Is Smoke Free Indy Playing with Fire?
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or under a rock you know I am not a big fan of expanding the current Indianapolis smoking ban because, like 81-percent of the rest of Marion County, I think the current compromise works just fine. Adults can exercise their choice and decide whether they want to work or patronize one of the one-percent of the places in Marion County that allow smoking. So with that said, allow me to ask what’s up with Smoke Free Indy (SFIndy), the main proponents of the smoking ban.
I ask this because SFIndy is getting up to $71,000 of your money for its activities, which lately have started to look a lot more like politically attacking elected officials and going after political parties rather advocating a smoke free workplace. Allow me to explain.
First of all, SFIndy is not your usual advocacy group. It’s not a not-for-profit, nor a registered lobbying group. It’s not even a 527. It’s a collection of about 30 organizations who are registered somewhere, but SFIndy itself isn’t. So first of all we have an organization that’s not registered anywhere getting up to $71,000 of taxpayer money.
Second, the $71,000 in taxpayer money comes from Indiana tobacco settlement dollars. Pay close attention, because this part can get confusing. Indiana dolls out tobacco settlement dollars and one of those agencies that distribute money is Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation. Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation gives money to the Marion County Health Department. The Marion County Health Department gives money to the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians and Clarian Health Partners. Clarian has a contract to promote anti-tobacco activities, but the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians is the home office for the non-registered SFIndy on Monument Circle and employs SFIndy’s staff. The Academy of Family Physicians contract runs through September 2010.
So what, you might say. There are lots of groups that aren’t “registered” with any state, federal or local office and engage in community activism. True . But how many of those unregistered groups are getting up to $71,000 of your money to lobby your government to promote ending an activity that a significant majority of you don’t think is a problem? Exactly!
And to make life even more interesting, It appears SFIndy has been engaging in activities that some people might think would warrant a look by the Marion County Prosecutor’s office or at the least the State Board of Accounts to make sure they’re kosher. There’s this rule that government funds can’t be used for political purposes, especially when it comes to politically attacking elected officials and political parties.
By my count SFIndy looks like it’s done both. SFIndy used its Facebook page to go after Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on the smoking ban; some of which I’ve seen could have been written by Ed Treacy. And SFIndy used its blog page to do a pretty blatant political attack on the Libertarian Party of Indiana. And Lord only knows what they’re doing on Twitter. No offense folks, but I thought SFIndy was supposed to engage in advocacy not political activity. And what’s really interesting is that all of sudden the questionable material started to disappear when I started making phone calls asking for copies of invoices SFIndy has submitted to local governments for reimbursement. And if I was one of those 30 organizations that received federal funding, SFIndy’s activities might be jeopardizing my status because the federal government doesn’t like it when organizations get federal funds which could be channeled to political activity no matter how remote the connection may appear to be; that little thing called the Hatch Act.
For the record, I did place a call to the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians. So far my message has not been returned.
Now if SFIndy wants to use taxpayer money to promote a smoke-free workplace, that’s one thing. I have no problem with education, encouraging bar owners to go smoke free, doing job boards that promote smoke free workplaces, etc. But when you cross the line and engage in what look like pretty blatant political attacks on elected officials and political parties, that’s something else. In some places it’s called criminal. At the very least here in Indianapolis, it should be called highly suspect and warrant an investigation.
Smoke Free Indy Organizational Partners
