Should Familiarity with City Laws be a Prerequisite for City Officials?

[XLFD]

A troop of Girl Scouts out of Turlock, CA learn that their community has received a grade of 'F' from the American Lung Association as far as 'tobacco control' was concerned, as you can see they have a long way to go to totally control tobacco in the county:

 

The conversation of a smoking ban in Turlock parks began in August when the Girls Scouts of Troop 3289 presented a request to the Parks, Art, and Recreation Commission to consider taking steps towards creating a healthier environment at local parks by forbidding smoking.

 

In their second presentation in September they presented their concerns to the city council:

 

“Unfortunately, Turlock has done almost the minimum requirements for our parks,” one Girl Scout read from a prepared statement. “Don’t the children that play at our parks deserve more protection than that?”

 

The minimum is that smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of a playground and cigarettes butts cannot be disposed within the same 25 feet.

The Girl Scouts said they have received support from community members, already receiving 198 signatures on a petition in support of the smoking ban.  The Girl Scouts argued for a complete ban of smoking in all parks, including the ban of smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes. Fitzgerald added that this has recently been implemented in Patterson, making it the first Stanislaus County city to adopt a comprehensive tobacco-free parks policy (as reported in The Turlock City News)

 

 

Then abruptly two months later, as revealed in the October 9 Turlock City News:

 

At the commission meeting on Tuesday Parks, Recreation & Public Facilities Superintendent Erik Schulze revealed that a resolution prohibiting smoking has been in place since 2003 when the Turlock Regional Sports Complex was established.

“In our research over the last month we were trying to figure out why our sports complex — the soccer fields — had a no smoking ban but none of our other parks did. Due to our research we came across a council resolution from back in 2003 and within that council resolution there was a banning of smoking in parks and parking lots — all parks and parking lots,” explained Shulze. “For whatever reason after the council took action on that item there was never any enforcement, never any signs posted... While the former commission and council approved the banning of smoking, which Shulze says is enforceable according to the city attorney, for the sake of transparency Shulze is preparing a full report for the present commissioners to look over before proceeding further.

 

 

Two months of Girl Scouts going door to door without selling cookies, just getting names on park tobacco control petitions, discussing the issues at various city commissions without anybody familiar with a resolution younger than most of the Girl Scouts, until someone finally discovers the problem was already acted upon but never enforced since 2003.

 

If the Turlock Girl Scout troop learned anything valuable here as concerns city politics, it certainly wasn't the lesson the troop leaders were shooting for.  City Councilors and County Commissioners need to be familiar with the local laws or else they can easily pass new ones that duplicate or contradict them.

[Willy]

These google eyed liberals are as phony as a $30 bill. Banning smoking outside in a park? Stupid is as stupid does. There are far more chemicals coming from the tailpipes of the motor vehicles that pass parks continuously everyday than a few puffs of smoke which are exhaled from a smokers lungs. These greenies who are trying to run everyone else's lives should stop and look at how pathetic their own lives are. I'm not talking about the girl scouts, I'm talking about the girl scout adult leaders and the American lung association of California. The fact that the town already banned cigarette smoke outdoors shows how long idiocy has reigned in Turlock. A lack of common sense has never stopped a progressive from acting like the 21th century communists they are.