By Khalida Sarwari
City of Campbell and San Mateo County officials want to talk with the public about an environmental impact report for a proposed single-use plastic bag ban ordinance.
Last month, Campbell accepted the county of San Mateo’s offer to participate in a multi-city effort to prepare a draft EIR for the elimination of single-use bags. The county’s aim is to take a uniform approach in implementing the ban by involving 24 cities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
At a March 28 meeting of the West Valley mayors and managers, the mayors of Los Gatos, Saratoga and Campbell all said they are not inclined to follow the city of San Jose by enacting a ban on single-use plastic bags, opting instead to wait for the state to make a decision. Campbell Mayor Mike Kotowski said the city would consider the issue but would delay taking action on an ordinance until all the cities were in agreement on the issue.
But, agreeing to participate in the preparation of the EIR does not obligate municipalities to implement the ban, said Campbell project manager Bill Helms.
“The meeting is not a discussion on whether or not it’s appropriate to adopt such an ordinance,” Helms said. “This is just an analysis of environmental issues so that if the cities decided to adopt a ban they’d have coverage of environmental impacts.”
The meeting, set for May 2, will give residents a chance to discuss what should be included in the scope of the EIR and consider factors such as the types of plastic bags, businesses that use them and how the bags are distributed, said Al Bito, Campbell’s assistant to the city manager.
As the lead agency, the county is paying for the EIR and has hired Rincon Consultants Inc., a multi-disciplinary environmental consulting group, for the task.
The proposed ordinance would regulate the use of paper and plastic single-use carryout bags at all retail establishments within the participating municipalities, including those selling food, clothing and personal items. The ban would not apply to restaurants.
Under the ordinance, retailers would be required to distribute only recycled paper bags and reusable bags to shoppers for a fee of 10 cents per bag, which would be increased to 25 cents in two years.
The scoping meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on May 2 at the Campbell library and will include a presentation by San Mateo County officials on the draft EIR.
The complete Notice of Preparation, which includes a list of participating municipalities, is available at www.CityofCampbell.com. Responses to the document may be submitted in writing by May 6 to Camille M. Leung, a planner in San Mateo County’s planning and building department, at cleung@smcgov.org.
Campbell joins with San Mateo to present EIR on plastic bag ban
