The Pagosa Springs Town Council held a lengthy special meeting last night, Tuesday June 30, to consider the idea of a mandatory order requiring all people — over the age of 3 years old — to wear face coverings in certain situations.
None of the Council members were wearing masks… but we didn’t expect them to, considering the meeting was held over the internet via ZOOM, with each Council member sitting comfortably at home — ‘socially distanced’ to the extreme.
The general public was also socially distanced.
According to the tally reported by Town Manager Andrea Phillips, over 100 members of the public logged into the ZOOM meeting, and about four dozen of them weighed into the discussion for the “three minutes” of public comment allotted to each.The public comment lasted over 2 hours.
If anything was made clear by the citizen comments, it was an overall lack of agreement, among the citizens, about the facts and scientific data concerning the benefits and risks of wearing face coverings. One citizen noted that we are faced with a “novel coronavirus” — that is to say, a new, barely understood contagious disease — and we don’t in fact know how to best address the problem.
So how to approach the face covering issue? As our town becomes overrun with tourists from states that are seeing new spikes in their infection rates?
The Council had been provided with a sample Resolution last week in their meeting packet — Resolution 2020-18 — which would have made it mandatory to wear face coverings in most social settings within the town boundaries — with a few exceptions allowed. That Resolution had been based loosely on the mask regulations recently put in place in nearby Durango, we were told, and would have specified some vague enforcement penalties, including the possibility that a business could lose its business license for certain, unspecified violations.
But another and different sample Resolution appeared in the packet for last night’s meeting — Resolution 2020-X — which merely “requested” the use of face coverings, rather than “mandating” face coverings. Like Resolution 2020-18, this one had also been hastily written, we were told. It read, in part:
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF PAGOSA SPRINGS:
Section 1. Face Covering Request Instituted. The Town Council hereby extends request for face coverings by enacting the following Request:
A. All persons entering a business or establishment located within the Town limits of Pagosa Springs are hereby requested to wear medical or non-medical cloth face coverings, such as to cover their nose and mouth, when entering any such business and in conducting any interactions within such business.
B. All persons visiting or residing within the Town limits of Pagosa Springs are urged to wear a medical or non-medical cloth face covering when indoors or outdoors where six-foot minimum distance between individuals cannot be maintained…
…E. The Council strongly urges all citizens, for your own health and safety, and for that of the brave citizens who are staffing the grocery stores, pharmacies and other businesses that are so critical to our daily needs, to comply with this Request. It is only through our collective efforts that we can protect those persons, ourselves and our families. The Council genuinely appreciates your voluntary cooperation.
You can download Resolution 2020-X here.
The audience comments were fairly evenly split between those urging the Council to adopt a mandatory face covering rule, and those opposed to such a requirement. Some of those urging a mandatory rule included healthcare professionals concerned about the spread of infection during a busy tourist season, and business owners concerned that an outbreak of infections could lead to another round of closed businesses. Some business owners also felt they would be more empowered to require customers to wear masks, if it were a Town law.
Here is business owner Lauri Heraty:
“I am 100 percent about protecting the residents of Pagosa Springs, the workers, the restaurant workers, the people who live here.
“I think the town is overcrowded. I’ve been on the ‘recovery task force’ and I don’t think we saw this coming. It doesn’t look like any other year during Fourth of July that I can remember; it’s every bit as crowded. I’d like to see us protect ourselves…
“…I trust the opinions explicitly of [local physicians] Dr. Holt and Dr. Webb, We’re not through with this, and wearing a mask is not a big deal. If your breathing is compromised, I think that is the exception, but it’s easy to do, and whether it works? I’m looking at some pretty important websites that all recommend wearing the mask…
“We went to Father’s Day brunch in Durango where they’re recommending masks and many of the shops don’t allow you in without one. I didn’t see a bunch of angry people. I just saw a bunch of people with masks on. It’s not hard…”
Those opposed to a mandatory rule cited research suggesting that mask-wearing to be unhealthy, ineffective, a violation of personal freedoms, or a distraction from the real problem: accurate testing and tracking.
Here is Annie Sewell:
“I hope you do a survey [like the one done recently in nearby Bayfield] because there as so many people here. I mean, this is obviously really important, and I would love to see a larger community response. I read the attachments and I read the Bayfield survey and thought that was really fascinating and well done…
“I feel like the critical time for mandating masks was in March, when cases were spiking and hospitalizations were going up. And I was wearing mine religiously then, because hopefully it would make a difference. Hopefully it will make a difference now…
“I’m listening to as many experts as possible. Now that deaths and hospitalization rates are dropping off even in areas where there are spikes, the transmission rate is still unknown. And there remains a lot of debate among experts about the efficacy of masks in slowing transmission. I would say the science is not settled…
“Even Dr. Fauci said, back in March, that masks are really for health professionals and for people who are compromised. Even Dr, Fauci said that; I know he has changed his mind now… I think it’s hard on tourism and general morale, without the settled science. I would be opposed to [a mandate] but mostly I would love to see the survey…”
Following the public comments, the Town Council weighed in.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.