(Tim: This excellent letter by my friend, Scott Tibbs.)
Dear Councilors,
I was very disappointed to see that you have chosen to fund a corporation with over $1,000,000,000 in annual revenue when you disbursed social services funds back in October. I was very pleased to see that Planned Parenthood did not even apply for funding from city government over the summer. I was not surprised to see PP ask for funding from county government, with meeting times that are much less open than city government's meeting times. While I approve of the change that has the County Council disburse these funds instead of the County Commissioners, your meeting time necessarily excludes many concerned citizens.
As I have said to the City Council for many years, Planned Parenthood did not come to you for money that they actually need. They came to you for a political endorsement from county government...
As you can see from Planned Parenthood's own fiscal report, the organization took in over one billion dollars in revenue in 2007-2008, and the organization enjoyed an overall profit of $85 million dollars. Planned Parenthood certainly does not need the cash-strapped Monroe County government to be giving it a slice of the limited social services funding available.
What I find most disappointing is that you granted this money to Planned Parenthood less than a year after a sex abuse scandal that rocked the organization and made national headlines. As you know, a Planned Parenthood employee right here in Bloomington was caught on tape by Live Action Films helping what that employee clearly believed to be a 13 year old girl cover up sexual abuse by a 31 year old man. Just 50 miles north in Indianapolis, another Planned Parenthood employee was caught doing the exact same thing. I am saddened, but not a bit surprised, that you have chosen to take the hard-earned money you have confiscated from your constituents and given it to an organization that has been caught on tape attempting to cover up sexual abuse.
Giving taxpayer resources to a billion-dollar corporation recently mired in a sex abuse scandal was a slap in the face to all of the other organizations, especially those organizations that applied for but did not receive funding from county government. For no other reason than cynical politics, you have insulted your constituents, disrespected legitimate social service agencies and degraded the social service funding process. The reality is that you have placed your official stamp of approval on the predatory practices of Planned Parenthood.
What makes this decision so obviously political is that county government has its own family planning clinic. You could have easily voted to have your own family planning clinic fund annual exams, STD testing and birth control rather than subsidize a billion-dollar political organization that operates an abortion clinic downtown and is less than a year removed from a sexual abuse scandal.
There are many taxpayers in Monroe County who would never voluntarily fund an organization that performs the barbaric act of abortion every Thursday, especially after the sex abuse scandal last December. You have taken that choice away from us and forced us to fund an organization we believe to be morally abominable. I want to thank Marty Hawk for her fiscally responsible vote against the social services funding package, and strongly encourage the rest of you to be pro-choice in the decisions you make with the money you have taken from us by force.
Scott Tibbs
Resident of County Council District II
Bloomington, IN,
