" decisions.

I do think that more than enough of the city is unhappy with Adams to vote him out. I hear very few passionate defenses of Adams anywhere. Who is going to come out and lock arms with him at campaign time? All the people he lied to before and after his scandal broke?

Personally, I've wondered if the shockingly low numbers of people who signed either of the recall petitions wasn't a result of public fear of making their names, addresses, and phone numbers available to rabid supporters via public record. Let's just be thankful he's not a powerful charismatic speaker and organizer.

JC: . . Let's just be thankful he's not a powerful charismatic speaker and organizer.

Doesn't need to be. Apparently all he needs to do is continue Katz's agenda and to give perks to the right people - he stays in.

Shameful period of Portland where community leaders for the most part gave him a pass and also this council on just about
anything they do.

Unfortunately, I think people have been so abused in our city that many are just numb and stunned as far as organizing any effort to make a change in "the insider game".

Since kiddie council is not indefinitely reusable can we just get rid of them now?

I think they have a name for this type of survey.

Touché, MJ!

The P in Portland stands for propaganda!

I would like to hear more about this island twice the size of Texas swirling off of Oregon's coast. This kind of politicking is how tyrants are born, but luckily our idiot mayor is not persuasive enough to be successful at reelection.

This is definitely one citizen who will be bailing from the land of roses, if he does get reelected.

So easy to carry one's own bags, people. They sell fabulous bags that fold up into 2x4-inch mini-sleeping bag pouches, that open up into full size bags and last for centuries, so easy to tuck three of them in the purse for lifelong reuse.

Oh right, mostly only women carry purses. Sorry, guys. The little sleeping bags fit well into the glove boxes of cars, though, and seriously, how bad is it to stuff a couple into the pants pockets, just for the stroll from the car to the shopping center entrance? Or, God forbid, actually carry them in using one's HANDS??? I know this may seem to contradict the spirit of the constitution and all...

Sitting in a hotel room in NYC right now, thinking about how to avoid the taxicab panorama of the sea of plastic bags strewn all over the freeway to JFK. I think we'll try to find an underground train instead. After we visit the museum of biblical art and say a rosary or two to the Ukrainian icons, in favor of making plastic bags disappear from the face of the earth.

Gaye, shouldn't you be looking for Ukrainian unicorns with rainbows?

As a former long distance sailor who has sailed to Hawaii from the Pacific Coast three times, I am calling out Mayor Adams on his BS about the "swirling mass of plastic garbage twice the size of Texas". Yes there is all sorts of flotsam and plastic stuff floating out there in the Pacific. But nothing like the BLATANT BS Adams is talking about. Quit spreading LIES Mr. Adams!!!

It's going to be a great world you baby-boomers leave behind for the grandkids.

Here you go Dave A,

http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm

Three myths about this issue:

(1) Adams or City Council based their decision in part on what citizens thought.

(2) The decision was based on actual evidence.

(3) Adams actually cares about the environment.

If you think those myths are true, consider these corresponding thoughts:

(1) Adams had already planned the "garbage monster" attendance and City Council discussion *before the poll was taken*.

(2) There's an astounding amount of evidence that those plastic bags you get at the grocery store contribute little or nothing to ocean pollution. Find out for yourself from NOAA, Greenpeace, the 25-year SEA study, and others.

(3) Adams is supporting development (that is, parking lots for coal shipments and cars from Asia) of West Hayden Island, despite resounding boos from just about every environmental organization in the region.

Funny thing.... I had to go to Freddy's to pick-up some stuff for dinner. As I was checking myself out, an employee was around and we started a conversation when I asked if the Raleigh Hills FM was in Portland. She said, the mailing address is Portland but technically the store is outside city limits. Then she said that unless corporate dictated otherwise, the store planned to keep using plastic bags. I remarked so you already knew my next question and she said that a lot of people were complaining about the whole thing and she called Adams an idiot (now this is 30 something married mother of two). I think this may backfire more than his tramwhoreness can imagine.

JonJon: Thanks so much for the pointy headed article. Of course, neither you or I suspect the authors of that little screed have actually sailed across the Pacific in your own boat have you? Yes - there is lots of stuff out there, but I've never sailed through miles of junk as you and the authors of that article would like everyone to believe.

the Raleigh Hills FM was in Portland. She said, the mailing address is Portland but technically the store is outside city limits.

A little more than a half-mile west. The Portland city line is about 450 feet east of the Safeway store, running between the end of that strip mall and the neighboring multi-story office structure where the Oregon Partnership is located in.

Interestingly the Garden Home Thriftway is located in the City of Portland, but is about to be ceded to the City of Beaverton as it is within Washington County and there is a plan between the two cities to swap jurisdictions so that everyone on the Washington County side is within Beaverton (who is currently in Portland city limits) and vice-versa.

The QFC store on Barnes Road - another Kroger property - is also about 1/2 mile west of the Portland city line, as is the Tigard Fred Meyer and WinCo. The Johnson Creek Fred Meyer is about 800 feet south outside of Portland city limits.

These just illustrate why Mayor Adams acting on his own makes absolutely no sense. City Limits are often an arbitrarily drawn line (especially the line between Portland and Gresham); banning plastic bags on one side of the line - while a store just outside the line can freely dispense with the bags - is ridiculous at best, solves absolutely nothing, and confuses the citizens. Citizens are free to do business where they want; when I lived in S.W. Portland (within City Limits) I did not drive twice-as-far to get to the nearest grocery store in Portland city limits - I drove to the Tigard Fred Meyer which was much closer. Now I live in Tigard where I can walk places that were unimaginable to walk to within Portland city limits; I can ride my bike on safe routes and on bike paths non-existant in S.W. Portland - and I have access to a safer bus stop and a faster express bus (that also operates much more reliably) than I did in Portland.

Instead of making ridiculous laws, Mayor Adams ought to look within if he wants to be the "green" Mayor. Why not eliminate most of the city's vehicle fleet? Why not ban all out-of-town travel using aircraft? Why not open an East Portland Resource Center to eliminate the various trips that East Portlanders have to make into downtown Portland to conduct city business - usually involving single-occupant motor vehicles? Why not consider turning off traffic lights when they aren't needed (I saw this in Europe - why have a traffic signal run 24/7? Traffic Signals cost several hundred dollars a month in electric bills to run.) What about encouraging more City employees to work 4x10 shifts - eliminating one daily commute? What about banning city employees from driving to work unless they had a need to do so? I could go on and on...does every Portland Police officer really need a Ford Crown Victoria that gets less than 10 M.P.G. designed for high-speed pursuits - why not have traffic cops on motorcycles; the rest of the cops use fuel-efficient vehicles like a Ford Focus or Nissan Versa or even a Toyota Prius? Arrested suspects can be transported in a paddy wagon, keeping the officers in their patrol area rather than tying them up in trips to the Justice Center.