If a cigarette tax is important enough to consider, it's important enough to be discussed publicly.
But that's not the route the Hamilton County Commission took with a proposal from ArtsBuild about a 20 cents-per-pack tax to fund arts projects. Instead, a letter that would ask state legislators to authorize a county vote on the tax simply was placed in a commission board room for signatures.
Also read
* Push for referendum on cigarette tax to fund arts projects fizzles
If it received a two-thirds majority - six signatures - it would have been presented to local legislators for introduction in the 2016 session.
In other words, the public would have no say-so on the matter unless legislators approved giving residents a vote on the tax in the August 2016 election.
That the letter only got five signatures - and thus will not move forward - is no excuse for not discussing the proposal during a commission meeting.
ArtsBuild, in an earlier commission agenda session, said it had a poll of 503 county residents that indicated 63 percent would support the tax, and perhaps that's what convinced commissioners they could advance to the next step without a public discussion.
However, it is hardly a sure thing that anywhere near 50 percent of voters eventually would approve adding 20 cents to what is already a 62 cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes.
Hamilton County Commissioner Joe Graham said he doesn't believe the tax increase would have passed, and he said his constituents were solidly against it. Indeed, he said of the six people who called him in favor of it, three of them changed their minds about it once he explained its ramifications.
One of those, he said, would have been the loss of revenue to the state of Tennessee from Chattanooga area residents who would cross the border into Georgia and gladly pay its 37 cents-per-pack tax instead of what would be Hamilton County's 82 cents-per-pack charge.
If they didn't go to Georgia, inner-city residents, part of his constituency - and those who smoke more but can afford it least - would be "paying the bill," Graham said.
The last time the commission tried a similar letter tactic was last winter when the issue was to separate county commissioners' salaries from the salary of the county mayor, to which they were tied by law. If the salaries were separated in a move that would have had to be approved by legislators, county commissioners could then raise their salaries.
That letter made it to the legislature but died a quiet death there.
ArtsBuild deserves kudos for seeing a problem - lack of funding for the arts, which deserve more funding - and proposing a solution - the cigarette tax. But, in addition to the commission's stealthy attempt to get it in front of legislature and the loss of revenue to the state, the proposal - even to those who abhor smoking and love the arts - has several problems.
One is that a nonprofit agency asking the Hamilton County Commission to support it by advocating for favorable legislation for a vote opens the door to other nonprofits wanting to do the same thing.
And why wouldn't they?
ArtsBuild can offer so much to so many, but so can the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga, the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Chattanooga, just to name four.
We ask government to do a lot of things, from funding schools to maintaining roads to keeping the peace, but, as worthy as it is, funding of nonprofit organizations should not be high on the list of public expenditures.
A second problem is that such a tax is regressive. Since it is applied uniformly to all those who smoke, it hits the poor harder, as Graham pointed out.
ArtsBuild can still try to get the issue on the August 2016 ballot by collecting the signatures of 10 percent of registered voters on a petition, but officials said they haven't explored that possibility yet.
In the meantime, we hope the County Commission is through trying to sneak through proposals without a full public airing.
It just doesn't look quite right, for instance, when, after the cigarette tax letter didn't receive the mandatory number of signatures to move forward, it was shredded. Graham, who had been asking for two weeks for a copy of the letter for his files so his non-vote on the proposal would be evident, was never afforded the courtesy.
Graham said County Attorney Rheubin Taylor opined that no law was broken in the shredding, but Graham felt that a proposal seeking legislation "makes [the letter] public."
The gesture was, if not illegal, then "very dishonest" and "unethical," he said.
The public deserves better on public matters.