GOSHEN — City officials Thursday announced that due to a mix-up connected to a rarely used state statute, the ordinance voted on by Goshen City Council members Monday authorizing use of city staff to help enforce the county’s COVID-19 health fine law has not been formally adopted after all.
The announcement, made in a news release distributed Thursday afternoon, notes that upon further review of the night’s proceedings, city officials determined that the ordinance was not actually approved on its second, final reading Monday, even though a majority of the council’s members voted to pass the ordinance on second reading in a vote of 4-3 in favor.
According to Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman, at issue is the fact that according to state statute, for an ordinance to be approved on both first and second readings on the same night, it has to receive a two-thirds majority of the vote on second reading in order to be formally adopted.
However, since the council did not have two-thirds of the votes on second reading, the ordinance could only be passed on first reading, and therefore has not been formally adopted, he explained.
“When you do both votes on the same night, that two-thirds rule kicks in,” Stutsman said. “So, for it to pass, it would have had to be 5-2. And since it was 4-3, it’s considered no action taken, and it gets kicked to the next meeting.”
TABLED INDEFINITELY
But rather than revisiting the ordinance at a future meeting, Stutsman in Thursday’s release noted that he has instead decided to table the ordinance indefinitely.
“As I said in the meeting, passing this ordinance for the sake of fining businesses was not our end goal,” Stutsman said. “Due to these encouraging discussions and not only our community’s desire to listen to our ideas, but to bring some of their own, I will be placing a hold on the second reading of Ordinance 5073.”
Stutsman went on to note that he felt Monday’s council meeting helped open the door for productive dialog on the COVID-19 mitigation issue, and as such he’ll be working with the Goshen Chamber of Commerce and other business leaders over the next few weeks to keep the discussion moving forward.
Specifically, he noted that the city and chamber will use their energy on “focused education and outreach to businesses,” utilizing informational packets, direct consultations and on-site visits.
“A number of businesses have expressed their understanding of the need to adopt further measures to mitigate the spread,” Nick Kieffer, Chamber president, said in the release. “We have come a long way in understanding the importance of reducing the spread, and maybe now we are at the point where, if we continue this effort to educate businesses and organizations, our community will be stronger for it.”
CHANGE OF COURSE
As a possible alternative to the city’s ordinance, Stutsman noted that a new opportunity has been presented in the form of Safety Awareness Funding from the state to expand educational resources for the community.
Of that funding, Stutsman said the city has been allocated $108,000 to be used for public awareness and education related to COVID-19.
“This community never ceases to amaze me with our ability to come together to discuss difficult and sometimes divisive topics and find a mutual path forward,” Stutsman said in the release. “I am grateful to all who have offered positive and constructive suggestions. I would like to thank the council members who are willing to make the hard choice of supporting this ordinance, as well as the business and community members that have shared this support. I know this may feel like a change of course, but we are working hard and utilizing all information available to us to make the best decisions for the safety of our community.”
In concluding the release, Stutsman noted that he had reached out to a few of the council’s members to see if they would be comfortable with trying his more concentrated education pathway.
“I am excited to see such swift action from the business leaders in taking the initiative to work together with the city,” Council President Brett Weddell said of the suggestion. “I am grateful to live in a community where we can put politics aside to do what’s right for our community.”
GOING IT ALONE
The council’s failure to formally adopt Goshen’s ordinance Monday serves as yet another blow to the county’s hopes for a united front in moving forward with enforcement of its recently adopted COVID-19 health fine law.
That ordinance, passed by the Elkhart County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 30, outlines a countywide incremental fine structure for businesses found to be violating orders, including a requirement for face mask usage, issued by the Elkhart County Health Department earlier this year.
Set to take effect Dec. 17, the ordinance calls for first-time violators to work with health department staff on complying with the rules. But a second violation could lead to fines of up to $2,500. Three or more violations could result in fines of up to $5,000.
The ordinance up for consideration by the council Monday was actually the result of a Dec. 3 news release issued by Stutsman and the mayors of Elkhart and Nappanee indicating their intentions to bring such an ordinance to their councils Monday with the goal of supporting the countywide effort to combat COVID-19.
As designed, the ordinances would have authorized each mayor to designate enforcement teams to help implement the terms of the county’s ordinance within each of their respective cities, as county officials have indicated that they do not have the manpower to send county workers into the cities to enforce the new directives.
But of those three cities, none ended up approving their respective ordinances this week.
For its part, the Elkhart City Council moved its version of the ordinance from first to second reading Monday, with further consideration of the ordinance and public discussion to be held Dec. 21, while a version set to be voted on by the Nappanee City Council on Monday was pulled at the last minute to allow more time for discussion.
CONTINUE ON SCHEDULE
But, according to Elkhart County Health Officer Lydia Mertz, the failures of Goshen, Elkhart and Nappanee to pass their respective ordinances this week will not stop the county from moving ahead with enforcement when the county’s COVID-19 health fine law goes into effect Dec. 17.
“We will continue on schedule, and the county will be able to begin enforcing as we had planned,” Mertz said of the situation Thursday afternoon. “The county is in dire straits right now with COVID-19, and we have to get people to understand that we have to distance, wash hands and wear masks. There’s nothing else that we can do right now. And this is just a way of reminding them that we need to do this all the time.
“We’re not after fines. This is not going to make government rich or anything like that,” she added of the county’s ordinance. “We want to educate people. If there’s a business that’s having trouble getting people to wear a mask in their shop, for example, then we can talk to them about different ways to approach that problem, and different things that they can do to help that out. That’s our goal.”
As for whether the Elkhart County Health Department will utilize its limited workforce to send inspectors into the cities once the county’s ordinance goes live, Mertz said the department has the authority to do so, and she isn’t taking the option off the table.
“We’re not planning on going everywhere the first day. We were never planning on that. So, we will do what we can with what we’ve got,” Mertz said. “I’m not sure when the cities are meeting again to discuss these ordinances. I’m thinking that they will eventually get passed, even if they couldn’t get them all passed in one night as they’d originally hoped. But the longer we wait to take action, to do something definitive, the more people are going to get sick, the more people will be left with long-term consequences, and the more people are going to die.
"So, I think the county is going to go ahead and do the things that we need to do," she added, "but the more inspectors that we have out answering complaints, the sooner we can get everybody feeling like they’re able to follow the guidelines.”