Mask Debating

[XLFD]

It's no secret, I like to mask debate.  Sadly, however, I seem to be only able to do so by myself since I trust in what decades of scientific studies, the CDC, the WHO, and even Dr. Fauci trusted before April of this year:  that healthy people wearing masks in a community setting does nothing positive for public health or safety.  

When the pro-maskers run out of improvised 'mid-2020' science to back up their assertions, the people who would put masks on healthy people hanging out with healthy people either 1) assign supernatural powers to the novel coronavirus or 2) just simply use the government's edicts to back up their claims.  In Michigan, that's not difficult as Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made a handful of mask mandates in her record numbers of executive orders.  The mask debate ends with cold hard science, losing to colder, harder politics or to the same junk science which claims race riots are a public health curative, but protesting lockdowns is the devil's work.

In Mason County, the City of Ludington and the local chamber of commerce teamed up to hand out informational signs to local businesses, free of charge, for them to place on their business' entrance(s).  The signs avoid any kind of mask debating by not even trying to claim that masks are for public health, rather they push the narrative that wearing a mask in Mason County businesses is the law and there is a $500 fine for those who break it.  You see these free signs on many businesses in the area telling you to mask up, or else.

A July 10 COLDNews article announces:  "Local business owner, Nick Tykoski, owner of Safety Decals in Ludington stepped forward to support the effort and is producing “Mask Up Mason County” signs for Mason County businesses, free of charge, according to a press release from chamber of commerce.

“Our small businesses have been devastated after weeks of being shut down and the politicization of masks has made the reopening process difficult for businesses who are doing all they can to keep their employees and patrons safe,” stated Brandy Miller, president and CEO of the Ludington & Scottville Area Chamber of Commerce, in the press release. “We are really grateful to Safety Decals for helping us spread this important message to keep our community and businesses open”.

At the Ludington City Council meeting held by Zoom prior to this announcement, we find that the ever-generous-sounding Nick Tykoski, wife of the Community Development Director, was paid $165 for the 'free' signage.  None of the DDA board meetings held during this year, discussed this purchase, so CDD Heather Tykoski spent those public funds on the free signs from her husband without any type of backing from the DDA: 

  This is the typical graft and corruption that has been part of Ludington politics over the years, not even an industrial-sized bottle of sanitizer will get rid of it anytime soon.  It is common for thieves and highwaymen to wear masks, so one shouldn't be surprised of the pro-mask position of the City, in making a resolution mandating masks in public settings and creating a 'free' sign for businesses that does the same. 

  

Neither of them grant our visitors or locals any type of choice in the matter if for some medical reason they cannot wear a mask, nor do they offer an exemption or alternative if one believes it violates their Constitutional rights.  Each of the mask mandates in the executive orders offer these exemptions and several others.  If you cannot tolerate wearing a mask due to a medical condition, these signs are effectively saying that your 'type of people' cannot use the facility.  That's discrimination.

  

I refuse to enter any business that uses the 'free' Safety Decals sign for that reason, and I encourage others to boycott these businesses until they take the signs down and moderate their message to reflect the full executive order.  Remember the truism I hinted at earlier that the wearing of masks by healthy people in community settings is not about public health, it's a lot more than that, which is why our corrupted local government is pushing it.

 

Wearing a mask in public at this time is a symbol of submission to the state.  Wearing a mask in public depersonalizes yourself and your view of others.  Wearing a mask in public allows people to anonymously take part in riotous and criminal activities they wouldn't otherwise take part in.  Wearing a mask in public can be deleterious to your personal health.

  

After picking Kamala Harris for his veep choice, Joe Biden stated that if he were president that he would have a national mandate to wear masks outdoors for the next three months minimum:

The next day (Friday, August 14th), I walked the Ludington breakwall out to the lighthouse.  Due to high water issues, one can only travel on the middle part of the breakwall, once you round the turn, this surface is only about 6 ft. wide and slippery on the edges.  You can't pass another person going either way without violating social distancing rules, which suggests that one should be wearing a mask if they travel that route.

  

Going to and back from the lighthouse, I passed 212 people outdoors, usually doing so while within 3 feet of them; each of these people likely had similar numbers on their trip.  Of those 212 people, 205 people were walking without a mask on.  Nearly 97% of these folks were repeatedly violating social distancing without wearing masks.

   

If I may generalize, the 200+ people not wearing masks were having a good time of it:  talking, smiling, laughing, taking selfies, etc.  The seven masked individuals consisted of two groups of three and one on his own.  I heard not a peep from them, and they appeared nervous rather than happy, though it was hard to tell with their face covered.  

  

It's hard for me to imagine after that trip (and other prior trips where I haven't seen any masks) that declaring a national outdoor mask mandate would appeal to very many people, but Biden wants to get in his own mask debate with President Trump who has eschewed such a mandate and allowed states and individuals to make their own health care decisions.

  

If you want to wear a mask when you go out in public out of concern for your or others' safety, then do so.  If you want to force me to put a face covering on, however, I'm sorry, but you'll have to hear and see me mask debate.

