Brattleboro Vermont Selectboard Un-Candidate #30

     My sources tell me that the owner of the Hannaford's property doesn't believe the State will take so much of his property from him as detailed in the expansion of the proposed Putney Road. Surely, he is being sarcastic.
     I've also heard that some opinions at Brattleboro Tire about the proposed road expansion taking away much of their parking space is: "There's a difference in being flexible and being walked over." Like in "Don't tread on me?"
     My sources also say that Hannaford is nonplussed about the authoritarian ban on plastic bags proposed by the selectboard, having computed that paper bags will be cheaper.
     But what about the reaction of the tree-huggers, including me? What happens when the bags get wet on the way out to your vehicle? Answer: Everything in them falls out. Even an amoeba can fight his way out of wet paper bag. Also, what about people like me, who hold several plastic bags together in one hand to walk from the vehicle, up the stairs, and into the apartment? You're not going to be able to do that with paper bags. They won't hold up, and they're not amenable to being grouped together.
     The question came up of what happens when someone forgets his re-usable bags and walks into the store without them. The chairwoman answered that he could just walk back to his car and get them. Easy for her to say; she's a young woman. What about us people over seventy? You going to make us hobble and totter back to our vehicles? That is, if we even remembered to bring them. You going to make us hobble and totter back to our homes?
     All this begs the question of what is the big effing deal about plastic grocery bags? The selectboard chairwoman said that by 2035 -I think it was- there would be more plastic in the oceans than fish. So what does that have to do with Brattleboro plastic grocery bags? Do she think there are Brattleboro plastic grocery bags floating around in the oceans? Don't we already go to enough pain in the asses sorting all our garbage and putting it into the "proper" containers.
Is the selectboard getting addicted to the power of pushing us around?
     Finally, why shoot ourselves in the foot with our tourists coming to Vermont and spending money by making it inconvenient and insecure putting their purchases into flimsy paper bags that everybody but the politically elite know is waiting for an excuse to tear? People come here to pay attention to the beauty of Vermont's wild lands -when they can see them through the turbines of the bird killing wind mill paddles! They want some release from the continual regimentation of modern, urban life. They did not come here to get pushed around by the Brattlebo selectboard!
     Stand up, Vermonters! You do have a spine!
Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68