Posted on 01/03/2022 3:28:14 PM PST by Steven Scharf
Portland [Maine] City Council meets to discuss ending state of emergency
Councilors are expected to weigh in on two major issues, an increase in wages for in-person workers to $19.50 per hour and a proposed indoor mask mandate.
Author: newscentermaine.com Published: 5:32 PM EST January 3, 2022 Updated: 5:32 PM EST January 3, 2022
Tied to it is a citizen initiative passed ordinance (in November 2020) requiring Portland businesses to pay hazard pay of $19.50 per hour (time and a half). The council took public comment on this item on December 20, 2021 and then postponed it to this meeting. The council's practice is to not take public comment on a postponed item. Tonight the council voted to suspend the rules and take additional public comment (from those who did not comment on the 20th). I suspect the 7 liberal councilors who voted to take comment expected their liberal friends to plead to extend the State of Emergency. The first speaker was of this ilk. All of the rest so far, have implored to end the State of Emergency. (As I write this, there have been a couple of comments to keep the SOE, but there continues to be a stream of folks calling for killing the SOE).
I know many of the small business leaders in Portland and I have been surprised that several liberal business leaders have stepped up tonight to say end this.
This is the agenda description which makes no refence to the hazard pay issue.
Order 124-21/22 Repealing the Declaration of an Emergency - Sponsored by Danielle West, Interim City Manager
This item would repeal the City of Portland's State of Emergency. The current Emergency Order was passed to allow all City of Portland public meetings to take place remotely. Since its passage, all public bodies (including the City Council and Council committees) have individually adopted the Council’s Remote Participation Policy. This policy, in combination with Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, allows hybrid and, when warranted, fully remote meetings. In short, the Emergency Order is no longer needed to allow for public meetings to be conducted remotely. Without the Emergency Order in place, the Council and its committees (as well as all other City boards and commissions) will need to make a determination regarding remote participation on a meeting-by meeting basis. The City of Portland will determine when City Hall and other public buildings will reopen to the public based on logistics and the most recently available health data. As of December 27, 2021, for the State of Maine, the Maine CDC was reporting a 7-day average of 752.3 new cases of COVID-19. The 7-day average percentage of hospital emergency room visits for COVID-19 like illness was 9.1% of all emergency room visits. The 7-day average of new hospitalizations for COVID-19 was 3.3 hospitalizations per day. On December 28, 2021, there were 330 individuals hospitalized, 110 in critical care and 56 on a ventilator. Fifty-eight out of 323 adult critical care beds were available and 8 out of 61 pediatric critical care beds were available. The US CDC classified Cumberland County as high transmission with a case rate of 344.40 cases per 100,000 for the period of December 21, 2021 - December 27, 2021, despite more than 88% percent of the population over the age of 5 being vaccinated.
At the December 20, 2021 City Council meeting a motion was passed (6-3) to postpone Order 124-21/22 to the January 3, 2022 City Council meeting. Public comment was taken at the December 20, 2021 City Council meeting, and no further public comment will be taken on this item. Five affirmative votes are required for passage.
They never thought endless rioting was a state of emergency.
To hell with them.
Oh crud. Maine.
Nevermind.
Obviously Portland’s City Council hasn’t a clue how to run a city and safely guard it’s citizens.
I meant to post this Portland Press Herald article which probably give more details. There is a separate order later about mask mandates which is probably referred to in this article.
Guess downtown business and tourism took a beating.
First rule of holes is that when you're in one, stop digging.
If you read my post, this order is NOT about masks.
Our brand new councilor of color has already made this about “our black and brown individuals”. She just spoke for 5 minutes without stating how she intends to to vote the order.
Yeah, fooled me too :)
Unconfirmed reports are that downtown PDX is still boarded up.
I sold off my business and real estate assets in Portland 5 years ago, and never looked back. When I read stories like this, I’m amazed by how prescient my timing was.
Self made emergencies in the land of libtards 🤪
A leftist within a 100 mile radius is a state of emergency. One is in danger of being sucked into a “unseen” hole of stench, idiocy, and repulsiveness.
The Daleks had a point. “Exterminate. Exterminate”.
Only very slightly kidding.
Make that very very very slightly.
