Community Members Speak On Masks, COVID-19 At County Legislature Meeting

by Matt Watling | August 13, 2021 7:11 am

PULASKI, NY – After passing all 19 resolutions, the Oswego County Legislature listened to 12 county residents give their thoughts on COVID-19, vaccinations and masks during the public comment period.

While all 12 hail from varying cities, they all shared a similar stance on masks – they should be a personal choice, not required.

The first public speaker was Victoria Willoughby from the City of Oswego. She shared her belief that mask mandates are “war crimes” that violate the Nuremberg Code. She urged legislatures to stand up for their constituents and children.

“You were elected by the people that chose you to represent them,” Willoughby said. “If you don’t stand up and cease and desist now at these war crimes that are being committed against us, you are violating the Nuremberg Code with your compliance. With your silence, with your allowing people from up above to say, ‘This is what you do or else.’”

Other speakers said that young children are at the “lowest risk” of dying from COVID-19 and that their children are suffering under the masks.

“My children, and I have five, range from 22 years old to almost two years old,” said Shannon Robinson of Pulaski. “I can’t even imagine putting a mask on his little face … Our [school] sent out a letter today saying that all students from K through 12 will be returning with masks required. I know that every school is [deciding this] for themselves. I just ask you to please consider adding your voice to ours and helping eliminate this social distance thing, the masks in schools with children … I do feel they’re harmful for our children to breathe in and out.”

One final remark was a quote from a news article from March of 2020 that said masks do not stop the spread of COVID-19.

“In the beginning of the pandemic, March 2020, there was an article and it said, ‘U.S. people shouldn’t wear a face mask to prevent the spread of infectious illness, according to the CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the surgeon general,’” said Donna Phillips of Pulaski. “I’m not quite sure why this changed. I have not seen any evidence to the benefit of wearing a mask to stop spreading.”

Note – While the surgeon general at the time, Dr. Jerome Adams, did say this, it was reversed one month later in an April 2020 press conference[1]. 

Before the end of the public comment period, Chairman James Weatherup clarified that the legislature does not have a mask mandate.

The meeting itself was fairly routine with six representatives excused. Eighteen resolutions passed unanimously with 19 votes while resolution HS-2 was passed with 18 votes and one rejection by Minority Leader Marie Schadt.

HS-2 is a resolution that authorizes the reclassification of five positions in the department of social services. According to Legislator Tim Stahl, the human services committee wanted to change the title of five vacant positions from “clerk” to “typist,” in the hopes of filling them quicker. Stahl added that it would cost under $1,000 to do so.

The other resolutions passed include:

• GC-1 to authorize the transfer of tax-foreclosed properties to the Oswego County Land Bank Corporation
• GC-2 to approve a settlement agreement in connection with the Matter of County of Oswego vs. Purdue Pharma et. al
• HS-1 to authorize budget modification for the Department of Social Services to purchase an enterprise content management system and related equipment
• HS-7 to authorize the County of Oswego to accept the donation of a climbing tower/wall, a multipurpose playground structure and a new swing set from the Friends of Camp Hollis
• Another passed resolution was IT-1, proposed by John Martino. The resolution allows for a feasibility study to be conducted regarding an alternate bridge location at the Sandy Island Beach State Park. According to Martino, the state’s plan for the bridge on County Route 15 may cut through private property. To avoid this, the infrastructure, facilities and technology committee proposed the study to work with the state to bring the bridge back to its original location.

EP-2 was also passed and is a resolution that will implement a new county-wide transportation plan. Stahl yielded the explanation for the resolution to Mary Ellen Chesbro who spoke passionately about the plan that will make transportation more accessible and inexpensive for everyone in the county.

“This is very exciting. There has been a lot of work that has gone into developing this transportation plan,” Chesboro said. “This plan was put together not by someone sitting at a desk and crunching numbers. This was done by going to not-for-profit organizations, it was ridership, riding along on buses and finding out what the problem is, meeting with people … Not only finding out how many homes are in Oswego COunty but how many of them don’t have cars. We need to know all of this so people can get to work, people can go to the doctor.”

All other resolutions passed and the agenda for the meeting can be viewed here[2].

All county legislative meetings are held the second Thursday of every month. The next meeting will be held on September 9 at 7

p.m.

 

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/community-members-speak-on-masks-covid-19-at-county-legislature-meeting/

---