The Naperville City Council affirmed that everyone who is medically able should wear a protective face covering in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but stopped short of mandating masks.
After hearing two hours of comments Tuesday from nearly 150 people, many of whom oppose wearing masks or governmental interference in their decision to cover their face, the council opted to take a positive approach rather than a punitive one.
The council initially voted 5-4 against an ordinance requiring people to mask up in Naperville anytime a 6-foot distance cannot be maintained.
Mayor Steve Chirico and council members Kevin Coyne, Patty Gustin, Paul Hinterlong and John Krummen opposed the mandate; council members Judy Brodhead, Patrick Kelly, Theresa Sullivan and Benny White voted in favor of it.
After the measure failed, the council voted 8-1 on a resolution to continue and increase the city’s public awareness campaign promoting mask usage.
Coyne, the only council member to vote against both, said neither option would lead to more people wearing masks in public.
Masks have become a politically charged issue, Coyne said, adding that any move by the city will add more drama and division and will reinforce notions of conspiracy and governmental overreach.
Chirico broached the subject of a mask mandate at a town hall meeting Nov. 16 with officials from Edward-Elmhurst Health to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and how a case surge led to a ban on indoor dining and prompted school districts to step back from return-to-school plans.
Later that week the mayor came under fire when photos appeared on social media of Chirico and his family posing maskless at his daughter’s wedding in Florida.
“There was intense national debate in communities across the country about what local steps could or should be taken for that purpose,” Chirico said Tuesday. “For the purpose of discussion, I asked to have this item brought for our City Council consideration because as elected officials, you must have the discussion in public.”
He remains committed to keeping Naperville and its economy open, he said, and wearing a mask can accomplish that purpose.
“Having just visited the state with an open economy and no mask mandate, I have witnessed firsthand that less regulation can be just as safe and can lead to better results,” Chirico said. “For that reason, I don’t believe the mask mandate is a wise public policy that should be instituted in Naperville at this time.”
Kelly said the goal should be to provide the strongest possible statement that wearing a mask is important so the community can get back to normal as quickly as possible, and an ordinance could help with that.
But the reality, he said, is the impact of a mask mandate probably is not going to be that significant.
“Many other municipalities have already passed something like this, and staff researched it and they did not find one single time where an actual citation has been issued to an individual,” Kelly said.
“Nobody is arresting people, and that’s not the intent I think of any of us with this ordinance. But it does say a lot about our values on how we’re going to address this issue,” he said.
White said a mask measure would buy the community some time until a coronavirus vaccine is readily available.
“I know folks are concerned about being over-regulated,” White said. “But let’s be honest, we can’t go into stores without having shoes on our feet or shirts on our back. You can’t do that. There’s speed limits wherever we go.”
Hinterlong urged people to set aside their political bias over masks and pull together as a community.
“Let’s work together. Let’s move forward together. Let’s calculate this together,” Hinterlong said.
“I don’t believe a mandate is the right right choice. I think that’ll just throw gas on the fire that’s already out there in our community,” he said.
Instead, the city needs to continue to educate and ask people to cooperate, Hinterlong said.
Sullivan said she supported a mandate, even though the police department has much better things to do than citing people for not wearing a mask.
“It’s sad that we even have to come to this and ask (the police) to do this. But we have to make a statement about it; that’s the statement we need to make,” she said.
Krummen countered that enforcement of a mandate raises too many questions and confusion for police.
While he said he cannot support a mask mandate, he can support any effort to encourage people to wear one.
“It’s such an easy ask that I have trouble understanding why somebody wouldn’t do that. Who couldn’t do that?” Krummen said.
Brodhead said COVID-19 treatments are improving and more people are surviving. But even survivors can have long-term effects from the disease.
“We have certainly hundreds of people in town, if not more, who are going to be long haulers who will have lifelong effects from this disease,” she said. “So even if they were young and healthy when they got it, and they are not going to die from it, they still will have years and years and years of medical treatments, ahead of them.”
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