It takes a lot of courage to stand up. I’m proud of my city council representative Claude Francke for standing up to the mayor and entire City Council on the plastic bag ban (“Waterville council votes to suspend plastic bag ordinance,” March 31).

I have no issues with having the ban suspended during the state of the emergency in the city, but I don’t understand why, after the emergency has ended, the ban couldn’t go back into effect. This should be a temporary suspension of the ban, not Waterville ceding, ever subtly, a portion of its home rule to Augusta.

Waterville was always ahead of the state on the bag ban, and I’m disappointed that other councilors so readily agreed to disregard the will of the voters even after the emergency has passed.

Rien Finch

Waterville