Lol. Incompetent City management ends up in high levels of violence so the citizens of the City want the businesses to pay their workers more? Is that correct? So, wages are to be set by a vote of the citizenry?
Time to close up shop.
The council voted to repeal the SOE.
This only affects how the hold meetings and the emergency wage.
This is PORTLAND MAINE.
Oops wrong Portland. I just a assumed that since it was insane that it was Portland, Oregon. Are they sister cities?
The Portland Maine City Council is now discussing a mask mandate which will have a vax carve out.
Order 131-21/22 Amendment to Portland City Code Chapter 17 Re: Face Covering Mandate - Sponsored by Councilor Andrew Zarro
Following extensive public comment and discussion by the Council during the December 20 meeting, this item proposes the adoption of a face covering mandate. It is modeled almost entirely on language recently adopted by Burlington, Vermont, with minor changes aimed at tailoring it to Portland’s existing practices around COVID-19 (e.g. it does not adopt capacity restrictions in the same way that Burlington’s ordinance does) and fitting it within the City’s Code of Ordinances.
Critical care hospitalizations in Maine have reached some of the highest numbers for the entire period of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this is happening despite a high county-wide rate of vaccinations and is primarily the result of the delta and now omicron variants’ contagiousness. As a result, state health officials, along with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials and the Maine Center for Disease Control officials, advise the use of all preventative measures, including the use of face coverings in public indoor spaces. It is hoped that these measures will succeed at slowing the relentless spread of Covid-19, especially among the immune-compromised and children under 5, who are not yet allowed to be vaccinated.
This item must be read on two separate days. Staff is requesting that the second reading be waived, which requires seven affirmative votes. Staff also requests that this item be passed as an emergency. Seven votes are required for passage as an emergency following public comment.
This is about Portland Maine. Please do not comment about the other Portland.
This was my email I sent out on Friday alerting people to this item.
Back in September, I wrote to you with an urgent message to reach out to the Portland City Council regarding a proposed mask mandate to be enforced by Portland business for their patrons. After tabling the matter, the council ended up removing the mask mandate from the order before passing other parts of a renewed order declaring an emergency.
On Monday, January 3, 2022 the Council has on their agenda two items relating to the ongoing pandemic.
The first Order is to repeal the order they eventually passed that continued the “State of Emergency” declaration so that they could (and have to) hold meetings remotely. They took public comment at their December 20, 2021 meeting and then punted it to this meeting. They will not be taking further comment on this order that they should pass as it is no longer necessary. It only relates to their ability to hold meeting in person and they have worked the logistics to allow the public to participate remotely.
The second Order is to institute a mask mandate via enactment of a new city ordinance* for entry to any public building in the city.
Public Building means any building or portion of a building within the City of Portland that is regularly accessible to the general public. For purposes of this ordinance, a Public Building shall not include a private residence or residential unit, a public pre-school or K through 12 school (which remains under the authority of the Board of Public Education), a church or other house of worship, office space where the occupant(s) can be physically separated from the general public, or the portions of a theater, gym, or athletic arena where all of the individuals performing, exercising, or playing have been vaccinated and where there is either space, a physical barrier, or ventilation system separates them from the general public or audience.
Don’t complain to me if you think this language is convoluted. Laws are written to keep lawyers in business. The jist of this is that you are apparently safe in churches, theaters, gyms and athletic arenas, but not other buildings. It defines office buildings as public spaces requiring masking while employees are working at desks in open spaces. (That is really going to encourage people to come back to work in Portland offices.)
They intend this to go into effect on January 4, 2022, hours after they pass it. This new ordinance is so convoluted that if a business screens and only allows vaccinated people, they can take off their masks. (This is separate from the proposed vaccine mandate you are hearing about.)
As I just noted, there was a petition submitted to the Council requesting that the enact an ordinance requiring all people entering public buildings to be “fully” vaccinated. That is not on the Council agenda and cannot be added to the proposed ordinance on Monday (it could be added at a future meeting).
The agenda descriptions for the two orders are below.
It is urgent that you contact the Portland City Councilors by noon on Monday to express your concern with the mask mandate on Monday’s meeting agenda and a potential vaccine mandate at a future meeting.
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