At the Wednesday night Soldotna City Council meeting, Ordinance 2020-028 failed by a 4-2 vote.
The ordinance read – Temporarily Requiring Facial Coverings be Worn While inside Buildings Open to the Public in Response to the Rapid Increase in COVID-19 Cases within the City of Soldotna. The ordinance was introduced by councilmembers Pamela Parker and Jordan Chilson.
Council was voting on the ordinance for introduction, meaning that if passed, a public hearing on the manner would be held at a scheduled date of December 16.
Councilman Chilson introduced the ordinance, “We have two meetings when introducing a new ordinance. There’s the initial meeting to introduce it for a later public hearing and we have a following meeting where we hold that hearing and decide on the item. Tonight is that first meeting. This item presents a very difficult and divisive decision before us. As a council, we have a responsibility to the public to allow them to participate in a public hearing process prior to deciding whether to enact that ordinance into law. As previously mentioned when we were getting questions about our comment period, our code does not allow for public comment period at introduction of ordinances. I believe that it’s important that we honor our responsibility for public participation by voting yes tonight to set a public hearing for our next meeting. At which we can then open the floor to a public comment. There are a good number in our community who have had strong opinions on this issue and are counting on the opportunity to speak to us directly prior to a vote. A no vote tonight essentially would leave them excluded from this dialogue. What I would ask is that regardless of what your opinions are on this ordinance, I would encourage the council to vote yes to set a public hearing, rather than deciding this now and bypassing public comment. Lastly, I would remind our council that any discussion and subsequent vote at this time is legally required to be focused exclusively on the merit of introduction for public hearing alone.”
Vice Mayor Lisa Parker said, “I support wearing a mask. I think it is the right thing to do. I think for us mandating that people in our community wear masks is not going to solve the problem. The people who currently are not supportive of businesses that ask people to wear masks, if we mandate that, that’s not going to change their behavior. In reading through the emails and the comments that we’ve gotten, our business community is divided. The business community is not in full support of this.”
The fellow councilmembers discussed the ordinance amongst themselves, but when it came time to vote on introducing it for public comment, it failed on a 4-2 vote. As a result, the ordinance is no longer in front of the council for consideration or enactment.