[Epictetus]

FS - I can provide some isnight on LIAA jumping in on the planning process. They are a consultant out of TC that does a lot of community planning with an environmental tinge. Towards the end of Snyders term he created grants for communities to go through "Resilient" planning procedures as a part of their overall Master Plan process. 

These requirements and documents produced are really ways to create more plans to sit on a shelf and keep consultants paid. There are ways to create long-term plans for a community but these sorts of things are overwhelming and useless.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks for that insight on the grant aspect of TIAA, Epic.  I briefly remember it going on here, but I still hope X can provide a reference, as his insight is always interesting on a local level and his personal knowledge of history of the past decade of Ludington rivals the search aspect in our official minutes.  Without a whole lot of facts at this point, and with your insight, I blow wind that the LIAA exercise was another grant chaser without a good vision, but I reserve my opinion to change based on more facts that might come to light.  It reminds me of a bible scripture "where there is no vision, the people perish."  If you don't like the prophets, here's one that has been mutated, "Vision without Action is a daydream, and Action without Vision is a nightmare."  

[XLFD]

FS, here were 21 points about LIAA, that links to some of the early COL contacts with them and their overall agenda.  I had other articles on LIAA made after that, but this was the most comprehensive I believe.

Epictetus, I like that you are not only stoic, but pragmatic.  The master plan and other documents created around that time have pretty much gathered dust on shelves since they were created, but that doesn't make them any less powerful.  If Governor Whitmer shredded every copy of the Michigan Constitution or hid them in some warehouse, it would really not make them any less powerful than if she had one in her handbag everywhere she went, nor would it mean she would follow the spirit or the letter of the law any better than she has.

Same thing with the master plan.  If you go to planning commission meetings they reference the master plan frequently, much like the Constitution would be referenced in federal court over a complaint filed under violations of civil rights.  Both sides in a PC dispute may interpret the plan different, just like they might dispute the extent of rights in federal court, but the plan effectively becomes the go-to authority in settling the matter.  

So let's not belittle the subtle power of the PC's master plan for I have seen its power invoked on several occasions, even at the city council level.  BTW, do you know if the COL is involved in a master plan update anytime soon?

[Epictetus]

Required every five years so it should be in 2021. Hopefully we see a shrinking of the document to something that may resemble a workable/understandable document.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks again, for your resilient memory, X, or shall I call you Cassandra X?  (Borrowing from shinblind, like "Karen" being used, I had to look in a slang dictionary to find that Cassandra may refer to a prophet-like person).  I did read your synopsis of LIAA then, and find it as frustrating now.  Thanks.

[XLFD]

The last Master Plan was adopted in July 2016, but it's modifications were being discussed starting way back in early 2013, and Resilient Ludington public meetings kicked off in earnest in 2014.  If these plans are to be created every five years, and a process for public input is followed, shouldn't the discussions about the 2021 master plan already been underway for over a year? 

[Freedom Seeker]

Would be great to fill the meetings as you say, Lake Lady, but I'm skeptical that even a town full could make a difference if there is already a force behind the city pushing an agenda.  I hate to be so pessimistic as I'm generally a sunshine optimist, but this city has walls greater than Fort Knox.  The difference that could be made is on the city council itself, but that has been so corruptly appointed in the past, it is all but impossible to penetrate.

[XLFD]

An ideal and easy part of an anti-corruption policy to follow would consist of the chairman of a board/council/committee actually inquiring at the beginning of the group discussing a public policy issue that could positively affect the position of a portion of the public to ask if there would be any voting member with a conflict of interest as pertains to them and/or their family.  Board members would be encouraged to point out potential conflicts of their peers, rather than be discouraged. 

Voluntary self-disclosure isn't working.

[XLFD]

I officially labelled the coronavirus a hoax on April 22 in these pages, right around when you came to the conclusion, after holding an increasing suspicion to myself for about three weeks.  Willy had that label figured out much earlier, but I think he had more of a hunch than having it all figured out.

It would be funny seeing all of these politicians and media personalities unconvincingly perpetuate the hoax if they weren't unsympathetically taking down all that we hold dear in the process.

[Du Wright]

The discussion about who runs this town has been migrated to this mask debate, interestingly.  I agree with you Lakelady, this town imo, has gone crazy and is enough to make an honest citizen want to flee to the woods, far away from power players and young people making decisions without experience or wisdom.  Imo, this town has been run by the few, for the few, and fails to listen to the many.

Who exactly?  An agenda that was started some years back, imo, without getting specific with names, some good ideas, but many at the expense of the majority of the taxpayer.  Few have the stamina and courage to stand up against it and so it evolved within the hired city staff, benefitting mostly the tourism and downtown development, forgetting the majority and getting us into great debt by negligence of infrastructure, so that now many may start to feel the pain of the water and sewer increases  and never see the bonds for sewer, water and school paid off.  

[Freedom Seeker]

Who runs this town?  He would talks the loudest, laughs the loudest and talks over others at the secret meetings.

[Willy]

Shinblind. This is not about free masks, it's about posters that will be displayed on the door of businesses informing people to wear masks.

Does anyone have a link to the proposed zoning change regarding single family dwellings?