By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The Howell City Council has decided to hold off on declaring any state of emergency.

Declaring such an emergency would have allowed Council and other public bodies to hold virtual meetings. At a previous meeting, Council agreed that based on guidance from the CDC and Livingston County Health Department strongly recommending masks, new signage would be put up around City Hall reflecting that.

Councilman Dr. Bob Ellis has been pushing for a mask mandate based on increased cases and hospitalizations and the county’s risk level being upgraded from “moderate” to “substantial”. Ellis earlier proposed implementing a mask mandate but was advised by the City attorney that it would be difficult to mandate masks for the public to come into City Hall as it’s a public building.

At Monday night’s meeting, he advocated for declaring an emergency to go back to virtual meetings. He put forth a failed motion to declare a state of emergency, saying he felt the safest thing to do would be to go back to virtual meetings to prevent spread as people can still participate and Council can still conduct business safely - at least until the county gets back to a level of “moderate” risk and it’s reasonable to go back to in-person meetings.

Ellis noted the Howell Carnegie District Library Board, of which he is a member, is very interested in following CDC guidelines and has been meeting outdoors since the pandemic increased again. He said declaring an emergency would give entities like the library board the flexibility to have virtual meetings, which he felt would further be an advantage once the weather starts getting cold. It was stated during the meeting that a few members of various City commissions had reached out to staff about holding virtual meetings and were informed that Council would be discussing it.

It was noted during the meeting that there haven’t been any outbreaks at City Hall.

A motion by Councilman Steve Manor passed unanimously to defer the resolution to the next meeting so that way it’s on the agenda and will be ready to go if needed based on guidance. As for masks, Manor said he would hate to get “beat up anymore by the public”. He said those against masks are paying the price for that individually and “people are dying from the disease but that’s their choice as far as he’s concerned.”

Manor told Council until the public starts following some of the guidance and mandates, he doesn’t want to get run over by the public anymore. He said he’ll continue to wear a mask where he feels it’s a danger to him - adding he’s in his 5th year of a cancer fight and his immune system is compromised so he’s really conflicted because he wants to not meet in person but also likes meeting in public.

Others on Council didn’t feel the situation rose to the level of an emergency just yet but agreed that things change rapidly.

Councilman Randy Greene and Mayor Pro-Tem Jan Lobur commented that they didn’t feel there is an emergency right now. Lobur again reiterated that she felt wearing masks is something that should be done out of respect in public situations, not because people are forced to.

Mayor Nick Proctor noted there were no mandates as of yet from the state and local health departments - to which Ellis commented that the federal government has extended a public health emergency order every three months since the pandemic began. He said the CDC doesn’t have the authority to mandate anything and can only make recommendations, adding the higher levels of government have essentially abdicated their responsibility in pushing things down to the lower levels to make decisions.

Proctor said there are strong recommendations but he’s not seeing any sense of urgency from state and county officials so he’s not quite there yet - adding things change quickly but the staff is on top of things and in regular contact with the Livingston County Health Department so they can act quickly if needed.