Bellingham City Council fine-tunes plans to return to in-person meetings as COVID eases
Bellingham City Council members seem ready to meet in person on March 28 for the first time in two years, as measures aimed at reducing the spread of the new coronavirus are eased amid a sharp decline in cases and hospitalizations.
But whether that meeting will have full occupancy in council chambers — or have a vaccination or masking requirement — will wait until the council’s March 14 meeting.
Guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still urge 6 feet of social distancing between people in large gatherings, said Brian Heinrich, deputy city administrator.
Gov. Jay Inslee said statewide masking and vaccination requirements end March 11, but don’t prevent individual businesses or organizations from requiring those measures.
“Right now, we should probably plan to reduce the capacity of chambers,” Heinrich said at the City Council meeting Monday night, Feb. 28.
Seats were taped off to meet the CDC recommendations when the City Council last met in person on March 23, 2020, to consider a limited agenda of pandemic-related restrictions that some people in the audience falsely claimed were unconstitutional.
Bellingham employees, who are nearly 100% vaccinated, will return to their offices and workplaces on March 21, after working remotely for two years, Heinrich said.
A hybrid online option will be available for council members, public testimony and guest speakers, Council President Hannah Stone said at an afternoon meeting of the council’s Committee of the Whole.
Councilwoman Lisa Anderson said that the hybrid option shouldn’t be the norm.
“(But) I do appreciate the flexibility, because if I have a cold or flu I don’t want to come in and make everybody sick if I have the option to be able to remote in,” Anderson said.
Anderson said she missed the council’s last in-person meeting before the pandemic because she was at home, “most likely” suffering from COVID-19.
