An explosive argument over masks at Tuesday’s McComb city board meeting ended with a selectman being asked to leave the board room.
Selectman Michael Cameron left on his own accord about an hour and a half into the three-hour meeting after Mayor Quordiniah Lockley asked him to either comply with the city’s mask mandate or be escorted from the boardroom by the police chief.
“Selectman Cameron, I am going to ask you to put your mask on, or I am going to ask my police chief to escort you out,” Lockley told Cameron.
The issue of wearing a mask has been bubbling to the surface in recent weeks.
Cameron, who rarely wears a mask at city board meetings, got into a tense exchange last week with selectmen Ronnie Brock and Devante Johnson, who said they wouldn’t come to the board room unless Cameron and Selectman Ted Tullos wore a mask.
When Cameron showed up without a mask Tuesday, Brock asked Lockley to intervene. City officials had masks on hand for audience members.
“Mayor Lockley, are we moving forward immediately with masks or without?” Brock asked.
Lockley said Cameron is supposed to wear a mask unless he has health issues that would exempt him from the city’s mask mandate.
Tullos, who said health issues caused him to be unable to wear a mask for long, brought a doctor's note to the mayor.
Tullos, who contracted COVID-19 in June, has previously said three doctors told him he was the safest person to interact with on the board.
Cameron has pointed to Gov. Tate Reeves, who is socially distanced but does not wear a mask during his daily press briefings and has recently been seen unmasked at out-of-state political events, as justification for not wearing a mask himself.
“He is an adult. He is a person of the age that I cannot make him put a mask on,” Lockley said. “However, when we passed a mandate by this board, no matter whether it is a unanimous decision or a majority decision, it is a decision of this board, and as always I would hope to adhere to decision made by this board.”
Cameron responded that he felt the mandate was not being enforced generally and that if he was being punished, so too should people who don’t wear a mask in public places.
“I’m going to want a lot of other people penalized with all the parties going on, people walking around Lowe’s. I want our police force on it,” he said.
Cameron noted that Selectman Donovan Hill took off his mask at the beginning of the meeting. Hill said that he put his mask back on when asked.
“I haven’t been here because I know people and had a cousin that died from it,” Hill said of the virus. “I don’t like wearing my mask at all. I hate it, but it is the law.”
Johnson said he would ask to suspend the mask mandate if Lockley did not ask for Cameron to leave for refusing to wear a mask.
“I am not going to have citizens wearing something and penalizing them, and then we got elected officials sitting at the table and the leadership of the city is not going to follow it,” Johnson said.
Before taking action, Lockley said he had been debating how to handle the issue.
“I wrestled with that for a couple of days, and I even talked to the city attorney about it,” Lockley said before asking Police Chief Garland Ward to escort Cameron from the room.
Cameron said he would leave on his own. Before he walked out, Cameron asked to speak, but Lockley refused his request.
Cameron then turned to Ward and said, “This isn’t escorted. This is by my own, and when I ask you to do certain things, it will be expected for you to do the same and your force.”
Lockley rebuked the statement, noting that a single board member does not have the power to use the police chief for personal matters, stating that Cameron only has power when “he is around this board.”
“No selectman has any power or authority until the gavel has hit this table,” he said. “No authority, no power until we as a board meet.”
Tullos asked board attorney Angela Cockerham if a mandate is a law, to which Cockerham said she would not go into semantics.
“It is a mask mandate. What the mask mandate provides is that you are going to wear the mask until it is amended,” Cockerham said.
Cockerham, going back and forth with Tullos over the matter, said the issue has simmered for months and Cameron had ample warning.
“There was a warning,” Cockerham said. “This conversation has been going on for months and months and months. The board has said that we want the citizens of McComb to wear a mask. That includes everyone. Selectman Cameron is not prevented from participating in this meeting. He can still call in.”
After stepping out of the board room, Cameron could be heard speaking with Ward, but Cameron left soon after. He declined to participate by phone.
