Augusta mayor, Georgia local leaders outraged by statewide order banning municipal face-mask rules

Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis and local leaders throughout Georgia expressed dismay over Gov. Brian Kemp’s Wednesday extension of statewide emergency orders aiming to combat COVID-19 while explicitly nullifying municipal face-mask ordinances.

Davis stood his ground Thursday on his July 10 order requiring masks be worn in all public spaces, including businesses and government buildings.

“An apolitical public health crisis has become political,” Davis said. “Gov. Kemp's ‘Bridge Too Far’ approach on a mask requirement, and now the disregard for the local governance of cities and municipalities is beyond concerning.”

Augusta cases grew by 57 Friday for combined total of 1,979. Georgia added 3,441 to total 131,275.

“It is no secret that COVID-19 cases continue to rise at an extraordinarily high rate across the state of Georgia and in Augusta-Richmond County,” Davis said. “Hospital beds are filling in communities, and state efforts are being placed on the reactivation of a field hospital for the overflow of patients infected with COVID-19.”

Amid the immediate scramble Thursday to interpret the Kemp’s latest order, which extends his previous COVID-19 measures through the end of July, city and county authorities were weighing legal options to continue impelling residents to wear face masks after recently establishing local ordinances that are now officially toothless. Wearing face masks is a practice widely recognized by health officials as effective in slowing the coronavirus spread.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson signed an executive order mandating face masks in public spaces and commercial establishments June 30. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms enacted a similar declaration on July 8. The Athens-Clarke County Commission unanimously approved a face-mask requirement at their July 7 meeting.

On Wednesday night, Johnson reacted immediately to the statewide order canceling Savannah’s mask mandate with a forceful Twitter announcement stating that “Governor Kemp does not give a damn about us.”

Reached by phone on Thursday morning, Johnson doubled down on his criticism of Kemp’s order.

“It is clear that our governor is living in an alternate universe than we are in Savannah, Augusta, Atlanta, and across the state,” Johnson said. “If the governor is not going to protect our citizens, then he should let us do that.”

Most of the 10-member Augusta Commission has voiced support for the face-mask order issued by Davis. Several said Thursday morning that Kemp’s orders are political moves bad for public health. Another supported Kemp’s decision.

“Technically ours was already suspended because we weren’t enforcing it for 10 days,” commissioner Ben Hasan said of Augusta’s face-mask order. “If you went out today, you would probably see more people wearing masks than you did before the orders.”

Kemp’s new order is “not so much about the well-being of yourself and others as it has become a political battlefield, which is sad because people are getting sick and dying every day,” Hasan said.

Augusta Commissioner Dennis Williams could not comprehend the logic behind Kemp’s order.

“The governor is the leader of the state, but you wonder why he would suspend everything,” Williams said. “It wouldn’t hurt anybody to wear the mask or have a local ordinance — what harm does it do? It may help people stay alive.”

Williams said he recently shopped at a home-improvement store and saw many people not wearing masks, despite the order. Regardless of science and recommendations by ranking health officials, many in the community are rallying against the use of masks, he said.

“A lot of it could be about how people care about others; they don’t care about people or they don’t care about the leader (Davis),” Williams said.

While he wears a mask and encourages the public “to mask up to help keep the economy moving,” Commissioner Brandon Garrett said a local mandate remains unenforceable. “State law trumps local,” Garrett said.

Athens-Clarke County Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Russell Edwards, a prime mover in the area’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, also expressed outrage about Kemp’s order.

“For Gov. Kemp to fail to mandate life-saving measures on the very day that both of the hospitals in his hometown are in total diversion simultaneously makes no sense to me,” Edwards said. “Science proves that masks save lives. Why undermine local efforts to require masks? It’s maddening.”

Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz expressed regret that Kemp’s order overrode the local mask mandate, and said he’s not alone in this opinion.

“I have been in regular communication with mayors in several other Georgia cities with mask requirements, and we wish for our local requirements to remain in place,” Girtz stated in an e-mail. “We strongly believe this is within our authority.”

According to Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, there is some “gray area” in the legality of Kemp’s order to nullify emergency ordinances enacted by municipalities.

“Georgia law expressly authorizes local entities to respond to declared emergencies, provided that they are not inconsistent with statewide orders,” Kreis stated. “However, those statewide orders must fall within the powers authorized by the statute.”

Augusta attorney Samuel Meller agreed Kemp may not have authority under the Georgia Constitution to negate local laws involving public safety, which it gives expressly to local governments.

“There’s a question as to whether or not the governor issuing these orders can override the individual legislative grant of county independence,” he said.

While the legislature gave the governor authority to issue quarantine or evacuation orders, for example, “the legislature can’t give the governor infinite power in violation of the state constitution without being more explicit.”

Kemp and his attorneys likely know his authority to enforce a no-mask mandate is legally uncertain, but unfortunately the pandemic is hindering a legal test of it, Meller said.

“No one, including the judges, really wants to have a knock-down, drag-out legal fight over the governor’s powers in a health emergency,” he said.

This story was contributed to by Savannah Morning News staff writers Nick Robertson, DeAnn Komanecky and Jan Skutch and Athens Banner-Herald staff writer Lee Shearer.