APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The State Assembly is set to take a vote today that could repeal the statewide mask mandate.
It means Wisconsin could be going back to a patchwork system, with some communities requiring masks while others do not.
A few municipalities already have a mandate in place, just in case a scenario like this came to fruition.
A repeal would turn back the clock for local government officials to before the statewide mandate took effect in August and decisions had to be made in each municipality on a mask mandate.
“I think you want to avoid a patchwork quilt when you have some counties that could have a requirement, some cities would not, and so forth,” said Tom Nelson, Outagamie County’s Executive.
FOX 11 contacted each county public health officer in our area. We heard back from 11, all saying they do not have a county-wide mask mandate in place right now. However, a few cities, like Green Bay, do have their own mandate in place.
“It’s really important to have this requirement for educational purposes more than anything to model good behavior,” said Eric Genrich, Green Bay’s Mayor.
Genrich says the city’s mask mandate expires next Tuesday, but he is hopeful the city council will extend it whether the statewide mandate is repealed or not.
“We’ve had super-majority support on this issue in the past and at our most recent council meeting discussing a face covering requirement, so expecting that will be the case on Tuesday again.”
Brown County Public Health officials say they will continue to encourage mask wearing, but have no plans to issue an advisory mandate.
“Regardless of whether a mask mandate is in place or not, Brown County Public Health will continue to recommend the use of face masks as an effective strategy, and one of many tools in our toolbox, to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community,” said Anna Destree, the county’s public health officer.
Nelson says he’ll issue a proclamation recommending face coverings if the statewide rule is removed, rather than trying for a county-wide mandate.
“You have to have coordination among all the cities and counties,” said Nelson. “We tried that back in May. We had about seven different jurisdictions, cities and counties coming together, but obviously it didn’t work out.”
Doug Gieryn, Winnebago County’s health director, plans to issue an advisory mandate with hopes the county board will make it binding within two weeks.
“We certainly would respond very quickly if needed to help keep that in place,” said Gieryn.
The local officials we spoke with were in agreement, they’d all rather see a rule come from the state level.
The State Senate voted Tuesday to end the statewide mandate.
Republicans supporting the repeal have said they support face coverings. However, they say Governor Tony Evers has been illegally extending the mandate with new emergency declarations.
Evers contends the new declarations are legal because the pandemic has created new threats
Republicans have not said whether they’d issue a new statewide mandate.
