Starting March 21, the Healdsburg City Council will return to hybrid meetings, meaning people can attend the meeting in-person at City Hall or virtually via Zoom. Those who attend the meeting in-person will be required to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status and social distancing measures will be implemented as well as a 50% capacity limit for the council chambers.
Proof of vaccination will not be required for entry to Healdsburg City Hall.
The council decided on plans to return to the dais after Councilmember David Hagele pulled item 6E from the consent calendar for discussion, the item that adopts a resolution authorizing remote meetings for the city council and other legislative bodies.
Hagele’s recommendation was to line up meeting protocols with the Sonoma County Department of Public Health’s guidance on COVID-19 safety protocols and on required masking for unvaccinated individuals and optional masking for vaccinated individuals.
Councilmember Evelyn Mitchell supported Hagele’s suggestion, but said she’d like to see the council chamber capacity limited.
Councilmember Skylaer Palacios felt it would be easier to require masks for all individuals who attend meetings since it could be difficult to determine who’s vaccinated and who’s not.
“I think now, as soon as possible or the last meeting in March, would be a good time to return to council. I do see there possibly being issues enforcing masking and knowing who is and who isn’t vaccinated to be masked. I feel like it would be easier to have everyone mask,” Palacios said.
Mayor Ozzy Jimenez said he’d be more interested in having everyone wear a mask and do social distancing within council chambers.
Jimenez then opened the item to public comment in order to garner feedback. Four people spoke during public comment.
Two of the commenters who spoke, Shelby Pryor and Adina Flores, had previously brought up concerns regarding racial segregation of Palacios, who’s unvaccinated, and of the council’s previous hybrid meeting protocol of requiring proof of vaccination for entry to city hall. In December, a protest against the city’s then proof of vaccination requirement was held at the steps of City Hall.
“Again, it’s Black History month. You guys went ahead and segregated Ms. Palacios from you guys to keep yourselves and the public safe because of her vaccination status. Not only is she a Black, Latino woman of color, but you guys had the audacity to keep her out of the council chambers,” Pryor said during the Feb. 22 meeting. “We had to come to your city to to protest you individuals who decided to segregate her.”
Following public comment, Palacios made it clear that she knows she was not segregated due to race.
“I’m highly uncomfortable with a lot of the conversation from public comment and I guess the outlook that still exists about previous comments that I’ve made. I’ve tried to make it clear that my comments about segregation were not due to race, but to vaccination status, but regardless, I think any time we are separating people, or making separations known, or differences known is usually negative and I think we’ve seen that throughout history. So I just want my council members to know that I know that I wasn’t separated due to my race,” Palacios said.
With the return to hybrid meetings, the city manager will retain the ability to, at his discretion, have the council return to Zoom only should another COVID-19 surge in cases occur.
“If the city is going to go to in-person meetings again and if you ever want to go back to Zoom meetings, you will need to adopt a modified AB 361 resolution. It sounds like you want to stick to hybrid meetings for now… that means staff will bring back to you an AB 361 resolution that would allow for hybrid meetings and then we can include in verbage consistent with the direction from the council tonight,” said city attorney Samantha Zutler.
The resolution will be brought to the March 21 meeting, the first hybrid meeting.
Correction: Two of the commenters who spoke, Pryor and Flores, had brought up their concerns about segregation at previous council meetings.
