Published: July 09, 2008 08:02 am            

Board of health blowing smoke

Readers Views

Dear Editor:

While Pulaski Countians enjoyed the pretty weather and maybe a nice summer barbecue on the evening of June 24th, they had no idea their rights to good government (and public health) were being compromised in Russell Springs when the Lake Cumberland District Board of Health held its summer meeting.

Included in the matters before the board were approval of a budget, new projects, employee salaries for the next fiscal year—and a resolution to support continued second hand smoke education in the community. Such a resolution was taken to all 10 boards of health at the county level from February through May and eight of the 10 county boards passed it.

However, strong-armed tactics by Board Chairman and County Judge Executive Tim Hicks from Cumberland County undermined the proper consideration of the resolution at the District level. He even refused a request from three different people made to Lake Cumberland District Health Department Director, Shawn Crabtree, to explain the distinction (and it’s a big one) between a resolution and a regulation—and the difference is huge.

The motion made by Dr. Robert Drake, of Somerset, to pass a resolution to support the continued education of the community about second hand smoke and the encouragement of businesses to go smoke free would have had no weight of law. Had it passed, such a resolution would not have instituted a “smoking ban” as was implied by Hicks and repeated by several misinformed Board members. Hicks refusal to permit Crabtree to clarify this important point disabused Board members from making an informed choice when voting and of course in that light, the motion was voted down. But this is not the worst of what took place.

It is never proper for the Chairman of a Board to make a motion; his/her role is to preside and assure fair consideration of all business before the group—this is especially true of public boards such as this one. Chairman Hicks did the next best thing—he “proposed” that this issue not be brought up again unless two-thirds of the Board signs a petition requesting it and the Board be given 90 days notice. The quick motion and second by two of his judge executive confederates brought the motion up for consideration. (If you want to stifle discussion of an issue, this is the way to do it.)

To add salt to the wounds dealt democracy, Hicks tried to call for a vote without permitting discussion, blatantly disregarding board member Dr. Bruce Jasper’s request to speak. Only an outcry from the audience prevented an immediate vote. When I stated that “This is not correct procedure,” Hicks looked me straight in the eye and said “Lady, we make our OWN rules.” Dr. Jasper finally got to say what all fair minded people thought, “This is just not right. It is obvious what is going on here—this is just railroading, pure and simple.”

Lake Cumberland District Health Department Medical Director Dr. Christine Weyman said it for all of us when she stood up and cried “This is a HEALTH board! Are you telling us we cannot discuss issues of public health?” Both Weymans’s view and that of many of us in attendance were voted down, as good ole boy politics and Hicks’proxies from two other judge executives—including Pulaski’s Judge Barty Bullock’s—won out. At least for that night. It remains to be seen if Hicks’ manipulation of the public board’s agenda is legal.

The Center for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and all recent Surgeon General’s reports state that the poisons in second hand smoke are disastrous to our health. Communities which have enacted clean indoor air ordinances enjoy the benefits of lowered emergency room admissions for cardiovascular illnesses and asthma and any number of health problems. Yet OUR community is held hostage to what amounts to nothing but politics—and bad politics at that.

We have nothing to fear from second hand smoke ordinances and everything to gain. Smokers can still smoke if they want to—just not where one person’s decision to smoke affects another person’s right to breath clean indoor air. Throughout the U.S. and in Kentucky we see that second hand smoke ordinances do NOT hurt business, and they HELP the public’s health.

As much as its opponents might claim that clean indoor air ordinances are in opposition to personal property rights, it “just ain’t so”. No business owner has a right to do business if in doing so he exposes his own workers and his customers to dangerous conditions. We trust the health department to regulate food, to regulate water and sewage, to protect us from tuberculosis. If our local governments will not require clean, indoor air—it’s up to our health department to mandate it.

As President Franklin Roosevelt wisely said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself!”—that and good old boy politics and ignorance.



Sincerely,

Gloria Sams

Somerset, Ky.

        

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