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Tonganoxie to evaluate possible public mask requirements in city

By Shawn Linenberger - | Aug 6, 2020

Shawn Linenberger

Tonganoxie High School football coach Matt Thierolf leads a drill during football camp Monday at Beatty Field. The Kansas State High School Activities Association board approved sticking with the first day of fall sports practices Aug. 17, but some sports may start their competition schedules later than originally planned.

Tonganoxie city leaders plan to discuss the possibility of requiring residents to wear masks in public.

Mayor David Frese brought up the topic during Monday’s regular Tonganoxie City Council meeting, which was a virtual Zoom meeting available to residents by calling into the meeting, as many have been during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frese wanted to discuss the idea as cases climb and youths soon will be going back to school in some fashion.

He also wanted to bring up the topic as Leavenworth County Commissioners again opted to stay with the previous countywide guideline recommendation of wearing masks when social distancing was not possible even though two local physicians urged the commissioners to now make mask wearing a requirement, but the commission took no action last week.

Frese mentioned the requirement as a possible form of solidarity with the students who will be wearing them when they head back to classes in some form next month.

Council member Loralee Stevens agreed, saying that it would set a good example.

Fellow Council Member Jake Dale was open to discussing the possibility of any mask requirements, the same as Council Members Chris Donnelly, Lisa Patterson and Rocky Himpel. Donnelly and Himpel also stressed that it was important to get public feedback when looking at the issue.

City staff will be presenting information about the topic at the next regular meetings, which is 6 p.m. Aug. 17. Residents can get virtual meeting information by visiting tonganoxie.org.

The Tonganoxie USD 464 school board, meanwhile, next will meet in regular session at 6 p.m. Monday at the Tonganoxie Elementary School library. The meetings are open to the public, though space can be limited due to social distancing guidelines.

The school board approved starting the new school year Sept. 3 with a half-day. Sept. 3 is a Thursday.

The school board approved the updated calendar at the special meeting July 28. The meeting can be viewed on the USD 464 YouTube Channel.

School board members also are leaning toward offering either distance learning or school five days a week, though there also was some discussion about possibly starting the school year with all students doing distance learning and then allowing families to choose distance learning or in-school instruction.

Leavenworth County had 32 new positive community cases from Friday to Monday, according to statistics the Leavenworth County Health Department released Monday.

There also were two new Lansing Correctional Facility resident cases, 27 community recoveries, one new hospitalization and one hospitalization release.

There also were 291 negative results since the last update on Friday.

Tonganoxie now has 41 total cases, with nine currently active.

Basehor has 42 total, 11 of which are active, while the Linwood area is at 57 total and 14 active.