Mask up, Kootenai County
Protestors rallied outside before and during the meeting. Bill Buley/PRESS.
Tensions ran high throughout the more-than-three-hour Panhandle Health board meeting Thursday. A woman who was not able to speak during the public comment portion of the agenda was escorted out by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office after trying to be heard by the board. (Image courtesy of KHQ)
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Goodman spoke to the crowd after the mandate was approved.
The event was marred by interruptions ranging from technical to emotional.
Health district orders masks in public places
COEUR d’ALENE — The Panhandle Health District board of health placed an immediate mask mandate on Kootenai County Thursday.
“If any board is going to take any action, shouldn’t it be now?” board member and nurse Jai Nelson asked before urging each board member by name to support the measure. “It’s time to do the right thing, and in the face of this pandemic, the right thing is to (mandate masks).”
The mandate will make it a misdemeanor to be in public spaces without wearing a mask, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or up to a year in jail.
In its July 16 meeting, Nelson made a motion to mandate masks, but no one on the board seconded the motion, killing the move before it could come to a vote. This time, the issue made it through a motion, a second, a debate and a vote supporting the mandate, 4-2.
The event was marred by interruptions ranging from technical to emotional. Panhandle Health was livestreaming the meeting until midway through the public comment portion of the agenda, when the feed went down. After the interruption, the meeting was stretched to accommodate additional speakers. The meeting was later postponed after a connection with a board member participating remotely was dropped.
But the meeting was also interrupted by a resident who demanded to speak after the time for collective public comment ended. One woman was forcibly removed by a Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office deputy. The meeting was occasionally interrupted by applause and boos from the audience.
After the vote, however, those boos paled in comparison the uproar from the public in sparse attendance. A member of the audience started screaming obscenities as the tension in the room grew.
Earlier, aproximately 500 showed up to protest a mask mandate outside the building. Protesters — some of whom spoke during public comments — carried signs varying in message from questioning the science behind masks to the constitutional validity of a mandate to maintaining obedience to God. By the time the vote and mandate came down, most of the protesters had left.
Bonner County commissioner and board member Glen Bailey, one of the two no votes, said masks would not be effective, comparing wearing the masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19 to “trying to stop a mosquito with a chain-link fence.”
“It’s a threat to us as a community,” Bailey said. “I have observed the rise in case numbers. But at the same time, I have not seen a commensurate rise in the death rate.”
Allen Banks, the at-large member of the board and also a Bonner County resident, voted no.
“Masks do not work,” Banks said. “The latest CDC publication in emerging and infectious disease…(shows) no benefit to the rate of influenza infection from wearing masks.”
Nelson, Kirby, Shoshone County commissioner Mike Fitzgerald and Dr. Richard McLandress all voted to approve the mandate.
In a statement, the city of Coeur d’Alene — which had scheduled a Friday meeting to debate the issue — said that meeting is now cancelled.
“It is with much appreciation that we accept Panhandle Health District’s action to require face coverings within Kootenai County,” the statement read. “With this news, the city council meeting planned for Friday, July 24, 2020 at noon has been cancelled. It is the city’s hope that the spread of the COVID-19 virus will slow to a point where schools can fully re-open in the fall. Please continue to practice health safety standards of wearing face coverings, social distancing, and diligent hand washing in order to slow the transmission of COVID-19 through our community.”
This is a developing story.
