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Date: 1/11/2022
HADLEY – The Select Board met for the first time in 2022 on Jan. 5 and circled back to discussions on COVID-19 and vaccine mandates that came up during the Board of Health meeting a week prior, ultimately deciding not to adopt an order requiring vaccines at the Senior Center.
The Board of Health approved a vaccine mandate only for visitors to the Senior Center on Dec. 30. The discussion was only focused on a mandate for the Senior Center, as no vote has been made for a vaccine mandate for general businesses by the Board of Health.
Public comments were almost even in proponents of a mandate and those opposed. A common theme of those against any type of mandate in Hadley was the fear that a vaccine mandate of the Senior Center would eventually lead to all businesses having mandates. Many called such a move, “discriminatory.”
Hayley Wood, director of the Hadley Senior Center spoke and expressed her support in the Board of Health’s decision.
“All the available vaccines provide very significant protection from major illness, hospitalization, and death. Seniors deserve a high level of protection because they are at a higher risk of hospitalization and death following COVID [-19] infection due to their advanced age and other age-related health conditions,” Wood said.
Melinda Nielson, a Hadley resident and frequent user of the Senior Center, expressed how she felt threatened by a mandate as she is unvaccinated.
“I understand people believe it [the vaccine] offers some margin of extra protection, but I do not feel it justifies taking away the rights of town citizens and taxpayers who are unvaccinated,” Nielson said.
Those for the mandate at the Senior Center expressed common themes of wanting to protect the senior population in town that frequent the senior center as evidence from the CDC and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health support the idea that vaccinated individuals have far less issues when contracting the disease as opposed to those unvaccinated.
The Select Board then began to discuss the item as they needed to vote in favor as well for the town to implement any mandate of the Senior Center.
Select Board member Joyce Chunglo opened the discussion expressing that while she is fully boosted and mandated through her work in healthcare to be vaccinated, that a mandate for any building in Hadley would not be beneficial when both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are getting and spreading COVID-19.
“It’s like a ghost among us,” Chunglo said.
She added that instead of enforcing a vaccine mandate at the Senior Center, maybe the Senior Center should consider closing programs at this time of high case numbers.
Board member Jane Nevinsmith spoke from the perspective of a volunteer at the Senior Center and said in her experience seniors are very concerned about their health and vulnerability in the current state. She added that a mandate for the Senior Center should be looked at from a different angle and that seniors are looking out for their health and not attempting to create closed circles.
“That group [seniors] I think behaves differently than people who do not believe in vaccines or have not gotten vaccines,” Nevinsmith said. “On that ground, the reason for having a vaccine mandate for the Senior Center makes sense.”
Nevinsmith and Chunglo both agreed that there would also need to be consideration for a mandate on other town buildings, like the library and town hall, if a mandate were to be put in place for the Senior Center. Board member John Waskiewicz mentioned that instead of looking into mandates that maybe the focus should be on closing these buildings again until case numbers return to a more reasonable level.
“All three of those public buildings take care of all our community. All of our taxpayers, all of our residents, all of our kids,” Waskiewicz said. “We have to keep that into consideration.”
Waskiewicz added that there have seemingly been more public buildings in other cities closing their doors in recent days as the virus spreads. He also felt that while both sides had facts in favor of their arguments that the COVID [-19] vaccine had not been proven well enough that it should be mandated.
“These have not been proven. They have been saving lives and they have not been saving lives so it’s a 50-50 deal right now as far as I’m concerned,” Waskiewicz said.
Waskiewicz also asked to hear more from the fire and police chief on their viewpoint in this situation as the town and state has been seeing more cases than they were at this point last year. He also wanted to hear from their perspective on some of the legality issues if a mandate were to be enforced.
Police Chief Mike Mason was in attendance and said the basis of his letter to the Select Board and Board of Health was focused on the legality issues as he has no opinion on the matter. While discussion in the town has only been focused on the Senior Center mandate, the initial items on the agenda of the previous Board of Health meeting were focused on a mandate of both all businesses and the Senior Center.
“My concern is geared only towards the enforcement of these issues,” Mason said. “Over the past two years we’ve been the ones unfortunately having to deal with the mask mandate enforcement. The Board of Health does not have the personnel or the resources to really handle it. When I saw the agenda items and Dr. Mosler’s email to us, it was clear that they still do not and so unfortunately the Police Department are the ones that are going to be the ones getting called to deal with these matters.”
Mason added that the department still gets calls for the mask mandate weekly if not daily in some places. With the way people have challenged the police already and threatened to take legal action over mask enforcement, Mason felt a vaccine mandate would only raise those tensions.
Mason ultimately felt the rabbit hole that could be gone down with enforcement of these type of mandates did not sit right with him in worse case situations where someone refuses the mandate in place. With the mask mandate for example, Mason broke down what the public safety of the town has to consider along with a mandate.
“They came up with a stepped approach of education, and then there was money fines, and ultimately when you talk about businesses, whether it be the Senior Center or Applebees, there comes the point where someone refuses to leave,” Mason said. “Now you’re talking trespass, disorderly conduct, arrestable offenses to remove them from that site. I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach imagining a senior citizen going to use the Senior Center and refusing to comply and having to arrest them. That’s my issue,” Mason said.
