photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A cart of groceries in plastic bags is pictured Thursday, June 30, 2022, at a Lawrence grocery store.

City leaders indicated Tuesday that they are interested in further discussing regulations on single-use plastic bags, with the idea of an outright ban or a fee remaining on the table.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission received a recently approved recommendation from the city’s Sustainability Advisory Board to ban single-use plastic bags provided at checkout at businesses and begin an educational campaign about their environmental impact. Commissioners didn’t indicate specifically whether they were in favor of the recommendation for a ban, rather than a fee, but agreed that they would like city staff to review options and bring the topic back to the commission for further discussion.

Mayor Courtney Shipley said she would like to have city staff, including city legal staff, look into the issue, and other commissioners agreed. Vice Mayor Lisa Larsen said she thought city staff could give the commission more information about what’s workable when it comes to a ban or fee, review the board’s draft ordinance, and then bring the topic back to the commission for consideration.

“I think that would be a good way to start this off, is to send it to staff to start the process of getting into it, and seeing how it would work based on the information that the board has provided them,” Larsen said.

Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said that although some more information would be helpful, the city has looked at both prospects in the past, and that ultimately it was a policy decision that would rest with the commission. Commissioner Amber Sellers said that as it currently stood, she questioned the proposal for a ban because she thought it would impact vulnerable residents the most, but otherwise commissioners didn’t indicate which regulations, if any, they would support. Sellers also said she’d like to hear more from the board regarding the rationale for its recommendation of a ban over a fee.

The discussion on plastic-bag regulations began in 2018, and the city has discussed outright bans as well as fees. The commission previously discussed a proposal that would require businesses to charge their customers a 15-cent fee for plastic and paper bags. The board recently took up the issue again at the commission’s request and moved away from the idea of a fee. The board voted in June to recommend an ordinance that would ban single-use plastic bags provided by grocery stores and other businesses.

The board’s draft ordinance prohibits single-use disposable plastic bags, defined as any bag less than 4 mils thick — about the thickness of a piece of paper — provided to a consumer by an establishment for the purpose of transporting food, beverages, goods or other merchandise. The ordinance would cover grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses that provide single-use bags at checkout. It would not include single-use plastic bags used for produce or reusable bags made of plastic that are designed for repeated use.

The proposed ordinance calls for the ban to begin nine months after the ordinance is passed, and it would require businesses that provide single-use plastic bags to put up signs making their customers aware of the upcoming change that also include some information about the environmental and other impacts of plastic bags. The ordinance calls for compliance to be monitored by the city and for fines to be assessed to establishments that don’t comply. The board decided that a more specific recommendation regarding how the ordinance should be enforced should come from city staff.

City Manager Craig Owens said that he expected the issue could come back to the commission within a month or two.

In other business:

• Commissioners discussed two other recommendations from the Sustainability Advisory Board. One is a recommendation regarding how the city handles noxious weeds, invasive plants and landscaping, and commissioners agreed they would like staff to review the recommendation. The other recommends that the commission reconsider its decision to use natural (methane) gas to heat the new city bus station and instead use an electric-based system. City staff said that because it was so late in the process, updating plans to an electric-based system would cause significant cost and delay. Commissioners agreed the city should proceed as planned, but expressed interest in the city developing a policy for those decisions in the future.

• Discussion was ongoing as of 10:45 p.m. regarding an ordinance to establish a long-term version of a program that has temporarily allowed downtown businesses to construct patios and outdoor dining areas in downtown parking stalls.

• The commission was also scheduled to consider notifying Douglas County of its intent to propose a tax rate of 33.367 mills for the 2023 budget, which is .077 mills higher than the current tax rate owing to the Lawrence Public Library board’s decision to increase its mill levy rate by that amount. The proposed rate represents the city’s maximum expenditures for the 2023 budget. Once the maximum is set, the commission may lower it later in the budget process but cannot increase it. The commission will hold the public hearing for the budget on Aug. 23.