Scottville Mixes Virtual and In-person Meeting with Mixed Results

[XLFD]

As I noted in the first public comment at the 'virtual' Monday night Ludington City Council meeting, written early that morning and delivered by City Manager Mitch Foster at the meeting:

"I am going to the city council meeting tonight.  Not here in Ludington, that in-person meeting was called off "to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the City of Ludington from Coronavirus".  I am going down to Scottville's meeting at 5:30, where they have chosen the inclusive and responsible policy of holding an in-person meeting while allowing live-streaming of the meeting via Zoom. 

According to DHD #10, both cities have similar incidences of coronavirus cases, yet only Ludington has chosen to disallow participation by the poor, the homeless, and the estimated 30% of all other citizens that have no access to the internet.  With very limited resources, Scottville has committed itself to engagement with the public while Ludington has embraced avoidance and expedient elitism..."

Sure enough, I showed up in Scottville shortly before 5:30 PM to attend their all-embracing meeting.  They had equipment set up to broadcast the meeting to those at home who couldn't attend and limited seating in the rather cramped corners of the usual meeting room.  Had more than three members of the public showed up, all media types, they may have had to be turned back for lack of room to have a safe meeting.

As it was, the roughly 600 square foot room was ill-suited for conducting a meeting in the coronavirus era as simple mathematics shows.  If the City of Scottville (COS) wishes to maintain a 6 foot distance between attendees in this room, then they must consider the following:

-- Without absences, they need room for 11 city officials (7 commissioners, 1 city manager, 1 city clerk, 1 city attorney, and 1 police chief)

-- An 18 inch round person with a 6 ft. radius of protection circle about them takes up 177 sq. ft. of room if they are more than 6 ft. from a wall

-- If all officials show, up the 11 people will require 1947 sq. feet of room minimally 

That's more than three times the square footage of the room with just city officials, but if you try to maximize this area by putting people in corners and against walls, where the area required per person would drop to 1/4 and 1/2 of 177, then with all four corners filled and all others along the walls, you would still need just under 800 square feet, even more since you'd have to move some folks from the walls.  

Half of my reason for attending the Scottville meeting was to look at the logistics and see what they would do to make the meeting possible in the fairly small meeting room.  I didn't consider it a hazard to myself, as I had already contracted Covid-19 back in September and recovered from it naturally and fully in about eight days.  My immunity to the disease makes mask-wearing redundant unless my aim is to avoid other viruses like the seasonal flu-- if I believed that healthy people wearing masks in public made any difference in that regard (contrary to all pre-2020 studies).  

So it was with little thought that I went into Scottville City Hall without a mask, passed by Scottville Police Chief Matt Murphy and a couple of other officials, and took a seat in the peanut gallery, effectively less than four feet from a couple of other audience members, both masked.  Looking around, I saw the council sitting about four feet from each other, the city attorneys, manager, and clerk sitting at a 6' table with three seats effectively abutting each other on one side.  

Everybody was wearing a mask except for me, which I've grown fairly used to at the local establishments.  Chief Murphy apparently noticed too, for after a couple of minutes, he came over to me with a cloth mask in his possibly virus-laced hand and told me I would need to put that on for the meeting.  

At that meeting I had planned on making a public comment complimenting the COS for offering the in-person meeting as well as a virtual version.  It would be one of the rare times when I congratulate a city council for its actions rising above and beyond.  

But somehow, the police chief coming over with a mask telling me I need to wear it without inquiring into my ability or actual need to wear a mask, made me withdraw my inclination to show approval of their policies.  It got me to wondering of a few of things that sent mixed messages to the public:

-- Why would the COS choose a venue which would not promote social distancing even if nobody from the public showed up?

-- Why would the COS issue a declaration almost one week before the meeting saying that due to rising Covid cases, the city hall would be closed to the public on a walk-in basis for minimally two weeks-- then hold a public meeting there five days later?

-- Why introduce a shadow policy of requiring a mask to attend a city council meeting when nothing on the city website or their front door indicates that as a policy?

-- Why have the police chief who shut down FiveCap for allegedly violating social distancing rules ignore that rule and city hall's walk-in policy in order to hand a face napkin with his bare hands to a Covid-19 survivor, an act of which served no purpose to stop the spread of coronavirus, but allowed me a much better chance to get the seasonal flu since the chief's hand regularly adjusted his mask and who knows what else he's touched?

