Surcharge on Plastic Grocery Bags Worth Considering

"We have a responsibility to promote a healthy and sustainable environment, and by doing that, it means we need to help change people's patterns, and that even means their shopping patterns," said Ross Mirkarimi, who will take office in January. "This is a sensible user fee."

According to the Department of the Environment, consumers lug home about 50 million bags from San Francisco grocery stores each year. Of those, 90 percent are nonrecyclable plastic.

A report prepared in support of the proposal by Robert Haley, recycling program manager for the environment department, says plastic bags gum up recycling and composting machines at Norcal -- San Francisco's waste management provider -- resulting in $1 million in extra costs and lost revenue from the sale of recyclable materials.

The bags account for 2 percent of the city's total "waste stream," and picking up and disposing littered bags cost an additional $7.4 million annually, according to the report.

It notes that an estimated 12 million barrels of oil go into the production of plastic bags, while 14 million trees are felled to make their paper counterparts.

Attacks on Ranked Choice Voting Begin

Don't be surprised if there are more sour grapes and baseless attacks on Ranked Choice Voting from some of the losers in last week's historic election.

"While some voters genuinely like this system and found it easy to use, some voters, in particular Chinese-speaking voters, had a very different experience," said Ben Tulchin of the polling firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maulin (sic) and Associates, which conducted the poll for the voter education group [Chinese American Voters Education Committee].

Why would Chinese-speaking voters have difficulty understanding ranked-choice ballots? It's so easy that children get it -- it's as easy as 1-2-3.

Might the Chinese American Voters Education Committee have had an interest in the outcome of this past election? Perhaps they felt that Lillian Sing would have fared better in a costly runoff against Jake McGoldrick in District 1?

There are other problems with the polls, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• If FMMA's exit polls didn't asky why some voters didn't make a second or third choice, why assume that they didn't get it?
  
• If just 2,108 voters were polled, how many were Chinese American? How many white and Latino voters were polled?

I would remind Mr Lee that in 2002, Prop A was supported by Asian voters and endorsed by Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Pacific Democratic Club, and Asian Week.

Mr Lee and his group must work hard at registering Chinese Americans to vote. If he wants to make sure that his constituency takes advantage of RCV, he should concentrate some of his efforts on voter education, instead of fighting RCV, which benefits communities of color while ensuring that candidates are elected by a majority of voters without the need for costly runoff elections.

Why would anyone be against it?

I've voted in San Francisco for eight years and have never before encountered lines at my polling place. Here is my view from the back of the line at 8:30 a.m.

I hope this bodes well for turnout nationwide in what has been called the most important election in our lifetime. Personally, I don't think that is overstating things.

The latest election results for San Francisco can be found here.

National results can be found here. Polls close on the East Coast in less than three hours. I wonder how many voters will be shut out in Ohio and Florida?