Mask-Option Rules Clarified For Township Properties In Chatham

CHATHAM, NJ — Members of the Chatham Township Committee voted 3-2 at its meeting on Tuesday night to codify the rule that masks have been optional on municipal properties.

Deputy Mayor Mark Hamilton said that Chatham Township properties have had a mask option for “quite some time,” including in the municipal building and in township parks.

The resolution, which went into effect on Tuesday, clarified that Gov. Phil Murphy eliminated a mask mandate “in most public places or businesses” and reinforced that “each member of the public and resident of Chatham Township has an individual right to choose to either wear or not wear a mask based on personal choice, health concerns or medical advice.”

It also forbids any individual, employee, volunteer or organization to mandate masks in the municipal building or township-owned properties, including parks, regardless of a person’s age or vaccination status.

“The real purpose is to codify what is already the rule,” Hamilton said. “There is no mask mandate in Chatham Township in the municipal building or parks.”

“We’re not discouraging anyone from wearing a mask at all,” he added. “It’s a matter of choice.”

Committee Members Celeste Fondaco and Stacy Ewald criticized the resolution, voting against it, which was pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion before the vote was taken.

Fondaco said that an art group that has used the municipal building has told attendees they could not come to events if they were unmasked.

Township Attorney Peter King told Fondaco during the meeting “you really can’t do that, you don’t have the authority.”

Hamilton agreed and said that organizers for groups like the art group, can tell attendees mask-wearing is encouraged but not required.

King said that when Murphy had an executive order that required it, upholding a mask mandate was permitted.

“During the peak of COVID-19, that was lifted,” King said, stressing the only place right now where masks are required in New Jersey — outside of airports and federal buildings — is in schools, which Murphy said he has planned to lift on March 7.

Fondaco and Ewald suggested the committee should wait until after March 7.

Ewald called it “hugely short-sighted” for the Township Committee to adopt a mandate in a building where the senior center is located. She said that she had concerns about a sub-variant emerging and the township’s Department of Health, anyone affiliated with the senior center, the chief of police and the Chatham Township Emergency Squad, should have been consulted. She also suggested more flexibility within the senior center or police department to set mask rules.

King said it is the governing body that sets the rules.

Mayor Ashley Felice said it isn’t the government body’s responsibility to take care of a person’s individual health decisions, but is up to each family or individual, and a person has the choice to wear as many masks as they would like.

Felice said the township has been monitoring New Jersey's hospitalization and transmission rates, with a large segment of township residents vaccinated. Unlike the start of the pandemic, she said that therapeutics are now also widely available.

Hamilton said if a legitimate state of emergency arises again, the governing body can change the rules.

Committee Member Mark Lois said has heard of residents being told they must mask up in dugouts within the park, while staying three feet apart outdoors.

Lois said there is “lots of confusion” with current rules and the resolution “helps to eliminate confusion.”

Watch the Township Committee’s full discussion about the mask option resolution in the video clip below:

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