put this in your pipe and smoke it

There’s a new initiative in my town to pass an ordinance that would make it illegal for someone to smoke in their cars when children are with them.

Hhhmmmm, I say. And then I say I don’t think so.

Let me be clear that I’m not a smoker and get sick as two dogs breathing in nicotine fumes. I smoked for about a year in high school until one day I took a long pull off my cigarette, felt myself turn green, my head swirled to such an extent that I had to lie down or do a face plant off the bleachers. My stomach felt like it was about to eject the cafeteria food I had just eaten. It took a good fifteen minutes before I could even think straight. I never smoked again as from then on the smell of cigarette smoke makes me want to puke.

After we moved into our house I put a ban on all smoking inside. My husband wasn’t pleased because at the time he smoked and would have to go outside for his nic fix. Too bad. I grew up in a smoking household and didn’t want that in my home. So I understand the intent behind this push.

All that said, I still say No Thank You to an effort that further intrudes on my personal space by my local government, good intentions or not. You weren’t elected to legislate my lifestyle or personal choices. You were elected to represent the town and make it a better place for the residents.

If you’re a smoker and smoke in a closed environment with your kids, well frankly, I think you’re an idiot and could benefit from some nicotine addiction intervention but I respect and defend your right to be an idiot in your personal space. You’re still an idiot and would deserve that ticket if this ordinance somehow sees the light of day.

Yes, I believe second hand smoke is dangerous to children, but I still do not think my personal space should be legislated to this extreme. Enough already.

I have a few suggestions on what should be handled first before my local government goes poking its slippery intrusive fingers into my personal space. Once you can show me you’re all capable of accomplishing some of these things, then may, just maybe I’ll take your intrusion into my personal space a little more seriously. Until then, I can't view this ordinance as something that produces any tangible township change for the better.

Fix the budget. Get your collective town council shit together and deal with the budget issues without all the partisan infighting that seems to basically stall our local administrative process. Think about implementing what is best for our town and the residents and stop gnawing on what will benefit you in the next election or poking a stick in your opposing party’s eye. All this drama has stopped being mildly entertaining and moved into the pathetic space of self serving political bullshit.

Get some damn sidewalks built in this town. Seriously. We’re a large township with some 50,000+ residents and safe walk ways along busy roads and neighborhoods is a damn good idea.

Bring in some decent ratable businesses. Stop being so freaking closed minded and start crafting a more competitive appeal to businesses so the town benefits from the taxes. As it is, businesses mostly avoid our growing burg because we make it so damn difficult to do business here and the political infighting makes the morons in Washington look like pre-schooler’s fighting over a toy. We’re losing decent business opportunities to neighboring communities because we can’t get our shit together.

Stop the senseless antagonism between the police force and the township administration. It is unproductive. All of it. There are changes needed in both buildings to stream line payroll, efficiencies and behaviors. Grow up and act like adults and fix this relationship. This would be refreshing.

Engage in active fundraising to conceptualize and build a recreation center for the teen population in our town that does not have a place to congregate with township support. We build parks for the younger kids, sports fields for the kids on teams, but leave a large population of our teens without any centralized location to gather. A town of our size and population should have a more vigorous community center with a pool to gather revenue, a teen recreation center that offers volunteers the opportunity to provide mentoring, job coaching, and other community sponsored initiatives. Perhaps, in my idealistic vision, such a center might foster community give back by the residence and kids who take part. The skate park that required attention became a politicized circus before it was finally reopened for the kids in the town. Leave it to a bunch of self serving politically ambitious attention hounds to muck up something good.

That’s just a start.

Until any of those issues show positive signs of progress, don’t even bother asking me to get behind an ordinance like this one. I expect a more township global vision from the elected council members in my town and am disappointed at the energy spent promoting something like this when our budget is such that furloughs had to be enacted to save money, recycling had to be consolidated to twice a month rather than weekly (not that I’m overly bothered by this as my taxes still pay for it and I don’t have to truck it to the recycling center myself), our town is underrepresented by police coverage and lacks a cooperative town government that thinks beyond the individuals.

This is just my opinion of course and for all I know there's a plethora of people out there that will do a happy dance at the idea of this change. In truth though, this gets my back up as I view it as an unnecessary intrusion. Are the intentions based on genuine concern? Absolutely. I still see it as an encroachment of my individual freedoms and an invacy of personal choice. I'm a little tired of politicians feeling they can continually pick off pieces of personal choice just because they can. Or because they have a personal religious stance and use that as in their government decisions.

Engough already. Get back to the business of government.