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Dear Board and our Esteemed Governor Desantis,

While the removal of proof of vaccine is a start to correcting your draconian law that was signed into place yesterday, your overreach still knows no bounds.

THE MASK MANDATE IS A MASSIVE OVERREACH

Section 27.07 of the Alachua County Charter provides that “The duration of a state of emergency shall be limited to seven days; however, it may be extended, as necessary, in seven day increments.”  When cases were skyrocketing. When there were no vaccines on the horizon. When it was hard to argue against mask overreach.

But it is COMPLETELY different now.

The County has no justification for signing or even re-signing the most draconian mask order on Earth into law, not with the County’s numbers where they are. In fact, the County should be ENDING the state of emergency. It was only supposed to have lasted for seven days. Did you look at the initial Declaration of Emergency, order 2020-01?

If you looked at 2020-01, you noticed this critical “whereas” clause justifying the County’s state of emergency:

> “WHEREAS, _there is no vaccine_ to prevent the spread of the virus and the virus has the _potential to overwhelm the healthcare system_ unless the _transmission of the virus is reduced_ by limiting the opportunities for the virus to be spread from person to person.”

Wait, what? Can you see how many assertions from the Declaration of Emergency are NO LONGER TRUE?

1. There is a vaccine. Three vaccines. With more coming, for some reason. Plus, over 70% of seniors are vaccinated now.
2. The healthcare system wasn’t overwhelmed and isn’t going to be overwhelmed. There’s no potential. The system is safe.
3. The transmission of the virus has been and is being reduced, ESPECIALLY in the vulnerable population.

So … can somebody explain to me, what EXACTLY is the emergency? The County should stop using emergency powers and making all these anti-democratic orders when there’s no emergency.

The Order wants you to think that the additional language relating to vaccines is intended to “reward” folks who’ve been vaccinated by allowing them to gather in groups of 50+ without masks. It’s all so wrong. It only takes a moment’s thought to understand why.

If even one person in a church congregation is unvaccinated, the Order requires them ALL to mask.  How is that big group supposed to know whether EVERY SINGLE PERSON has been vaccinated?

So the order is setting up a system where people are forced to ask each other about their private vaccination status. Since if even ONE PERSON in the group isn’t vaccinated, EVERYBODY has to mask, it creates a kind “shaming” pressure that we’ve not yet seen, not even with the mask mandate. It won’t end well.

It’s not government’s job to pit neighbor against neighbor.  That’s the OPPOSITE of government’s job, actually.

Next, the order presumes that 100% of Alachua County citizens are planning take the experimental drug this year, even if they don’t need it, even if they are not at risk, even if they’ve recovered from Covid already.

The Order pretends to be unaware of natural immunity. But [Natural Immunity to the Coronavirus May Last Years - The New York Times](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html__;!!LGX2LR-tWgttPq0!Q2WzT3yZyTGJLWo3fbl17nMHZU7fU9R5BiZehpXchSnJZZXtE-iBtBdiYmTAqJh2Y1c$ ).

An Order designed to force, trick, or pressure people — directly or indirectly — into taking ANY kind of medication that they don’t want, is unethical and immoral. And before you start telling me about childhood vaccines: people are allowed not to take them. They do it every day. We don’t shame them. And we’ve never before created two classes of vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens, like this Order does.

The County added an “internal deadline” of May 12, by which time the order must be reviewed or it will expire.

This is NOT any peace offering. It is an unconstitutional expansion of the 7-day limit on emergency orders in the County’s charter. The State of Emergency automatically expires every 7 days (see above). But for this “May 12” language, and the improper renewals of the declaration of emergency, the order would expire anyway.

Yesterday, I saw the County pointing to the language in the Order providing that violations of the mask mandate are “non-criminal infractions.” That is misleading. The Order allows folks to be arrested in the County for TRESPASS.  That is a criminal violation. If a citizen is in any place where masks are required without one, they are trespassing in the County’s view, and can be, and have been, jailed. It’s just sleight-of-hand in the charging procedure.

The Order also allows any petty officer to strip a citizen of their constitutional rights if unmasked, even though it’s a “non-criminal” infraction. For example, an unmasked woman was forcibly removed from the most recent school board meeting. She was there to exercise her First Amendment rights — rights in the MOST protected category of political speech. Officials would not allow her to speak. Instead, they threw her out of the building.

The “non-criminal” language does not protect anybody.

Commissioners, it's high time for you to do the right thing and stand down.  While your efforts were valiant in the beginning, you have exceeded yourself. Please do the right thing and end these mandates, strike down the order you signed yesterday, and let us live our lives.


Sincerely
Sarah Beavers

Alachua County Resident

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