It took five months, but Richmond City Council is finally putting its anti-plastic stance on record.

In a quick vote Monday, City Council approved a resolution calling on City Hall, city residents and local businesses to do all they can to reduce the use of plastic straws, water bottles, balloons and other polluting, single-use plastic products.

The council also passed a resolution, at the request of Mayor Levar M. Stoney, to condemn the use of quack, faith-based and psychological techniques aimed at converting homosexual men and women into heterosexuals.

That action, along with passage of a resolution expressing disapproval of City Attorney Allen L. Jackson’s decision to appeal a case that had settled to the state Supreme Court, came on a night when the council also:

• Gave the green light to the 125-year- old St. Andrew’s School in Oregon Hill to renovate the former William Byrd House at 224 S. Cherry St. into expansion space for its operations. The approval also allows St. Andrew’s to team with the YWCA to operate a day care that will include space for babies and additional space for the Sprout program.

Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District, said once the building is renovated, it will help with the large, unmet demand from working mothers for quality child care centers for their babies.

• Cleared the way for the Richmond portion of the “Fulton Yards” project to be created on 20 acres near Rocketts Landing in the East End. The approval will allow the developers to build 216 new apartments in the 200 block of Orleans Street.

The potential $120 million project is to straddle the city’s boundary with Henrico County and is to include more than 500 apartments when complete.

While the vote on plastics was unanimous, the resolution can only be described as far weaker than the action of other cities around the country that are imposing bans on single-use plastics, most notably straws, in a bid to reduce the disposal of plastic into oceans, rivers, lakes and streams.

However, Richmond and other Virginia communities currently lack authority from the General Assembly to impose bans and can only seek to raise awareness, according to Mr. Agelasto, who, along with1st District Councilman Andreas D. Addison and 4th District Councilwoman Kristen N. Larson, introduced the legislation in late March.

The resolution cleared council’s Education and Health Committee on July 25, with all nine City Council members signing on as co-patrons.

The simple declaration of support for reducing the use of single-use plastics got held up after the Clean City Commission objected to the council taking action without input from the anti-litter and recycling promotion advisory group.

The resolution has been amended to include wording the commission recommended, along with a reminder that the resolution is another step in the environmental protection effort the council began in 2012.

In addition to calling on people and businesses to “switch from plastic straws to compostable, reusable or paper straws,” the resolution also urges people to use memorials such as planting a tree, spreading birdseed or installing a bench rather than releasing balloons.

It also urges the city to provide at public events water stations for refilling plastic water bottles to reduce the number thrown away; to substantially reduce purchases of single-use plastics; to encourage the use of reusable grocery and store bags; and to install convenient recycling receptacles where possible.

The conversion therapy resolution, which originated with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, was offered in Richmond by Mayor Stoney for City Council approval.

The resolution, also unenforceable, decries as bogus any practices or treatments “that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” noting that “being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is part of the spectrum of human identity and is not a disease, disorder or illness” that therapy can correct.

The resolution notes that nearly 700,000 people, about half of whom are teens, have been subjected to such therapies. It puts the city and the council on record as supporting the prohibition of such practices in Richmond and across the state.

On the legal front, the council passed Mr. Agelasto’s resolution scolding retiring City Attorney Allen L. Jackson for wasting money to appeal a Richmond Circuit Court decision that prevented his office from withholding information on the Navy Hill-Coliseum replacement project from a private citizen that was previously released to the daily newspaper.

The case was settled before the court’s decision, but Mr. Jackson is seeking to challenge the decision as invalid and an attack on his office’s previously unfettered authority to control the flow of city information required to be released under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.