The thin-plastic bag ban that would have been put into effect on January 1st, 2013, has been vetoed by Homer's Mayor James Hornaday.

The ban that was voted on and passed on August 27th, didn’t make it past the mayor’s desk on Friday when the Homer Mayor determined that the “issue needs to come back to the council for more work.”

The ban, meant to reduce litter in the community by decreasing the use of plastic bags, specifically bags with a thickness of 2.25 mils or less, would not have affected the use and distribution of bags with a greater thickness.

Now the Homer City Council has until September 28th to re-consider the ban and possibly vote on over-riding Mayor Hornaday’s veto. The prospects of that happening are pretty minimal. The ban didn’t make it through the first vote and barely made it through the City Council’s second vote when it passed 4-2.

A simple motion and a second is all that is required to consider an over-ride of the Mayor’s veto, but a two-thirds majority of the City Council’s six members would be needed to over-ride the veto. One of the City Council members that introduced the ban to the council will be absent from the meeting on Monday.

If the City Council fails to over-ride the veto by September 28th, the Mayor’s veto will stand and the new ban on thin-plastic bags will not take effect in January. No changes can be made to the ban ordinance. If changes are to be made, a new ordinance will have to be written up and voted on.

Safeway, Homer’s leading grocery outlet, and one of three in the community, already has a recycling program in place for the plastic bags that it distributes to its customers.