Washington County, Oregon has the second largest population in the State of Oregon (620,000). It is also the most culterally diverse county in the state. Many of our front line workers in the community are BIPOC and cannot work remotely.
The Oregon Governor's Office issued a mandatory mask requirement for all indoor public facilities in the summer of 2021 and the Oregon Health Authority issued temporary emergency administrative rules regarding masks in indoor public spaces. Enforcement of COVID-19 mandates are left to public health departments. However, beyond education there is no teeth to enforce state regulations. After contacting law enforcement and the district attorney's office, it was clear they would not enforce or prosecute public health mandates. Therefore we needed an alternative to protect front line workers and the public in indoor public spaces. Therefore after considerable work with our Board of Commissioners, the Board agreed to pass a Resolution and Order (sitting at the local public health authority) to enforce state public health laws and mandates through the County's code enforcement process. This authority not only applies to mask mandates, but all public health laws now and in the future.
Because the Board passed it sitting as the local public health authority, it applies not only to unincorporated Washington County, but also within all cities located in the county. We found cities are not interested in enforcing mask mandates and some cities are hostile to mask mandates. Additionally, code enforcement does not rely on law enforcement to issue citations or prosecution from the District Attorney's Office. The Health Department's code enforcement officers can issue the citations and any hearing is before a hearings officer prosecuted by our office. The maximum fine is $1000 per day per violation. We are the first, and only county in the State of Oregon to have an actual enforcement process that includes citations. Our compliance team has developed a protocol on addressing reported violations that includes education, site visits and issuing citations.
Since the Board granted code enforcement citation authority to the Health Departments in August 2021, mask compliance by businesses appears to have increased. Front line workers in small businesses have contacted the compliance team to report owners who flaunt the mask requirements and the compliance team has quickly acted. This protects not only front line workers, but the public as well. We have seen dramatic improvements in areas such as beauty saloons and bars and restaurants where we have a significant minority population of front line workers.
Even with the increase of COVID-19 cases with the Delta variant, Washington County's cases were lower than many other parts of the state that saw significant number of cases.
As previously stated, the problem we have in Oregon and across the Country is how to effectively enforce COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. Without consequences for failure to comply, there is no incentive to comply particularly for the business community. We know that our front line workers are often lower income and cannot afford to miss work and so are disproportionately exposed to COVID-19.
In Oregon counties are to enforce public health laws. Unfortunately law enforcement and local prosecutors are not interested in enforcing public health laws. Therefore Washington County decided to enforce public health laws including the state mask mandate through traditional code enforcement. This is innovative because it was not done this way in Oregon previously. It is also innovative because we used the local public health authority which means it applies within cities as well as the unincorporated areas of the county. We are the only county in the state to use our public health authority in such a manner.
This authority applies not only to COVID-19 laws, but to any public health law, so it will help in other public health areas such as selling tobacco and vape products to those under 21 years old. There may be other areas to where this authority could be used, now and in the future.
Our cities were made aware of this action in advance. Cities are often leary of the county exercising traditional police powers within cities but are aware that they do not provide public health services, so this was more of a county role.
When COVID-19 first entered the scene, unlike other counties in Oregon, Washington County quickly developed a compliance team to address emergency orders and closures. We developed standard operating procedures that relied primarily on education and referrals to OSHA. When the Delta varient hit, OSHA was no longer taking referrals for enforcement of public health laws. Law enforcement and the prosecutors were not interested in enforcement particularly of the highly politicized mask mandates. Therefore we had to quickly pivot to other more creative methods to protect our public and front line workers.
Our code enforcement officers were not used to enforcing state laws so we quickly had to train them to do this novel work. We will have this new "tool in the toolbox" in the future for other public health issues.
We have found that businesses are more compliant with mask mandates knowing there are now real consequences for flouting the requirement. We think, but do not know, that this is lowering transmission rates in our County.
Public Health Law
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