Maine AG sends letter to Androscoggin commissioners telling them to mask up

By Rosemary Lausier, Bangor Daily News Staff

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey sent a letter to Androscoggin County commissioners Friday reminding them that they are legally required to wear masks at their meetings. 

The letter follows a contentious week for the commissioners who voted 4-3 on Wednesday to postpone a resolution that would defy a statewide mask mandate enacted by Gov. Janet Mills.

Attendees from Androscoggin, Kennebec and Oxford counties were opposed to the commissioners’ vote, with many calling them “cowards” for their decision. 

In the letter sent to commission chair Sally Christner and vice chair Terri Kelly, Frey said he received reports that commissioners and meeting attendees were not wearing masks at their meeting on Wednesday. Frey said the commissioners are legally obligated to require that all those who attend, including the commissioners, wear face coverings. 

Commissioner Isaiah Lary of Wales, introduced an anti-mask resolution on Tuesday stating that Mills’ executive orders “restrict the liberty of Maine citizens to dress, work, exercise their religion, assemble, shop and conduct lives as they choose” while questioning the effectiveness of face coverings. However, Frey debated that stance saying that counties and municipalities have no authority to exempt themselves to the executive orders. 

“To the extent this resolution is premised on the notion that the Executive Orders are not constitutional, I want to assure you, as Maine’s chief law enforcement officer, that the Executive Orders are constitutional, and as noted above, enforceable through both civil and criminal processes,” Frey wrote.

He also added that masks are “one of the most powerful weapons” to combat the coronavirus, recognized as effective by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and only children under the age of 2 are exempt from the mask order. 

However, Lary questioned Frey’s authority to decide the constitutionality of the mask mandate saying that Frey’s letter was a matter of opinion. 

“The Attorney General does not have the authority to decide whether the executive orders issued by Gov. Mills based on the Maine Emergency Management statutes are constitutional or not,” Lary told the Lewiston Sun Journal. “He has given his opinion, but ultimately, that is an issue that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court would have to decide.”

But Christner told the Sun Journal she hoped the issue would have gotten resolved before Frey got involved, saying she expects a decision on the resolution to come in the coming weeks.