These were inconsistencies I mulled over while the COS administered the oaths of office to the three new young men who were elected to city council:  Bryan Benyo, Ryan Graham and Nathan Yeomans (pictured below in almost-disturbingly matching attire). Instabilities I continued to ponder when Marcy Spencer and Rob Alway were elected as mayor and mayor pro-tem respectively.  Variabilities I contemplated about while the councilors declared former Mayor Bruce Krieger's seat officially vacant and in need of filling by the council by their first December meeting.  The organizational meeting was done in about 15 minutes.  

If they continue to be worried about the spread of coronavirus, I hope to see Scottville go back to meeting at the Scottville Optimist Building which offers a lot of room so everyone can social distance properly and allow their attendees the choice as to whether on not they want to mask up.  People who are adultish enough to attend commissioner meetings to participate in their civic duties should be considered adultish enough to determine whether they should wear a mask in order to protect others and themselves, or go without a mask and actually protect others and themselves.

[Freedom Seeker]

Interesting observations, X. A lot of incongruous policies with COS social distancing. Why you ask? I'm sure you've considered that it may have been in for the swearing in of a new mayor and council members. They didnt want to be inconvenienced to go to a bigger venue. Hypocrisy and a mask in following the perfidious guidelines.

As for wanting better guidelines? Wait until January 21, 2021, if Biden takes over. We'll have a national mandate and a shut down of our economy.

As far as the COP giving you a mask with his bare hands? The world is convinced that you can keep your germs in your own mask. Look at some of the studies on what grows on used masks. If that's not convincing that certain germs from our own mouth are stopped in a mask, what will? Is it healthy for the individual wearing a mask? I'm beginning to think not. Does it protect the vulnerable in the population? Maybe. Should the vulnerable be going to a person-to-person city meeting? There, imo, is the quandary. Who is vulnerable? No one, not even the masked man knows.

[XLFD]

Before I contracted Covid-19 in September, I could understand the people telling me to wear a mask being concerned about me spreading the virus to them and others.  I quarantined for two weeks when I had symptoms for 8 days.  Now, it just doesn't make any sense; I cannot spread the virus and I'm definitely not afraid of being exposed to more of the virus I built up a natural resistance to.

So when somebody with authority comes up to me with a mask and tells me I need to wear it, or else-- I get rather offended.  This is equivalent to me going over to another person and ripping off the mask from their face and telling them they cannot wear a mask.  If others wear masks, I presume they either fear spreading or getting the virus or do so by respect/fear of some authority enforcing a mask mandate.  I will not rip off their mask or tell them they need to take off their mask because they have made their own risk assessment and decided on that course. 

There is effectively zero risk of me giving you Covid-19, zero risk of me contracting it again, allow me the privilege of not following a mandate that only makes me suffer from all the problems associated with wearing a mask.

  

[Freedom Seeker]

Good points X and Lake Lady.

I'm personally not convinced that one who has had Covid19 can't get some form of it again, and thus spread it to others.   Some studies show a few people being reinfected with a morphed strain in 3-4 months, but rare.  

I personally will wear a mask until this is under control with a vaccine,  I've found a cotton mask that can be washed after use  to be the most comfortable.  The free polyester single-use masks, if washed, I found break up and fibers can be inhaled.  I have also suffered from too much CO2 and or not enough O2, and get dizzy at times.  I go to the nearest outdoors and yank the mask off.  

https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-resistance

Above is an article about when non-mask users in the 1918 pandemic that killed 675k (3x as many as this virus) Americans, were called "slackers" for not wearing a mask.  Seems there were some of the same controversies over 100 years ago.  But that flu was much more virulent, hit quicker and harder.  I remember tales of my grandad barely surviving, and grandma who was pregnant at the time got it also.  The baby lived very sickly for nearly a year and then passed away.  I make an individual choice to be on the cautious side and wear a washable, cotton mask.  I get your point about personal freedoms in choice of not wearing a mask and herd immunity kicks in.  I also feel that it is the vulnerable in society that need to be most cautious, and sick need to quarantine.   Let's get on with business.