‘Some of the wackiest stuff:’ Branson’s 8-hour mask debate wades into Nazis, communism
One woman wore a wedding veil as a face shield and warned against moving toward a socialist society. Another brought a sign calling out the mayor for his “mask asphyxiation orders.”
At a meeting Thursday on a proposed mask ordinance in Branson, resident after resident repeated deep suspicions of public health experts, the healthcare system and data tracking the spread of COVID-19. They invoked the Bible, rejected research showing masks can slow the spread of the virus and embraced conspiracy theories about everything from the so-called “deep state” to Bill Gates.
In the end, after nearly 8½ hours, the board of aldermen voted unanimously late Thursday to postpone a vote on whether the southwest Missouri tourist town should be the latest to adopt a mask ordinance to fend off and contain the coronavirus.
“Excuse me if I sound a little punch drunk, I’m freaking tired,” said Branson Alderman Bill Skains about 7½ hours in and after nearly 40 members of the public had spoken. “It is just absurd the things that I’ve heard. … Some of the wackiest stuff I’ve ever heard in my life — over wearing a mask.”
By the night’s end, some aldermen, who didn’t stop for dinner, joked they just wanted barbecue. One leaned far back in his chair and closed his eyes during a short lull for the city attorney and city clerk to discuss Robert’s Rules of Order.
The board will meet July 28 to take up the ordinance again. But it was clear Thursday night that it will face an uphill battle.
Branson isn’t alone. Though more than half of the nation’s governors have implemented mask mandates, some are still adamantly opposed.
Kansas has one, yet more than 90 counties rejected the governor’s order. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has said he won’t force the issue. And in Georgia, where the governor has sought to bar any mandatory requirements for face masks in public places, he’s now suing the Atlanta mayor over her ordinance requiring them.
At least three of the five aldermen at Thursday’s meeting — one member was absent — said they wouldn’t support the ordinance the way it was written. Skains, who said he thinks people should wear masks and could support an ordinance if it’s reworked, didn’t consider the mandate enforceable.
“I don’t think you can make people conform,” Skains said. “There was a gentleman a little earlier (who said), they can’t even pull their britches up in Walmart. I mean, Lord have mercy.”
Another board member said he didn’t think the board had enough input from businesses and attractions and wanted to go through the ordinance line by line to “clarify” certain things. And a third cautioned everyone to look at the raw numbers and not the percentages showing a more than 800 percent increase in cases for Taney County.
“I think, in my opinion, we may be premature in pulling the trigger on an ordinance that mandates masks,” said Alderman Larry Milton.
Early last week, coronavirus cases in Taney County hit triple digits. Since then, cases have continued to climb. By Friday, the county had reported 146 cases and three deaths.
Just three weeks earlier, on June 26, the county had just 43 cases.
Those numbers don’t take into account the tourists who go to the Branson area and test positive for the virus once they return home. Their cases are counted in their home county and state.
The Branson area has had some movement on masks, but everything has fallen far short of a mandate. Late last month, the Taney County Health Department’s board of trustees passed a resolution asking residents and visitors to wear face masks or coverings in public places. But it is not a requirement.
Earlier this month, a rule went into effect requiring anyone entering a city building or facility to wear a “face covering.” That includes the parks department, city hall and police department. But no public areas.
Medical professionals started out the meeting talking about the need to stop the spread of the virus.
“The question before you today is do masks work?” Dr. Shawn Usery, of Cox Medical Center Branson, said to the aldermen. “... I would tell you yes.”
About 12 minutes in, as Usery spoke, members of the audience began to get rowdy. There were some boos and argumentative outbursts.
Mayor Edd Akers spoke up:
“If you can’t be quiet and listen to the speaker,” Akers scolded, “... I can ask for you to be removed from the meeting and I will do so.”
Not long after that, as the city attorney and medical professionals were still presenting information, the audience was told that the neighboring state of Arkansas had just ordered a “face covering mandate.” Some applause was mixed with loud boos.
Cox Medical Center Branson President William Mahoney spoke after Usery.
“We are seeing an uptick in this area,” he told the board. Mahoney explained how the medical staff was going on “122 days of this” and were worn out, some had been sick and others worried about taking the virus home to their families.
“... We have to be that voice for health,” Mahoney said. “Please act now and mask up.”
