Imagine my surprise when I read the front page article, “City Council moves forward with discussion on plastic bag ban.”

A year ago, I received a polling call regarding this subject and contacted Toby Nixon. He said he had not heard about the survey but would look into it. Apparently all things local are being addressed by the City Council, like roads, parks, any education that comes under their purview and fire safety. They are doing such a stellar job that they have time on their hands and want to over step their bounds by regulating how grocery stores and customers interact.

The article states the council wants to ban single-use bags in grocery stores. I use my plastic bags more than once and for more than transporting my groceries home, so I am not sure what single use bags they mean.

The idea that they want to force grocery stores to charge a fee for paper bags seems amazingly intrusive and will have unintended consequences. Folks who are barely getting by may not be able to swing the 5 cents per bag, especially since the paper bags have gotten smaller over the years. Additionally, this will cause those of us who can to change our shopping patterns to avoid this onerous intrusion by local government in our daily lives.

In short, the City Council should get back to managing the basics of local government and stay away from topics and programs that will have unintended consequences and over which you have no authority to manage. Remember, 67 percent of those surveyed said, “no.” Apparently you do not listen.

Stan Olson, Kirkland