[C-U Smokefree] Update on County Board of Health

[Scott P Hays]

Dan, Kathy G, and myself, along with Alliance member and County Board of Health member Dr. Tom O'Rourke appeared before the County Board of Health tonight to encourage them to sign on to our resolution.  After some discussion, and gettting the sense that the County Health Board was supportive overall, the Board voted to defer a vote on the resolution until their March meeting.  

Moreover, we've been indirectly charged by them with taking this to the C-U Public Health Board for their approval first.  We were anticipating the County Health Board would be willing to take a leadership role on this issue and take a principled stand to support us, but we were mistaken = for now, at least.  Unortunately, they would seem to prefer to follow - not lead - the C-U Board of Health.  However disappointing, we should get our chance again in March.  

But I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that the experience tonight reminded me that this effort will neither be easy nor painless.  

When we began this effort with our meeting last October, I had told myself that if nobody showed up I would simply walk away from it.  Even though I knew that this community ought to be supportive, I thought if the citizens of Champaign and Urbana do not support this idea, then I'm not willing to invest my time to fight this fight myself.  But people did show up.  And more have continued to show up. And more and more organizations have signed our supporters' resolution.

We're growing, and there are people in our community who believe in us and our cause, and its a good cause.  

As every new organization signs a supporter's resolution and every new citizen signs our petition, my sense of commitment and obligation to those citizens in our communities who truly do care about this issue and are not afraid to speak out about it continues to grow. 

The picture in front of us is not pretty.  At this point, we have still seen very little concrete indication that our public officials - or even our public health boards - are behind us. The editorial staff of our main newspaper would seem to be against us.  We can't even seem to convince a Health Board dominated by seeming supporters to sign a resolution that doesn't really even commit them to actually do anything.

I think that we would certainly be justified in taking the advice of our "supporters" up in that big city to the North, admit that "we're not ready," as they say, fold up shop and walk away before we put too much of ourselves into this.  We could, justifiably I think, decide to do that.

But if we decide against that particular course of action and we decide that throwing up our hands in defeat is not an option then we have to be committed to 100% success in the face of what is likely to become a significant struggle.  Mount Everest is still in front of us, and we still haven't been able to hire the first Sherpa.  

In a few years, people will take for granted dining, drinking, and enjoying great entertainment smokefree.  They'll likely forget all about us, and wonder what all the fuss was ever about.  And I look forward to the day when I can drive into the cities of Champaign and Urbana and see the sign that says "Welcome to Champaign and Urbana - the Smoke-Free Twin Cities!"

Thanks to all of our volunteers and supporters,

Scott