Fellow San Juan Islander, you and I are bad people. Irresponsible. Uncaring about the environment, wicked even. We make bad decisions that hurt the world. We shouldn’t have the right of free choice if we refuse to make the approved choice.

So, at least, seems to be the view of County employees Mark Herrenkohl and Brian Vincent. They don’t trust us to make a responsible decision about how and when to use plastic bags. Nope. Even though my family, and probably yours, carefully reuse and recycle every plastic bag that comes into our hands, that’s not good enough for these public servants, Or maybe it’s time to recognize reality and change that phrase from public servant to puppet master. We are not, in their view, capable of being good people and making the right decisions. We must be controlled.

Did my father-in-law really receive a Purple Heart fighting the Germans in WWII in order to secure for government the right to take away one more of our freedom? These public employees obviously think yes.

Will our commissioners agree? Time will tell.

Christopher Hodgkin