Mason added he felt the questions of who the enforcing authority would be and if the Board of Health could enforce this and the police would be left to deal with it needed to be answered. His main concern was the enforcement optics. Chunglo did add that there was never any meeting about initiating this policy.
“I certainly have less concerns about the Senior Center than I do about the business agenda item,” Mason said. He also mentioned that he and Wood were on the same page as far as programming and working out events like “Coffee with a Cop” to continue amid the current situation regarding COVID-19.
“We love the relationship that we have with the Senior Center. The problem is we are unfortunately as the Police Department stuck in the middle as the enforcers of these mandates,” Mason said.
“This is an unprecedented time right now. This is stuff that is worse than it was a year ago and we didn’t even have numbers in the hospital that were having right now,” Chunglo said. “People need to get a grip on things here that if we have to suspend the use of our buildings again then maybe that’s something we need to look at so that we’re not put in this situation where we have to pick and choose who’s going to go into these buildings. I want us all to be on the same page.”
Chunglo added that communication between all the boards in town was vital for avoiding situations like this, saying that one board cannot issue a mandate without communicating to all the other people involved on what is needed to be done.
Fire Chief Mike Spanknabel also spoke to the board and added some of his thoughts on the recent events and mentioned that the normal process would be putting together a unified command team for a decision like this.
“We understand where the Senior Center and everybody is at, but it just seemed like it was out of left field for us and we just would like to get together as we’ve done since day one where we were literally having daily meetings on this,” Spanknabel said. “It would have been nice to have a little bit of a discussion around the round table here with all the powers that be to discuss this.”
“One of the things that is not recognized is the mandate would be an ideal situation for the Senior Center, but it doesn’t mean if we do not get a mandate the Senior Center should close,” Nevinsmith said. “It’s been operating safely all along, and people choose to come or not to come according to their sense of safety and security.”
Jeff Blake, the town’s legal counsel on behalf of KP Law, went over some basic statutory authority for towns. He said he immediately had concerns over a mandate for the Senior Center for a few reasons. He mentioned if workers there are a part of a collective bargaining agreement, the town would need to bargain with the union to put the mandate in effect. However, as an employer the town could do it but could lead to problematic singling out of employees.
Blake also mentioned that under Mass. law chapter 111 section 104 that, “if a disease dangerous to the public health exists in a town, the selectmen and the Board of Health shall use all possible care to prevent the spread of the infection and may give public notice of infected places by such means as in their judgment for the common safety.” Blake said this was the statutory basis for his opinion.
Blake continued by saying one of the biggest issues to come up in these discussions is enforcement and that the language in the Board of Health’s initial proposal was missing a key piece in a policy like this.
“What needs to be put in there would be penalties and enforcement. When the governor had issued his mask mandate, if you notice, there was an enforcement section in there and he actually said the Board of Health with the help of police can enforce this mandate. Well, that’s gone, so now the way the Board of Health’s mandate is written is we really have no enforcement mechanism,” Blake said.
In Blake’s opinion, in order for a mandate like one at the Senior Center to work, the town would need to sit down and craft an order that takes into account all the various aspects before implementing the current mandate in its writing.
In other towns, Blake has yet to see a vaccine mandate like the one being suggested and has seen more towns go back to a mask mandate. From there, Blake has assisted crafting the orders that hit the needed marks and that would survive challenge in his opinion.
“There appears to be the authority for a Board of Health and a Board of Selectmen to take action to abate this type of disease,” Blake added. “It is available, I think we see cities like Boston have put in some vaccine mandates for large public venues, but the order needs to be crafted in such a way we can attempt to address all the possible issues and I don’t think the one I see coming out of the Board of Health does that at this point.”
“If we were seeing that this vaccine was being able to completely stop transmission, I think it would be a different situation,” said Select Board Chair David Fill. “And I’m not doubting that it protects you and makes the symptoms less severe and may save your life that way, but the reality is – look at fully vaccinated Navy ships, look at cruise ships, look at our secretary of defense that’s triple vaccinated and wears a face shield everywhere he goes – there’s a lot of breakthrough infections and those are coming from other vaccinated people.”
Fill added that while he understands the seniors are coming from a place of just wanting to feel safer, he did not agree with shutting out seniors and people who are taxpayers for these public buildings. Fill also mentioned he received a knock on his door this weekend from residents who don’t use email who heard about the possible mandate and wanted to know about it. He said they repeated a common theme from residents who felt as taxpayers it was not right to enforce a mandate like this.
The Select Board ended the discussion by taking no action and not approving of the proposed mandate from the Board of Health, thus denying any mandate from the Senior Center. If the Board of Health would like to make a new proposal, they need to come back with a rewritten order and still need the approval of the select board as well.
Fill added that while the Board of Health could try again with a vaccine mandate for the Senior Center, that the town’s focus was avoiding that option and doing their best to not shut down any buildings either.
“We are not trying to close the Senior Center down. We are trying to make it safe for everybody,” Chunglo added. “I would highly encourage people to make sure that they are being responsible, and that’s the key word. Because I have it from kids, and parents not being responsible for their kids, to adults not being responsible for themselves. So be responsible if you want to use these facilities.”