Case Studies
Local Comprehensive Clean Indoor Air Ordinance in
Texas
Lessons Learned
What were the
important elements to the intervention's success?
A
collaborative, unified approach throughout the campaign.
The coalition’s motto could be described as "check your
organizational turf and egos at the door" – everyone was
working toward a common goal. There must be a unified
approach to this type of campaign. It cannot be led by
one agency, but rather it must be community-based and
owned.
Sought training on policy and media advocacy for the
coalition’s ordinance task force members. Received
technical assistance and support from ANR, the CDC, the
voluntary health agencies, and from other local
coalitions with experience working on smoke-free
ordinances (in particular, the Las Cruces NM coalition).
Built a diverse coalition, drawing from many sections of
the community (e.g., health groups, law enforcement,
educational groups, church groups, public agencies).
Youth component. The coalition recruited and developed
youth leaders and empowered the youth coalition to set
its own goals for the ordinance campaign. The youth were
vital to the letter-writing campaign, held a rally the
day of the council vote, and their testimony at the
public hearing was extremely persuasive to city council
members.
Found and cultivated a strong champion on the city
council. Councilman Medina was passionate and
enthusiastic in his support for the ordinance, stayed in
close communication with the coalition about
developments and strategy, and brooked no compromises.
Proactive efforts with the media. The coalition
developed key speaking points and distributed them to
committed activists. It provided the media with
background information, facts, and statistics and
monitored media coverage (responding immediately to any
negative press). A letter-writing campaign to the local
paper generated more than 7,000 letters to the editor
(letters were cc:d to the City ).
Describe the policy
and/or program interventions applicability/replicability
to other sites, and include recommendations for other
sites.
The El Paso campaign is an
excellent example of a grassroots campaign. It relied on
direct organizing to identify, recruit and mobilize
supporters, and involved relatively little paid media or
paid advocacy efforts. These broad lessons from this
campaign are transferable to other communities. In
addition, the El Paso Coalition serves as a model for
developing a diverse, representative coalition in a
predominantly Mexican American community.
The only caution to coalitions considering the El Paso
experience is that the time frame to educate the
community and organize grassroots support was
considerably compressed, due to factors outside the
Coalition’s control. Ideally, coalitions will have more
time to educate the public and decision makers, and
recruit and mobilize grassroots supporters.
Describe the
challenges faced, and below each challenge, describe any
solutions used to correct or reduce the problem.
Challenge: The ordinance was launched by health and
environmental district well in advance of the
coalition’s readiness to run a campaign. The coalition
had planned to spend more than a year educating and
organizing before formally introducing an ordinance
before the city council. The campaign also was overtaken
by city Council elections.
Solutions: Worked with the health and
environmental district to slow down its process as much
as possible. Was clear with people recruited to the
ordinance task force that it was a serious time
commitment. Met several times a week to adjust campaign
activities based on recent events. Attended candidate
forums to keep support for the ordinance visible.
Challenge: Business community saying "you have no
right to regulate; you’re imposing on business and
private property rights."
Solutions: Got hospitality workers involved to
shift the focus back to the health issues. Rhetorical
response to this is "The government already regulates
business to protect public health, that’s why we have
things like food handling and fire safety laws, this
isn’t any different."
Challenge: Occasional inaccurate coverage in the
press.
Solutions: Followed-up with reporter, provided
the facts to set the record straight.
Challenge: Volunteers who were passionate, to the
point of being aggressive and confrontational.
Solutions: Emphasized "facts not emotion" with
volunteers. While passion is good, and personal stories
compelling, The coalition trained volunteers how to stay
on message and helped them see that being aggressive and
confrontational harmed their cause. Developed a one-page
fact sheet with speaking points to help volunteers focus
and stay on track.
What would you have
done differently?
Tried
harder to recruit supportive restaurant and bar owners
to talk to the media and city council members.
Lessons Learned Notes
Several
key coalition member organizations could not directly
lobby (i.e., urge council members to vote a particular
way on a pending ordinance). This included public agency
staff (e.g., local and state health departments), and
the coalition coordinator, whose position was funded
through the Paso del Norte Health Foundation grant to
ACS. However, a tremendous amount of the organizing work
to support the ordinance was educational, not direct
lobbying. And the coalition included members who could,
and did, lobby (e.g., the voluntary health agency staff,
individual citizens, etc.). When seeking funding,
consider carefully the potential restrictions on
activity that may come with that funding. Make sure that
some members of the coalition are not prevented from
lobbying due to funding constraints.
Don’t have a "citizen’s committee" write the ordinance.
This observation is based on the coalition’s experience
with the 1994 attempt to strengthen the ordinance, when
representatives from the local restaurant association
were on the coalition and on the health and
environmental district subcommittee that drafted the
proposed revisions. Their presence significantly
weakened the provisions.
Page last modified 07/25/2007
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