The Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday morning, upholding the decision of the Fourth Court of Appeals in favor of the Laredo downtown merchants to kill the plastic bag ordinance for Laredo and the rest of the state of Texas.
“Pecos Bill just shot down Mother Nature in broad daylight,” said Tricia Cortez, executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC), a Laredo-based nonprofit that worked on a 10-year campaign to get the Laredo plastic bag ordinance passed.
“This ruling threatens to roll back years of progress and beautification that have already taken place,” Cortez said. “We will continue to fight and we won’t give up.”
“We are of course disappointed and had hoped for a different decision. Forward-thinking citizens, merchants, and city government transformed our City by phasing out plastic bags,” said Mayor Pete Saenz. “The use of recyclable bags in place of single use plastic bags had an incredible impact on how our City and its creeks look. We need to keep that good habit, not just for the environmental benefit of it, but also for the fact that dealing with the pre-ordinance volume of plastic bags was costly for the City’s water utility system,” he added.
District VII Council member George Altgelt commented, “As a home rule city, we should be able to regulate transient trash like plastic bags that end up in our storm water systems and our only source of drinking water.”
He said the State of Texas should be preempted from meddling in the affairs of a local community’s ability “to exercise its legitimate police power.”
Altgelt continued, “Hopefully our representative at the State level will intervene with legislation that will allow us to better govern our own local destiny.”
RGISC and the City of Laredo will unroll a public awareness campaign asking the public and local retailers to stay the course, and to keep making the right changes for Mother Earth.
A joint City-RGISC press conference is scheduled for Saturday, June 23 at 10 a.m. at the El Portal conference room.
Cortez noted that the Supreme Court decision is a hollow victory for the Laredo downtown merchants, since the leader of the group, Les Norton, no longer resides in Laredo.
“It’s amazing that a tiny group of well-funded downtown merchants, headed by someone who doesn’t even live in Laredo, could halt progress and beautification efforts for the rest of the 250,000 people who live in this community,” she said.
“We ask the people of Laredo and our local retailers to join us in this movement,” Cortez said. “Too much is at stake. The powers that be in Texas may still bow down to big corporate money, but the tide will turn in this state. We will be part of that beautiful movement, and we ask the people of Texas and retailers to continue phasing out these unnecessary plastic bags. Plastic bags are real. They clog up the whole environment. This is a big loss for Texas.”
When earlier attempts failed in 2008 due to lobbyists hired by the Laredo downtown merchants, Brownsville took inspiration from Laredo’s efforts and enacted their own ordinance, becoming the first city in Texas to do so. The cities of Austin, South Padre Island, Freer, and Fort Stockton among others soon followed in their footsteps.
http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1441865/160748.pdf
SIDEBAR
Les Norton responds To Tricia Cortez
For the purpose of “setting the record straight”…….
1. Although I no longer have a permanent residence in Laredo, I continue to OWN an extensive amount of business property in downtown Laredo
2. I continue to pay a rather significant amount of city, county, and school taxes in regards to my business properties.
3. I still own and operate a business in downtown Laredo – “El Porvenir” – along with my Brother.
Tricia….I respectfully ask you to look at how much tax revenue my business interests have generated in Laredo/Webb County over just the past 50 years of my tenure as a downtown Laredo business and property owner.
Enough said-Point Made!
With regards and best wishes,
Les Norton
