Best practices for public safety means nothing; sign on the door means nothing (well except hypocrisy apparently); a willful violation(s) it is indeed; you are on camera, it is irrefutably proven, yet you are going to defend yourselves; the mayor and a trustee not only violated the mask rules, but they allowed others to do so as well; now they are going to have a special meeting with no public comment and dig themselves a deeper hole; they are going to contemplate hiring counsel at a much greater cost to defend them from a $300 fine, which they are quite lucky is only that, but they will be risking it ending up much higher; their responsible residents ought to be outraged by this as they will ultimately be paying the cost of counsel; and then there is the deputy mayor who says this:
“In the wave of Mayor Rogers statements last week, many of our business owners and *residents have applauded her statements, while just as many have expressed dismay," said Matthew Etu.
The village has no legislative authority to contravene county mandates because we do not have our own health department. So for those who share the mayor’s view, feel free to come to the village and frequent our businesses and please comply with county mandates. For those who don’t share our mayor’s view, feel free to come to the village and patronize our village businesses and know that they are compliant with the mandates.
Matthew Etu, Deputy Mayor of Williamsville
Etu, the deputy mayor of the village, has spent the past week trying to emphasize that Mayor Deborah Rogers’ statements were not reflective of the way the village is operating. Rogers had gone on a local radio station and shared her personal opinions, which are in opposition to the recent mask mandate.
“I want to be really clear our village businesses are compliant with the county mandates. Policy is not opinion and vice versa," said Etu. He stressed that the mayor was expressing her opinions alone and that one member of the board’s opinion is their right to express, but does not represent the board’s perspective or the village’s policy in regards to COVID.
(AND *WHO ARE SOME OF THESE UNMASKED PEOPLE COMING INTO BOARD MEETINGS AND APPLAUDING THEIR IRRESPONSIBILITY; Jina Gentry for one, who is on the board of the constitutional coalition of New York State, a protest group who’s goals are against all mandates and so far that they think they can even go into businesses that willingly implement and support the mandate and ignore them. They are so reckless that one of their recent events was to have a no mask-no vaccination-no social distancing Christmas party; surely that’s what Christ would do! They protest the schools too; no masks, no vaccines, and their hypocrisy knows no bounds, especially in her case because as a parent she chose not to vaccinate her children, even prior to the pandemic, due to her “born again” religious perspective. She pulled her kids out of school in 2019 after a bill was signed that the State would no longer allow religious exemptions to vaccines, That exemption closed in part due to the worst measles outbreak the U.S. had seen in decades. That action withstood legal challenges and rightfully so, and the irony is that our current health crisis is worse than that one was yet some people think it prudent to argue that all over again.)
BUT WE DIGRESS; TO THE POINT – WILLIAMSVILLE AS AN ENTITY SHOULD BE FINED, BOTH THE MAYOR AND THE TRUSTEE SHOULD BE FINED, AND IF THEY DO PUSH THEIR LUCK INSTEAD OF ACCEPTING THE GRACE OF A REDUCED FINE AS AN EXAMPLE AND COURTESY, OBVIOUSLY A WARNING TO STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT – THEN WE SINCERELY HOPE THAT ERIE COUNTY DOES LEVEL THE FULL FORCE OF THE ORDINACE UPON THEM.
Village of Williamsville fined $300 for ‘willful violation’ of state, county mask orders
WBFO-FM 88.7 | By Emyle Watkins
Published January 18, 2022 at 2:53 PM EST
Village Of Williamsville Jan 10, 2022
The Village of Williamsville has been fined $300 by the Erie County Department of Health for the "willful violation" of mask orders at their board meeting last week.
The fine was issued Jan. 12 and the village has until Feb. 5 to pay it.
The village released a statement on Tuesday saying they will hold a special board meeting, with no public comment, on Thursday in order to "approve the hire of outside counsel to represent the village in a pending legal matter with the Erie County Department of Health."
Emyle Watkins / WBFO
This sign, hanging in the door to the Village Hall on Jan. 13, 2022, reads "PER NY STATE AND THE ECDOH MANDATE ALL PERSONS OVER THE AGE OF 2 AND MEDICALLY ABLE TO TOLERATE A FACE COVERING ARE REQUIRED TO WEAR ONE. THANK YOU!"
WBFO has been covering the Village of Williamsville’s mask mandate situation since December.
At a Jan. 10 meeting in which the board approved a resolution opposing any further county and state mask mandates, Mayor Deb Rogers could be seen without a mask and several village residents spoke unmasked during the public comment period.
Trustees Christine Hunt, Eileen Torre and David Sherman were masked throughout the meeting, while Trustee Matt Carson could often be seen with his mask below his chin throughout the voting.
A county health department spokesperson said the Village of Williamsville violated both 10 NYCRR 2.60 and Erie County Executive Emergency Orders relating to mask wearing-face covering.
"For the safety of participants and audience members at Village of Williamsville board meetings, our department hopes that the Village Board takes this matter seriously," the spokesperson said in an email. "NY rule and regulations (NYCRR) apply to facilities across the state, just as Erie County Emergency Orders apply to facilities within Erie County, including in the village of Williamsville."
Whats Right for Chautauqua County 