A request could now go to the Shelby County Health Department — not Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland — to reinstate the local mask mandate in an effort to curb rising COVID-19 numbers.
A last-minute resolution from council member Dr. Jeff Warren was filed Tuesday as committee meetings were already under way. That resolution asked Stickland “to reinstate a mask mandate in the city of Memphis.”
Warren was told neither the council nor the mayor had any authority to reinstate such a mandate at the council’s wrap-up committee meeting Tuesday afternoon. Council member Chase Carlisle told Warren the mayor could require mask mandates on city-owned property. Also, the council could ask the health department to bring back the mask mandate.
But he said state law pre-empts local bodies from making such moves. This, he said, rendered Warren’s resolution “meaningless” and that there was “no point” to it.
“We need to do something to make people know they need ot wear their masks indoors mandatorily,” Warren said. “The current COVID virus is infecting people with the vaccine and people with the vaccine are infectious even if they’re not sick. The only way we’re going to be able to blunt this curve and not make it horrible is to enact this and ask the mayor to do what he can to make it mandatory within the city.”
A city ordinance did bring Memphis’ first mask mandate, officials explained to Warren. But it was passed as Strickland had authority to make executive orders in an emergency situation, said council attorney Allan Wade. However, once Tennessee Governor Bill Lee pulled the statewide emergency order on COVID-19, Strickland lost the authority to mandate masks citywide.
Warren asked if the council passed a mask mandate, would that force Governor Lee “to tell us it is illegal?” Wade explained that Memphis Police Department officers could not enforce it and, if they did, the council “would have some lawsuits to defend.”
As the debate dwindled Tuesday afternoon, other council members began to walk out of the conference room on their way to the council chambers downstairs at city hall. However, Warren explained his reasoning for fighting hard for some kind of mask mandate.
“People in the restaurant business and other businesses are saying, ‘please give us some government cover for mandatory masking in our business. We don’t want to be the one to ask to do that. We need some help,’” Warren said. “So, what help can we give them?”
Warren’s resolution will go before the full council Tuesday evening asking the health department for a mask mandate. It will have no up or down recommendation from the council committee.
City leaders dropped enforcement of the city-wide mask mandate on May 15th. The move followed Lee ending the state-wide public health emergency and the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) ending its mask mandate.
COVID-19 numbers have risen and continue to rise, however. The SCHD said in July it had no plan to bring back its mask mandate, though, a new health directive issued Tuesday aligned the county with federal policies that now strongly recommend masks indoors, even of those who have been vaccinated.
Masks are required, once again, in Shelby County government buildings. Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey told WMC-TV that any statewide COVID mandates are, basically, over.
