City’s Face-Covering Ordinance
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The Ames City Council is having a special meeting on Tuesday at 6:00 on Zoom. The agenda includes:
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2. Discussion of future of City’s Face-Covering Ordinance. On Tuesday of last week, Council voted to reach out to our established local partners and medical advisors for last-minute input in light of the fact that the City's face covering ordinance is set to expire on June 30. Just three days later, the CDC rather suddenly released new guidance stating among other things that “Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” We're now holding this special meeting to deliberate whether to adjust our face covering ordinance prior to its expiration date. The agenda item linked here shows the responses we received from our partners and medical advisors and other considerations.
Since Council doesn't deliberate outside of announced public meetings, this will be our first chance to discuss the ordinance after the CDC's new guidance was issued. It’s possible that we'll ultimately modify it, with or without an expiration date change, or even cancel it altogether, depending on how the votes fall. But none of that will be completed in this meeting, because we need to give the public notice of changes to ordinances and the agenda doesn't state that an ordinance will be passed in this meeting. Instead, we'll discuss and vote on what changes, if any, to tee up for another Council meeting date (likely May 25).
I understand that no time has been allocated for live public input at this May 18 meeting. However, you can reach Council, as always, via email prior to it (see address above). I encourage you to do this; we're already receiving a lot of email on this topic. If we do vote to tee up ordinance changes for consideration on May 25, then I believe that live public input will be permitted on that date. That's the usual practice for the first reading of an ordinance. -
3. Discussion of in-person City meetings. In addition, we'll also consider how to interpret the CDC guidance for our City Council and other boards and commission meetings going forward: specifically, when should we begin meeting in person again? Changes to these policies are not ordinance changes, so they can be made relatively quickly, if Council votes to do so.
Thanks for reading,
David Martin
Ames City Council, Ward 3