As soon as the public comment segment began, the meeting morphed into a revival of sorts, with wild accusations and hellbent beliefs that a mandate to wear a small fabric mask would strip away people’s rights and doom the tourist town.
One local pastor said half the U.S. population had already been infected with COVID-19 and said the novel disease had been around for 20 years. The country, he said, “is suffocating in a cesspool of ignorance.”
Another pastor linked the proposed mask ordinance with the Black Lives Matter movement, warning of the nation’s slide into communist rule. Business owners said Branson will lose the tourism it’s known for if visitors are made to wear face masks.
And one resident, wearing a hat and T-shirt that said “Tyranny Response Team,” said the coronavirus was “artificially created” in a North Carolina lab to make money for a company “in cahoots” with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least three people likened mask mandates to the Holocaust that killed millions of Jews and other Europeans.
At least 10 people railing against the mandate spoke before the first person came to the podium urging board members to vote for a mask ordinance. Of the nearly 40 people who spoke, roughly seven supported the ordinance.
Joshua Pope said COVID-19 would “be a death sentence” for his grandmother if she contracted the virus. He noted that dozens of cities and states have already implemented their own mask requirements.
“If we deny this mandate...we are claiming that we know better or do not care enough to follow what they believe is a credible threat,” Pope told the board.
Others for the ordinance spoke passionately, like Pope.
Jean Chanda told the alderman that 28 states have temporary mask ordinances, as well as several cities.
“This isn’t some huge conspiracy,” Chanda said. “This is states and cities caring about their own citizens.
“It isn’t that I wear a mask because COVID scares me. The sheer number of anti-maskers here scare me.”
Don Ingram, a business owner, told the board he was in favor of a mandate and it was just something the city would “have to bite the bullet on.”
“I would prefer to go with what the CDC is telling me than someone out here in left field,” Ingram said. “Not trying to be demeaning to anyone, that’s just kind of the way I see it.”
But proponents of the ordinance were far outnumbered by opponents of it.
“Quit suffocating our rights. You are paranoid schizophrenics,” said Amber Thompson, who held up a sign that said “End Mask Order Oppression.”
Thompson said she was unable to interview for a job because she could not wear a mask and claimed that hospitals were purposefully killing patients on ventilators. She also complained about the government stealing children from parents and the Culver’s drive thru only accepting credit cards because of a national currency shortage.
Jodi Wobser said that many laws were based on the Bible, which she said also offers wisdom for navigating the pandemic.
“One of those things that the Lord shows us in the word is that we quarantine the sick,” she said. “We don’t quarantine the healthy people. We don’t lock them behind doors and we don’t walk around with masks on our faces.”
Wobser said locals social distance and sanitize their hands, which she said is “sufficient.” And she urged the aldermen to reject the “status quo” in other cities like Springfield, which approved a mask mandate Monday.
“It would grieve my heart to see this city follow the way of every other city,” she said. “But if you refuse to bow to this thing, I believe that people are going to flood this place. Because they want to come to a place that’s not in bondage.”
Others worried that the tourism community would suffer economically if masks were mandated. Visitors wouldn’t come. Restaurants and theaters would close. Businesses wouldn’t survive.
Kristina Smith, part of the family that runs the Hughes Brothers Theater, said a mask mandate would hurt not only the local economy but the physical health of individuals. She said many visitors are currently coming to Branson specifically because they do not have to wear masks.
She also criticized healthcare providers, who initially pleaded with the public to help flatten the curve so they could prepare for an influx of patients.
“We gave them time to get prepared,” she said.
Nearly 5½ hours into the meeting, Kevin VanStory asked the board to take a stand and do what other towns haven’t. Vote no, he said, for the sake of Branson.
“If you make the masks a mandate, you might as well shut this town down,” said VanStory, whose daughter lives in Branson. “... I don’t want to beat on you too much.”
One elected city leader piped in: “We’ve taken five hours of butt whooping, we can take a little more.”
Dirk Myers, of Dirk D Myers Photography and Service With a Style Consulting, said business owners and employees throughout the town are taking precautions and making sure customers are safe. They are doing what they need to do to stay safe, Myers told the board.
“We trusted you when we voted for you,” Myers said. “You need to trust us now. … Honestly, we don’t need your help.”
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
