Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming, issued the following statement regarding a Washington State Department of Health-funded anti-farming activist group’s misuse of taxpayer funds and the department’s logo.
“It’s been nearly 6 months since we sent a letter and publicly voiced concerns about the state Department of Health’s official logo on an anti-farming activist group’s propaganda videos, creating the unmistakable appearance that the politically-charged messages were state-endorsed.
“After half a year, the Department of Health finally issued their official response, but it amounted to little more than a toothless confirmation that the issue had been handled. Despite the Department of Health’s claims that it worked with the activist group, ELLA, to remove the misused logos, it appears those videos remain online unchanged. This leads us to ask whether the DOH took this troubling situation seriously.
“We have an activist group using Washingtonians’ fuel surcharge dollars as a political weapon against our state’s farming community by funding and spreading false, unsupported public accusations as well as producing a video to highlight their lobbying efforts. This appears to be a blatant abuse of public resources. Is the Department of Health doing everything it can to stop this abuse, protecting its own credibility, and ensuring state funds are not being used to legitimize propaganda?
“Despite their reassurances, the Department of Health was obviously not successful in reining in ELLA’s shameless unauthorized use of its logo, The department told us it ‘confirmed’ the logo had been removed, that it ‘worked diligently’ with ELLA, and that the anti-farming group had been ‘responsive.’ This is insulting to the farming community as it doesn’t take much work to see those claims don’t appear to align with reality.
“It’s not difficult to delete a problematic Facebook video. It certainly doesn’t take months and months of bureaucratic back and forth to ensure ELLA’s misuse of DOH branding is not allowed to continue unchecked. Is the Department of Health simply not competent in following through on an important issue like this? Or is the department not telling the truth?
“This leads us to also question the department’s assurances that it does not endorse ELLA’s harmful false accusations against farms in the Lower Yakima Valley. Did the DOH ask ELLA to stop using its official logo with a wink and a nod?
“After receiving no response to our follow-up inquiry for more than two weeks, we are left with no confidence that this issue is being treated with the urgency or seriousness it warrants. We will continue to press the Department of Health to demand answers and accountability.”
Press Contact: Dillon Honcoop, dhoncoop@savefamilyfarming.org