Ellsworth County commissioners voted unanimously Monday to rescind the county-wide face mask mandate, after consulting with Dr. Ronald Whitmer, county health officer, and Kerianne Ehrlich, supervisor of the county health department.
The mandate had been in effect since Nov. 9, 2020.
“We’re not going to push to keep the mandate on,” Whitmer said. “We would like to still have people wear a mask.”
“That’s what we wanted to know, how you felt about it,” said Commissioner Steve Dlabal.
Whitmer said he looked at information Sunday night from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment dealing with the number of new COVID-19 cases in Ellsworth County.
“They only went back 10 days, but as far as new cases, we’ve had nothing in the last 10 days,” he said.
“I think it (the face mask mandate) did its job,” Dlabal said. “But I can’t prove it, really.”
Whitmer said he would prefer business owners encourage their customers wear face masks while in their businesses, but they are not required to do so by the county. That is for the business owners to decide on their own.
“I think at this point, for the ease of everything, I think we either need to say we’re keeping it on or it’s coming completely off,” Ehrlich said. “I think we’d all agree that coming off is fine.”
Commissioners also approved opting out of Gov. Laura Kelly’s statewide face mask mandate, which expires at the end of March, unless extended.
Commissioner Greg Bender said he visited Friday with several business owners in Holyrood and Wilson to get their opinions. He also stopped at the city halls in both communities.
“Not one of them said get rid of it,” he said. “They just said if we want to take it off that’s fine. If we keep it, it’s not going to be

an issue for them.”
“I think people who want to wear them (face masks) are going to continue wearing them,” Ehrlich said.
Commissioner Dennis Rolfs agreed.
“That’s kind of what’s been going on for a while any how, in a lot of businesses,” he said.
Rolfs said if the county’s department heads or their employees want to wear a face mask, that would be great.
“That would be up to you to require that as an elected official,” he said. “As far as people coming in, we haven’t been enforcing it anyway. We can’t.”
Ehrlich said a good number of vaccinations are taking place in Ellsworth County.
“After Friday, it would have been close to 1,800,” she said. “That’s what we have done. That’s not including people that have gone out of county to get their vaccine.”
Ehrlich said these 1,800 vaccinations include both prime and booster doses.
“We are also moving into Phase 3 and 4, that starts today,” she added. “That will open it up to a lot more people.”
In other business:
• Stacie Schmidt, executive director of the Ellsworth County Economic Development, said the county is slated to receive $1.2 million within the next 60 days from the American Rescue Plan.
“There are stings attached to it, just like the SPARK funding,” she said. “So it’s going to need to be administrated. You’ve got to report on it. There are restrictions on what you can use the money for.”
Schmidt said she wished she had more information on the particulars, but the office of recovery, which handled the SPARK funds, has not given her any more guidance.