The Village of Gambier approved a six-week indoor mask mandate for all public buildings, including businesses and schools, but like previous mandates Knox County Sheriff David Shaffer has no plans for his deputies to enforce the new law.
The mask mandate includes a $25 fine that would be enforced by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.
“I have spoken with Mayor Kessler and informed him that deputies will not be citing anyone for violations. We will not put deputies in that situation. We have not enforced mask mandates in the past, and we will not enforce this mandate,” Shaffer said in a Facebook post.
Gambier Mayor Leeman Kessler said it’s obvious the sheriff’s office is maintaining the same policy it had when similar mandates were made by the state. He saw it as a continuation of Shaffer’s policy.
“Our hope is, just like we saw, even with that lack of sheriff’s enforcement we’ll still see compliance. Obviously, the schools were able to maintain masking last fall and last spring. We’re hopeful that Kenyon and the schools and businesses are able to comply, even without the sheriff's coordination in this,” he said.
Kessler said the ordinance requires some form of facial covering to help control the spread of infection at any indoor public building or building of public accommodation, including businesses, the People's Bank, restaurants, schools and Kenyon College. Some exceptions were made including places of worship, residences and private office. The mandate will expire after Oct. 4 unless council takes action.
Kessler said the decision was not made lightly or casually. Gambier officials tried to be informed by health bodies and health organizations that have done research. Before exploring a mask mandate, he said he contacted Health Commissioner Julie Miller and Deputy Health Commissioner Zach Green at Knox Public Health.
“We worked with the schools to make sure that whatever ordinance we put in place would not put undue burden on them. We want to make sure they're aware that we're not asking any more of them than what they already demonstrated last spring,” he said.
The village tried to implement recommendations from the local board of public health, the Ohio Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“We're following the science, we're following the doctors and we're hoping that we can have a safe start of the school year,” Kessler said.
If all goes well and they don’t see a rise in cases and local schools are safe, he believes that the ordinance will expire as scheduled in six weeks.
“But if we do start seeing things get out of hand, then we'll be happy to have had this ordinance in place to keep our community safe,” he said.
Kenyon College will have one of its largest student bodies on campus. And Wiggin Street Elementary School will have a full complement of students, Kessler said.
“At the same time, we've got a really nasty delta variant zooming around the state and county and we're going to try to stay on top of it,” he said.
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