Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-20-24 Public Comment - A. Ready - Plastic Initiative comment for City Commissioner Meeting todayFrom:Anne Ready To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]Plastic Initiative comment for City Commissioner Meeting today Date:Tuesday, August 20, 2024 12:00:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Plastic Initiative Petition Comments for City Commissioner meeting City Commissioners, Mayor, City Manager, and City Attorney - Thanks so much for this opportunity to comment on the Plastic Initiative Petition. I just spent a huge amount of my time over the last few months gathering signatures to place this petition on the ballot in November because I feel it is a very important health and environmental issue that the voters need to decide about. From my experience of talking with many hundreds of people, I quickly realized that there is overwhelming support in our community for an opportunity for our citizens to decide to limit single use plastics and foam carry out containers. Many times a day, I would hear from my fellow Bozemanites - whom I approached to sign the petition - such comments as: “It’s about time. Where I used to live they limited single use plastic bags years ago” or “I’m very aware that microplastics are in our bodies and harming us” or - from a man riding his bike down Sourdough Canyon Trail - “I just finished a 3 year study of microplastics in 76 waterways in our area and all but 3 waterways had microplastics in them”. Another woman advised me to watch “We’re All Plastic People Now”. I did, and - after watching it - I was even more concerned about the serious health problems associated with microplastics such as: Testicular cancer, An unprecedented number of young people with colon cancer, blocked arteries, microplastics in breast milk, the placenta Disruption of the endocrine system in pregnant women, causing inappropriate amounts of testosterone being released to baby boys, resulting in low sperm counts To name a few. As I said - I was one of numerous community members - who spent a good chunk of our summer out talking to people all around town and going door to door to get the required number of signatures. I found it somewhat disheartening when I realized the very high number of signatures that we had to collect considering that students who were registered to vote in Bozeman were not here in the summer, that the boxes on the petition were incredibly small, leading to numerous signatures being thrown out because they were illegible. It also turned out very difficult to only have people who actually lived within the city limits sign. To solve this issue, I also went door to door, but that is very time consuming and requires a lot of volunteers to get the number of signatures that we were required to get. In summary, I feel that this issue is one that vast numbers in our community feel is very important. Scores of volunteers spent a good part of their summer collecting signatures, yet the bar turned out to be set too high for us. That is why I am hoping that the City can re-consider and set the required number of signatures at 15% - the same percentage that Missoula is required to collect.