LTE- Chris Picior

I’m on the initiative petition committee that filed the Mesquite Citizens Initiative for Clean Indoor Air and I need to address the continued misinformation that has appeared in this newspaper.

When we decided to move forward with filing an initiative petition, we knew we should expect some opposition and we expected a robust debate. The initiative was never the route we wanted to take or thought should be taken to protect all workers and others from deadly tobacco smoke. However, after trying to get City Council to address this public health problem, we knew taking this to the voters was the only chance. Many of the city council members recommended this approach.

We have been unprepared for the vitriol: challenging coalition members who’ve volunteered their time to collect signatures to protect our residents; making unfounded claims; and spreading misinformation.

For the last 7 years, the Citizens for Clean Indoor Air was funded with grants through the Southern Nevada Health District and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights. Those funds have supported an education and advocacy coalition and have helped pay for the paid media you’ve seen in the newspapers and on billboards, the website that was developed, and the efforts we, and our partners from health agencies, have undertaken to educate the general public and decision makers. The goal of that effort was always to encourage action to protect public health and decrease death and disease. We firmly believed then and now that the council should do their job and pass a comprehensive ordinance to protect Mesquite residents from secondhand smoke exposure. We were always transparent with these efforts and none of these funds have been used for lobbying in any form.

When the Mesquite City Council decided this spring, following the presentation of the UNLV economic research study by the Southern Nevada Health District, that they would not even allow this to be publicly debated, as we requested, a small group of Mesquite residents needed to find a different way if we were going to protect public health.

This new effort is called the Mesquite Citizens Initiative for Clean Indoor Air, separate from the coalition. This initiative effort has been grassroots driven, with Mesquite residents collecting signatures on their own time, as volunteers. This is how committed we are to saving lives. We’ve received informal free advice from many health groups but otherwise this has been a volunteer effort. To suggest that these efforts are illegal in some way is at best disingenuous and at worse shameful.

We have openly sought advice from the Mesquite City Clerk, the Clark County Registrar of Voters, the Nevada Secretary of State, the Clark County Clerk’s office, and a number of other agencies to get this right. We have never attempted to mislead voters or subvert laws or hide anything, but in an attempt to discredit this entire process, this paper has continued to publish articles questioning the integrity of our efforts.

It’s time to clear the air in more ways than one.

As it appeared in the MLN:

I’m on the initiative petition committee that filed the Mesquite Citizens Initiative for Clean Indoor Air and I need to address the continued misinformation that has appeared in this newspaper.

For the last 7 years, the Citizens for Clean Indoor Air was funded with grants through the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights. Those funds have supported an education and advocacy coalition and have helped pay for paid media you’ve seen in newspapers and on billboards, a website that was developed, and the efforts the coalition, and our partners from health agencies, have undertaken to educate the public and decision makers. The goal of that effort was always to encourage action to protect public health and decrease death and disease. We firmly believed then and now that the council should do their job and pass a comprehensive ordinance to protect Mesquite residents from secondhand smoke exposure.

When the Mesquite City Council decided this spring, following the presentation of the UNLV economic research study by SNHD, that they would not even allow a public debate, a small group of Mesquite residents looked for a new way.

This new effort is called the Mesquite Citizens Initiative for Clean Indoor Air, separate from the coalition. This initiative effort has been grassroots driven, with Mesquite residents collecting signatures on their own time, as volunteers. This is how committed we are to saving lives. We’ve received informal free advice from many health groups but otherwise this has been a volunteer effort. To suggest that these efforts are illegal in some way is at best disingenuous and at worse shameful.

In an attempt to discredit this entire process, this paper has continued to publish articles questioning the integrity of our efforts.

It’s time to clear the air in more ways than one.