Manhattan Tuesday joined Wichita and a selection of other communities in passing an ordinance requiring residents wear face coverings in public spaces.
City commissioners voted 3 to 2 to mandate wearing masks that cover the mouth and nose when in publicly accessible spaces indoors or outdoors where physical distancing of 6 feet is not possible. The ordinances comes amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in Riley County beginning in mid-June.
Health officials say the county had hovered around an average percent positive rate among tested individuals below the state average around 5 to 6 percent until recent weeks. The rate for the week of June 21 was over 18 percent and over 13 percent during the week of June 28 — that brings the county’s cumulative rate to over 9 percent, higher than the state average by almost a percentage point.
Mayor Usha Reddi a mask ordinance in May, but movement halted at the time due to lack of support within the commission and from community organizations including Kansas State University and the county’s Emergency Operations Center. Since, K-State has implemented its own mask requirements and come out in support of a city-wide ordinance. KSU Football in that time experienced a COVID-19 outbreak constituting 14 players, halting team activities.
They were joined in support by Fort Riley and the MHK Clinical Response Task Force constituted of local health professionals in addition to the EOC, Riley County Health Department and Flint Hills Wellness Coalition. The item also drew hundreds of emailed public comments advocating both for and against the ordinance.
“We’re not going to get 100 percent compliance, but we will have more than what we have now,” says Reddi. “The other piece to this is everybody is frustrated. Everybody’s going to be frustrated for a long while, but this is the one solution we have that where we can make a change.
“If we continue to do what we are doing now, the results will be the same.”
Commissioner Mark Hatesohl, though, pushed for the city to instead adopt a resolution recommending mask wearing. He says an ordinance including criminal punishment is divisive and could drive away folks who already find Manhattan scary. Hatesohl further stated the ordinance will inconvenience and irritate many without providing the ‘silver bullet’ desired to impact the pandemic, adding he thinks most would adhere to a recommendation.
“It all boils down to this personal responsibility of I know what risks I’m willing to take, I don’t need the government to tell me which risks I can’t take,” says Hatesohl. “I sometimes get squishy on budget negotiations, but I never get squishy when it comes to government overreach and taking away the ability for people to run their lives.”
Hatesohl also raised concerns about RCPD’s capacity to enforcement, something mentioned by Director Dennis Butler during his address to the commission. Mayor Pro Tem Wynn Butler agreed with Hatesohl, reiterating past support for a resolution or a shift to handling masks via code enforcement. He questioned whether masks will be effective and whether folks will wear them properly. Butler also had concerns about unity of command demonstrated by the differing decisions at the city and county levels locally.
“I would have preferred a resolution,” Butler says. “Another easier way would have been if the county would have just said [they would]uphold the governor’s executive order and that would have made it simple.
“It would have been a civil action and not one that involves the municipal court.”
Pottawatomie and Riley Counties both opted out of Gov. Laura Kelly’s statewide mask order, part of the more than 80 percent of Kansas’ 105 counties to do so. In its reasoning, the Riley County commission listed the city’s likely action as support for its decision.
City Attorney Katie Jackson told commissioners Tuesday the city does not have the same statutory authority to implement an ordinance enforceable via civil action as the state does, making that impossible under city law. She further added a different approach through code services is possible, though the violations would be treated like general property code violations and could only be levied against businesses — not individuals in violation of possible mask codes.
Commissioner Linda Morse, though, disagreed that a resolution would be effective. She says a local recommendation for mask use has been in place and did not stop COVID-19 numbers and percent positive rates from rising.
“When your county doesn’t act,” says Morse, “And you have a community like Manhattan with a major university and a major military base, and they don’t act, then the city has to come forward.”
The ordinance is effective as of Wednesday upon publication in the Manhattan Mercury, but following typical practice enforcement will not begin until the following day — that being Thursday, July 9. The ordinance sunsets on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, but the commission has plans to revisit the ordinance in light of new information at some point prior to that date.
Commissioner Aaron Estabrook voiced support for the proposed end date, saying he hopes two months of consistency can clear up confusion in the community and help provide medical providers — who say outpatient services are saturated — with more time as Fall approaches.
“It gives us a little bit of time to stop this start and stop, this lurching and pulling back of day-to-day ordinance changes from the county, from the state, federal,” says Estabrook. “We know in the City of Manhattan this is what we’re going to do with masks, this is what we’re going to do at K-State, this is what Fort Riley can expect and it’s going to be that way until September 7th.
Enforcement: $5 for first offense, $10 for second, $20 subsequent + $98 in court costs for each infraction. KMAN will update this story with additional details on the ordinance.
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