By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch
Post
HUTCHINSON — The Board of Reno County Commissioners voted Tuesday 2-1 to opt out of the governor's Executive Order 20-52 and lift the county's mask mandate at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. With that said, Commission Chairman Ron Hirst made himself clear Tuesday.
"Folks, just respect one another," Hirst said. "Respect another business. Follow the proper guidelines. You don't have to try to pull your weight one way or another."
Commissioner Ron Sellers joined the meeting via Zoom from Chicago and quite frankly was surprised the issue came up this week.
"I guess we had an agreement two weeks ago that we would probably remove this on the 30th of this month," Sellers said. "It seems like to me that was an agreement that most of the citizens of Reno County heard all of us say, that we would take this up again. The citizens certainly didn't have notice today that we were even going to discuss this."
Commissioner Daniel Friesen knows he's going out on a limb.
"No. 1, if this is the wrong decision, I'll be the first to admit that and take the blame for it," Friesen said. "I do think our community needs to be pushed a little bit on this and I think that's our job, to look at all of the information and say, hey, you know, this is a time we need to maybe move forward and let go of some of our fear. I'm willing to take that again and take that blame."
Dr. Scott Pauly spoke to the Board of Reno County Commissioners before they voted.
"There's no finite line on when to call something an emergency or not," Pauly said. "I would say we're in a better position as we are from a medical standpoint. I just ask the community for buy-in and patience and practice with mitigating measures if not through a mandate, on their own, because that will buy us time to get more people immunized and eventually hit some form of a tipping point to protect quote unquote, the herd."
The commission has noted in its order that individual businesses or churches or other public places can continue to require masks, if they so choose.