LEBANON — The Lebanon City Council narrowly rescinded the city’s indoor mask mandate Wednesday night, removing the requirement in the Upper Valley’s commercial hub.
Mayor Tim McNamara said he believes Lebanon was the last municipality in the state with a mask mandate in place.
The vote was 5-4, and the change went into effect on Thursday.
“Everyone around us is unmasked,” McNamara said at Wednesday’s meeting. “I feel like we’re on a very small island in the middle of a very large ocean.”
A map issued by the state in late February shows Lebanon as one of eight municipalities in New Hampshire with a mask mandate remaining. Most or all have since been rescinded or allowed to expire.
Lebanon’s is the last mandate left on the New Hampshire side of the Upper Valley, after Hanover and Enfield ended theirs earlier this month.
Private businesses can still require masks if they choose.
Lebanon also was one of the last municipalities in the Granite State to end its mask mandate in mid-2021; the council allowed it to expire in June before restoring it Sept. 1.
The public hearing and council debate lasted nearly an hour with arguments from both sides that echoed much of what has been repeated for the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, with COVID-19 infection rates declining and hospitals seeing fewer patients suffering severe illness, Lebanon City Health Officer Calvin Hunnewell told the council he could no longer support a mask mandate based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New Hampshire state epidemiologist, Dr. Benjamin Chan.
Assistant Mayor Clifton Below argued that it was appropriate to follow CDC guidance and supported removing the mask mandate, as did councilor Devin Wilkie, who said evidence and science shows that masks are effective but that mask requirements may do more harm than good by engendering anger and pushback.
“Mandates and other top-down solutions have politicized the issue and driven extremists to be more vociferous and fueled the fire,” Wilkie said.
Karen Liot Hill gave voice to those supporting the mask mandate, arguing that a cautious approach is prudent when it comes to public health decisions.
“I understand that people are frustrated with wearing masks, but COVID is very real,” Hill said. “This disease is still being understood. We don’t know everything about this disease and I think in light of all of this, it’s wise to take a low-risk approach. I think that wearing masks is sensible and I think it’s too early to remove the mask mandate at this time.”
And newly elected councilor Christian Simon said he struggled with the issue, given the metric public health officials are using.
“The recent CDC guideline is a measure of hospitals’ ability to deal with patients,” Simon said. “It means there’s a ventilator available to breathe for you, that you’re probably not going to die from it. That’s a really low bar.”
The mask mandate helps protect those who need to be protected, according to Simon.
“Are we going to turn our backs on the most at-risk? The people who are least able to manage the situation?” Simon asked. “This weighs on me.”
While the City Council rescinded the mandate effective Thursday, masks will still be required in a few public buildings, including the Lebanon airport, as well as on Advance Transit buses. The airport and bus companies have to follow Transportation Safety Administration rules, which earlier this month extended mask requirements through April 18 on public transportation and at transportation hubs.
Another temporary outlier is the city’s libraries. Under a vote Tuesday by the city’s Library Board of Trustees, masks will no longer be required as of next Monday.
Darren Marcy can be reached at dmarcy@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.