Solid public service improves the quality of life. In the wake of this month’s election, we remember the effort, careful consideration and fortitude involved in a landmark piece of local public policy.
In June, the Vigo County commissioners voted unanimously for a comprehensive clean indoor-air ordinance. That decision by commissioners Paul Mason, Judy Anderson and Mike Ciolli created one of the most thoroughly discussed policies ever enacted in this community. The idea of making all indoor workplaces smokefree first came up in January 2003 at a Vigo County Board of Health meeting. After three years of public meetings and debate, the commissioners approved the clean-air ordinance in 2006.
Rather than taking effect immediately, the law became official a year later, on July 1, 2007. It also allowed restaurants to create separate smoking rooms, if desired, and gave bars and taverns a five-year exemption in preparation for going smokefree on July 1, 2012. In the meantime, the Terre Haute City Council passed a comprehensive clean-air law last year, also to take effect on July 1, 2012. The commissioners’ vote in June made the city and county policies match.
A process involving more than nine years of public deliberation had reached fruition.
One of the three commissioners who cast those votes in June, Mason, will leave office at the end of the year, having lost a close election to Republican challenger Brad Anderson. Mason served as a good listener throughout the long, nine-year journey of the clean indoor-air ordinance from an idea to a full-scale reality. He raised questions about several concerns, representing both sides of the issue along the way. His cautious approach — along with those of other commissioners — resulted in its slow, gradual
implementation.
The objections to the ordinance, faced by the commissioners, included those from some members of private clubs and veterans posts, who argued those entities should be able to allow smoking if that was their choice. The commissioners, though, had to also consider the interests of all involved, including the quieter voices of veterans with health problems that prevent them from visiting a smoke-filled atmosphere. The vote was not easy for Mason, a Vietnam veteran who said he sympathized with the opponents’ arguments.
“It’s a little hard, as far as being a veteran and some of the veterans out there talking about what their concerns were,” Mason said on the day of the vote. “But, I think that when we raised our hands to be selected to go in the service, we raised our hands for all of the people. So I think we did the right choice.”
As his 14 years of service as a commissioner come to a close, Mason deserves praise for the courage shown through his votes for clean-air policies. The health of employees and patrons at local workplaces will improve through reduced exposure to harmful secondhand smoke. Lives will remain productive, and many will be spared from early death.
Two medical studies released last month — one by Mayo Clinic, and another by the University of California — concluded that clean indoor-air laws in the U.S. have resulted in fewer tobacco-related hospital visits and deaths, especially through lower heart-attack rates. Vigo County ranks near the bottom third in the state in premature deaths (before age 75), according to a national county health index compiled annually the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Inside those statistics are thousands of real local people with real families, enduring real suffering and heartache, year after year.
Future generations will thank Mason and his fellow commissioners for making the right choice.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Appreciation for courageous stand
Mason, fellow commissioners deserve credit
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EDITORIAL: Cleaning up voter rolls
It’s not a lot of money in the big scheme of things, but the $2 million designated in the recent session of the General Assembly will begin the messy but necessary process of cleaning up Indiana’s voter registration rolls.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
There is a reason it’s called “illegal” dumping. It’s against the law. And there is a very good reason illegal dumping is against the law.
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Season of Day 2s arrives
Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.
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