HARTFORD — After a 35-minute discussion, the Selectboard Tuesday night voted 5-2 against requiring that face coverings be worn in indoor spaces open to the public, with some opponents saying a patchwork response by towns in the state was unworkable.
The measure had been drafted for the Selectboard’s consideration by Town Manager Tracy Yarlott-Davis after the Legislature approved a measure last week to allow municipalities to temporarily mandate that masks be worn indoors. Yarlott-Davis wrote in a memorandum prepared before the meeting that both Vermont and New Hampshire are “trending upward in new case percentages,” and Selectboard member Ally Tufenkjian — who voted in favor of the resolution along with Selectboard member Kim Souza — noted that the rising number of cases in Windsor County is “alarming.”
“I think if we were to mandate (masks), there doesn’t seem to be any harm to folks except a minor inconvenience,” Tufenkjian said, noting that it is best to be “diligent” about virus prevention even though “we’re all really, really tired” due to the pandemic.
Souza, who owns the Revolution clothing store in White River Junction and was wearing a mask at the Selectboard meeting in Town Hall, said that business owners she had consulted before the meeting, which was also broadcast on CATV’s YouTube channel and Zoom, were generally in favor of a mandate. She also expressed concerns about winter weather reducing outdoor options, holiday travel, and the new omicron variant of the virus, saying that she “(felt) an obligation to vote in favor of a temporary mandate because of those circumstances.”
But other members of the Selectboard were concerned about a mandate’s effectiveness and enforcement.
“The people who are already wearing masks are going to wear masks. The people who are not wearing masks are not going to wear masks,” Selectboard member Lannie Collins said. “I don’t think a mandate will change that.”
Selectboard Vice Chair Joe Major noted that “major entities” like Co-Op Food Stores and King Arthur Baking already mandate face coverings indoors, but that a mandate would put employees of smaller businesses “in very difficult situations” if they needed to enforce a mandate on their own. He also said that mask mandates have “become a mess” in some areas of upstate New York and that he “(does) not want that for an already stressed public safety department.”
Selectboard Chairman Dan Fraser, who runs Dan & Whit’s in Norwich, agreed that a mask ordinance would be “very, very difficult to enforce” on its own and said that he thought the town would be “setting ourselves up for failure” by attempting to do so.
“We’re all a little disappointed by the state of Vermont pushing this down to our level,” Fraser said.
Selectboard members Dennis Brown and Michael Hoyt, who raised concerns about towns creating a “patchwork” of responses, also voted no.
During comments from the public, Becky Chollet, a Hartford resident who previously served on the town’s Ad Hoc Committee on Coronavirus Response, also said that it is “really unfortunate” that the state has “kicked the can down the road to the municipalities,” recognizing that the town was put in an “awkward position.” However, she said that it would be “more supportive to pass a mandate than to put all the responsibility on the businesses themselves.”
At the time of the vote, The New York Times reported that Windsor County had a 5% test positivity rate and a seven-day average of 37 new cases reported per day.
Some other Vermont towns, including Brattleboro and Warren, have adopted mask mandates. The Selectboard in Weathersfield voted this week to require they be worn in town buildings.
Lauren Adler can be reached at LAdler19@gmail.com.