Quarter of NY counties refuse to ‘become mask police’ despite Hochul mandate
County officials statewide opposed to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mask mandate called it “silly,” “misguided” and “unenforceable” on Tuesday — with one rejecting it as “Gestapo tactics” and another saying “we’re not going to become the mask police.”
Since Hochul announced her order on Friday, leaders in 13 Republican-controlled counties have publicly refused to force businesses that don’t require vaccination for admittance to make workers, customers and visitors wear masks.
The defiant counties — along with Nassau County, where incoming Republican County Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman has said he’ll defy the mandate — account for nearly one-quarter of all the state’s territories, not including the five boroughs of New York City.
In addition to Nassau, four other counties — Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Dutchess — are among the Big Apple’s suburbs.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said he opposed “using Gestapo tactics and going business to business and asking them if they are enforcing masking.”
“My health department has critical things to do that are more important than enforcing this and I think small businesses have been through enough already,” he said.
“God forbid the governor directs the state police to go out and enforce it.”
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro said that his county’s health commissioner recently issued a bulletin that recommended wearing masks in public places, but noted that “it wasn’t a dictate.”
“We don’t have the resources or even the desire to engage in a mandate that we don’t believe is going to produce a measurable outcome,” he said.
“It’s difficult enough in an emergency to tell people something they should do, but even more so now when [Hochul’s] predecessor frankly squandered public trust.”
The administrator of Greene County in the Catskills, estimated population 47,188, said, “I don’t have staff to do enforcement, so we’re not even going to try to do enforcement.”
“What am I going to do, station somebody at a Walmart 24/7? It’s silly,” Administrator Shaun Groden said.
“My staff will have to mask up. But we’re not going to become the mask police.”
Groden added: “We will still encourage people to get vaxxed. Otherwise, it’s just something we can’t accommodate.”
Republican Theodore Kusnierz, chairman of the board of supervisors in Saratoga County, north of Albany, said government officials there viewed Hochul’s mandate as “misguided and unreliable.”
“Our top priority, and it has been this way since January of this year, has been the response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
“When we have to redirect our limited resources to a mandate, that takes away from the critically important efforts that we have underway in ensuring that everyone who would like to receive a vaccination has received it.”
Kusnierz added: “Saratoga County simply doesn’t have the resources to redirect our efforts from doing something that is proven to protect people 24/7 to ensuring that somebody has a mask on.”
A joint statement Tuesday from officials in Genesee and Orleans counties, located between Rochester and Buffalo, noted that Hochul “did not clearly state how enforcement of the mask mandate will occur.”
Paul Pettit, public health director for both counties, said officials “will continue to focus our efforts on offering free vaccination and testing clinics as well as conducting case investigations.”
“We do not have the capacity to enforce mask mandates and enforcing mandates is not the best use of our limited resources at this point of the pandemic response,” Pettit added.
Hochul’s mandate carries fines of up to $1,000 for each violation and during a Tuesday news conference in Manhattan, she said, “Counties have always had to enforce public health requirements. That’s what they do.”
“I encourage the counties to do this, but it’s also —- this is also up to individuals,” Hochul added.
“Individuals are asked to follow regulations and in general, follow laws. And that is what we’re continuing to do here.”
