Pictured is Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has issued an executive order that mandates that people wear coronavirus face masks in public and in public places in the largely Black urban city as Cleveland City Councilman Anthony Brancatelli plans to introduce legislation to city council requiring the masks, and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish has said that he will introduce similar legislation momentarily to the 11-member bipartisan county council.
The prospective legislation in Cleveland, which Brancatelli, a White councilman, said will be introduced at the next city council meeting on July 15, comes as the coronavirus is sweeping the nation via a second spike in confirmed cases and deaths.
Children 2-years-old and under, and people with medical conditions are exempt.
Jackson's order for masks in public comes as the city last Sunday recorded 75 new coronavirus cases, the highest single day figure since the height of the pandemic in early April, a figure that that day brought the total number of cases since the pandemic broke out in early March to 2,245 cases.
Jackson is a Black Democrat serving an historic fourth term.
He is up for reelection in 2021 and has said publicly that he has not yet decided if he will seek a fifth term.
He enjoys routine support from the 17- member all Democratic city council, as well as Black leaders, led by Democratic Congressman Marcia L. Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of two Blacks in Congress from Ohio.
Ohio, just last week, reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases, the most since April.
The problem with Jackson's executive order, however, is that the has no such authority under the city charter, state or federal law, or any other legal venue to issue such an order, and whether city and county council can do the same remains in question too.
Jackson simply is not a lawmaker, regardless of the impact of the cornavirus on his city, and he cannot use an executive order to undermine the legislative process.
And lawmakers have limitations too, including not to intrude in people's spaces by adopting legislation during a crisis without the authority to do such.
And embarrassingly, practically nobody is paying attention to the the popular mayor's newly found executive order to wear masks in public, which took effect Friday, the day before the July 4 holiday.
In fact, most Cleveland inner city residents out and about during the 4th of July weekend on the city's largely Black east side were proudly not wearing masks.
Several Cleveland community activists say they oppose any such masks ordinance issued by city or county council as overly intrusive and a violation of privacy rights as well as an invitation for Cleveland police to target Black men and boys who are disproportionately killed by them, and often erroneously by way of excessive force.
In short, activists say the proposed ordinance is nothing more than racial profiling, Cleveland a major American city of some 385,000 people that is roughly 60 percent Black, and the county, 29 percent Black.
Activists also say that the community, including the Black community, should be at the table on the issue.
Last week Gov Mike DeWine, regardless of any authority to do so or not, relegated some authority over policies relative to the coronavirus pandemic to local, county and other governments, giving Cleveland City Council members what they believe is the go-ahead to adopt what activists say is, in this instance, irresponsible and unconstitutional coronavirus legislation.
Some city council members say that as local lawmakers they have authority to pass legislation regarding the pandemic independent of DeWine.
Activists say they oppose any legislation for masks in public regardless of whether the mandate comes from Gov DeWine or city or county council.
"I oppose it because it is nothing more to me than stop-and- frisk and we will picket if necessary on this issue," said longtime activist Alfred Porter Jr., who leads the greater Cleveland activist group Black on Black Crime Inc.
Stop-and-frisk, commonly known for its implementation and fallout effects in New York City, is the practice of police routinely detaining, questioning, and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband, and often without probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
Activists said that even if police intrusion were narrowed as to the proposed city ordinance it is still unconstitutional, they believe, and on several other grounds.
"It is a racial profiling measure that places Black and other women at risk for harassment by police and many if not all Cleveland activists oppose mandating masks outside in public areas in Cleveland as it would violate privacy rights and would be overly invasive and intrusive, and thus unconstitutional," said Black Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads Imperial Women Coalition and is a key organizer of Women's March Cleveland and International Women's Day March Cleveland.
Coleman said that while activists suggest that people wear masks in public, any such ordinance in Cleveland "would be selective and would open the door for police to gun down Blacks with impunity saying the incident occurred over a conflict of a Black person not wearing a mask."
It would also, said Coleman, give police and politicians an arbitrary excuse to interrupt free speech protests in Cleveland.
The city and the U.S. Department of Justice have been parties since 2015 to a consent decree for police reforms that follows a string of questionable excessive force killings by police since 2012 of unarmed Black people, including Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012 and Tanisha Anderson and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014
How police officers will handle any mandated requirement for such masks remains to be seen as racial tensions remain high behind the Minneapolis police killing in May of unarmed Black man George Floyd, and the shooting death in March by Louisville Metro police of Breonna Taylor, Taylor also Black like Floyd.
Riots have broken out in cities nationwide behind Floyd's killing, including in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, Los Angeles Oakland and Minneapolis itself.
