Board of Aldermen 02-22-2022 Page 21
you that, at this point, we need to allow at this point, we have educated the population the best that we can and it is time
to allow them to have a choice on what they're going to wear, and if they're going to get vaccinated, and how they live
their lives.
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Madam President. First, I'd like to kind of set the record straight. A comment was made that Massachusetts
had lifted their mask mandate and in fact, they have but it's not effective until 2/28/2022. Just trying to set the record
straight on that.
|, too, came into here with the feeling that | would support the Board of Health. We were only looking at five to six days
but based on Dr. Storace’s comments and to see the drastic reduction of numbers down to 87, | do have to remind
everybody that we are still in a substantial community transmission rate and not just here in Nashua but the entire State is
in that type of thing. When | supported the mask mandate, it was not to aggravate anybody. It was not to take away
anybody's freedoms but it was to help those that were more vulnerable. | had a lot of constituents who spoke to me about
the fact that they couldn't leave their homes for fear of the virus. Some people can say, oh, it's fake, and its fraud, and it's
so on but it's areal issue. They were afraid to go to the grocery store. When we put the mask mandate in, they felt
comfortable going to the grocery store. Yes, there were some people that didn't wear masks because, you know, gosh
darn it they just weren't going to wear a mask. But it gave those people that feeling of more freedom. We talked about
taking away people's rights. What about their rights? Their rights to go out, their rights to be able to have somewhat of a
normal life too. | spoke to people who came to the city because we had a mask mandate. We keep talking about all the
people that aren't coming to our stores. Well, Nashua was unique because we had a mask mandate so it brought those
people who didn't want to shop where everybody else was.
So this mask mandate was necessary. | understand wanting to lift it at this point. There's so much anger and so much
nastiness and we've all felt it, We have to have protection at times. We have people yelling and screaming, not talking to
us, but yelling and screaming. There's no reason for this. There's no reason for the nastiness. If we can't have a
conversation, then perhaps you shouldn't need to talk. But | think at this point, | will be supporting lifting it but | did come
in with the mindset of that what is five or six more days? But after hearing Dr. Storace and seeing those numbers
drastically drop from January of 3,065 to the end to 2,246 to 87. That gives me a really good feeling and | think that
masks have worked. | think that perhaps we can start to ease off out of our masks. Thank you.
Alderman Dowd
l’ve been mulling this over all day long. They were originally they were - my concerns were what the position of the Board
of Health was and we've heard that tonight. The other was the Board of Ed. passed a motion to suspend the masks as of
the 28th of February to dovetail with us. My concern will be now somebody is going to want to call a special Board of
Education meeting to change theirs to tomorrow or whatever. But! think at this point, people that don't want to wear
masks are never gonna wear masks, you know. The people that do want to wear masks, will continue wearing masks.
After hearing the Board of Health, I'm going to support this.
Alderman Comeau
Thank you, Madam President. I'm looking to get a little bit of clarification and this is going to be some alphabet soup. So |
apologize, but if I'm not mistaken this is the sixth ordinance related to face coverings in the city. The first two were from
2020 and then last year we passed O-21-065 to rescind the previous two. During the passage of that ordinance, there
was an amendment to add the paragraph onto the end that gave City Hall and other non-education buildings special
dispensation to make their own rules, notwithstanding the previous ordinances. That ordinance O-21-065 was never
codified into the city code and it actually doesn't exist as a COVID emergency order either because it was really just to
rescind the previous two. So | can't find it anywhere.
But my question is since O-22-003 in paragraph two mentions government buildings. Does rescinding O-22-003
supersede the paragraph that was amended into O-21-065 that gave City Hall its own set of rules or will rescinding this
ordinance mean that the mandate is rescinded in government buildings as well.
President Wilshire
| would have to defer to the attorney.
