Springs resident Katie Healy has an idea about how to fund local government.She’s not an elected official or a member of an appointed board. But she reads a lot, and her inquisitive mind wonders if plastic shopping bags could render more gold unto Caesar.She notes that Ireland imposed a 15-cent tax per bag in 2002, which resulted in cutting their use by more than 90 percent. It also raised 3.5 million euros ($5.4 million) in the first five months, the BBC reported. The money goes to environmental programs.People can avoid the “plastax” by simply reusing plastic bags they have or buying reusable ones.Ireland isn’t alone. Several other countries banned plastic bags, and now the fee idea has hit our shores.Last month, the Seattle City Council approved a 20-cent fee, starting in January, for each disposable paper or plastic bag used at grocery, drug and convenience stores in efforts to reduce the trash sent to landfills, the Seattle Times reported. The city expects to generate $3.5 million a year for recycling and program costs.That got Healy’s attention. A selfdescribed conservative who’s not “a greenie,” she detests seeing bags whirl through the city and countryside.”You see them stuck in trees and fences, clogging street drainage systems and lots of them around stores littering fields,” she said.She sent the “plastax” idea to the City Council and got two replies. Councilwoman Jan Martin wrote, “I don’t think that this sort of idea is too far fetched in these days of financial strain.”But Mayor Lionel Rivera dismissed it, saying voter approval would be required.”The mayor just dismisses everything,” she said. “The others didn’t even respond. Whenever Joe Schmo sends an e-mail, it’s just blown off.”But hold on. The Stormwater Enterprise fee, regarded as a tax by many, didn’t require voter approval. The council simply imposed it.That was different, Rivera said. The council supported it, and the Supreme Court has ruled stormwater fees aren’t taxes, he said.The council doesn’t support a plastic bag fee, he said, although he hasn’t discussed it with the council. If citizens want to initiate a fee, they can collect the necessary 13,000 signatures to place it on the ballot, Rivera said.Although Healy is disappointed the concept didn’t get more traction, she thinks getting billions of nonbiodegradable bags out of Mother Nature’s hair is an idea whose time has come.”We will be doing this very soon,” she predicted, “within five years.”

Alive and kickingFrom the “whatever happened to him” file, former El Paso County Attorney Mike Lucas is doing fine four years after being sent packing.Lucas is a hearing officer for the Colorado Department of Revenue, handling sales tax cases.Back in 2002, he was on thin ice after advising that a plan to give commissioners $500 monthly mileage payments probably was illegal. That didn’t sit well with at least one commissioner who didn’t want to hassle with documenting miles. The flat-rate plan would have cost taxpayers more than twice the amount paid for documented mileage.Later, the commissioners didn’t take kindly to Lucas hiring his sister to work in his office, and he was bagged in 2004.Paid $10,000 to leave, Lucas has moved on and looks fit as a fiddle in his pink shirt and charcoal suit. “I stayed a year too long at the county,” he said.-Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazettedev.gazette.com

Rick Chamblee, sales representative for BASF, a chemical company, explained soybean growing to visitors of Kip Cullers’ farm on Wednesday. Cullers makes his growing tactics seem almost deceptively simple. Photo by (AP)