The West Tisbury select board unanimously voted to suspend the mask mandate in town buildings. However, people who are in charge of each building, such as the West Tisbury library or Howes House, can make their own decision on whether to continue requiring masks in their facilities.
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School officials voted to suspend mask mandates in February, and the Island’s boards of health suspended indoor mask mandates earlier this month, but left it open to town buildings and business owners to make their own decisions.
This comes as the number of cases of COVID-19 has dropped significantly after a surge in cases in January.
“We still have our own mask mandates for town buildings, which required you to wear a mask when you enter,” West Tisbury select board chair Skipper Manter said in opening discussion on the topic. “Do we want to consider rescinding our mask mandate, following the guidelines the board of health has voted? Just as we implemented with the recommendations of the board of health, do we want to reduce or amend our present mask mandate?”
Manter was in favor of rescinding the mask mandates, but also wanted to let individual boards, committees, and directors decide whether to keep the mandates or not, since “these buildings have specific audiences and specific needs that I think might be better addressed locally.”
“I don’t disagree with that, Skipper,” West Tisbury select board member Cynthia Mitchell replied. “I think in general the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines on masking has shifted from community-wide to, as they say, ‘location by location.’ I believe that, for example, in Oak Bluffs and Tisbury, the libraries want people to be masked. It makes sense to me to do it all by building.”
When asked by Mitchell for an opinion, West Tisbury town administrator Jennifer Rand said it should be a choice for the people who are vaccinated. Rand agreed that the various buildings should decide this for themselves, because of different populations and the amount of time individuals are inside these buildings. Rand has also heard from many people that they are now comfortable with lifting the mandates.
The board unanimously voted to rescind the mask mandate at the town hall, although they made it clear individuals are free to wear them.
Manter asked Rand what the process would be to give each building director the decision to rescind or keep the mask mandate.
“We didn’t give it to the boards to vote. In other words, they’re town buildings and we didn’t give it to the boards to have a mask mandate,” Rand said. “Therefore, what I actually think is your vote should not be to rescind it for town hall, but to rescind your mandate and allow for each building to make their own decisions, because your vote was never to make town hall a mask required and the Council on Aging mask required, and so forth. It was to have a mask mandate in town buildings.”
The board changed its vote to unanimously approving the decision to rescind the overall mask mandate in town buildings, and allowing individuals in charge of each town building to make their own decisions.
In other business, the board unanimously voted to sign the warrant for the annual town meeting in April.
The board unanimously approved hiring Jennie Gadowski as an administrative assistant at the Up-Island Council on Aging.