Masks
Dear Editor: I am fully vaccinated but have an illness and age that puts me at risk for hospitalization and death if I catch it.
I cannot understand what politics has to do with a virus that is killing 1,500 people a day nine months after vaccines were available. No shopping for me at Hames stores until they implement a mask mandate.
I read about the rudeness at the last Assembly meeting. Something is very wrong here and it didn’t have to be this way. Common courtesy would suggest wearing a mask for the safety of others who may not be as healthy as you are.
Kris Hoffmann, Sitka
Letter Response
Dear Editor: I want to comment on the treatment Patty Dick received at Tuesday night’s Assembly meeting regarding the proposed mask mandate.
Most of the time allotted for public testimony was eaten up by the feverish yapping and whining from a group about their imaginary “right” to be infected, and to infect others by refusing to wear masks.
Patty Dick did everything right. She waited patiently for her turn to speak, only to be shouted-down, interrupted and even booed, while trying to provide her testimony.
Patty Dick has spent the majority of her adult life doing nothing but good for Sitka. She is a wonderful wife and mother, a renowned educator, and one of the kindest people you could ever ask to meet. She didn’t deserve to be forced to suffer the rudeness and mean-spiritedness of the crowd that night. Those who treated her so badly should be ashamed.
Most certainly, she deserves an apology from the acting-mayor, and from members of the Assembly, for allowing the abuse to go on for so long.
I would like Patty Dick to know that I stand with her.
Florian Sever, Sitka
Assembly Meeting
Dear Editor: After the somewhat unhinged public comments at the Assembly meeting last Tuesday, I took time to read the ordinance in question. I did not see any indication in the ordinance that “big government“ was coming to take away anybody’s freedoms, as suggested by some.
The reasons for implementing the mandate in the first place was to protect people in our community from a highly contagious variant of COVID-19. Since the original mandate was ending soon, the Assembly intended to have the ordinance set in place so that if our community case rates moves into the “high” category, there is mitigation to help reduce the case load. When the numbers drop below “high,” the mandate is not in effect.
Upon reading it, nothing in the ordinance seemed unreasonable.
It asks individuals to cover nose and mouth when indoors in public settings, and it gives several exceptions, all of which seems well thought out and reasonable.
I calculated, if we can drop to 8 or fewer cases in 7 days, we would go below the 100 per 100,000 number, dropping us down from “high” status. What would that require? Probably people wearing their masks in public and social distancing until cases go down.
If everyone cooperates, I think that will happen relatively quickly. But, if people decide they are above the law because they disagree with a City ordinance, then getting through and out of COVID-19 pandemic will likely take much, much longer.
The mask mandate is temporary. It is not “government overreach,” as suggested in comments. It is the Assembly being the grown-ups in the room and putting public safety before crowd rule.
I have been wearing my mask in our office and in public places ever since the mandate was put in place. I support the Assembly in extending the mask mandate for six more months to mitigate current or future upticks of COVID-19 cases.
Sitka has done pretty well getting our population vaccinated. If you haven’t done so yet, please consider being part of the solution.
Tammy Judd Jenny, Sitka
Mask Mandate
Dear Editor: We became aware of the Hames Corporation policy regarding mask wearing in their stores at the last Sitka Assembly meeting: optional for both staff and patrons. We believe that wearing masks inside spaces reduces the spread of COVID-19. We also believe that persons who choose not to wear masks inside tend to include most people who choose not to be vaccinated. Therefore, inside spaces where masks are optional present a double higher risk of communicating COVID-19: more distribution of the germs and distribution of germs by persons more likely to have them (the unvaccinated).
During times when Sitka receives a ‘‘high risk’’ rating from health advisers we will make Lakeside Grocery, which mandates masks for staff and patrons, our preferred grocery shopping destination.
David S. Steward, Sitka
