#Bruce Blakeman issues order defying Kathy Hochul’s mask mandates

In direct defiance of Gov. Kathy Hochul, newly installed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman wants to let school districts decide if kids must wear masks inside buildings.

The Republican official signed a trio of executive orders Thursday — including one that would empower Nassau’s school boards with the ability to scrap student mask mandates.

Arguing that Albany was imposing an “autocracy” upon the state, Blakeman repeatedly ripped Hochul’s mask decrees prior to the signing.

“School boards are comprised of elected officials who make decisions based upon the unique circumstances of each district,” Blakeman said at a Thursday press conference. “They are in the best position to make these decisions, not an autocracy in Albany.”

Blakeman said he was confident that the order carries sufficient legal weight to enable districts to defy state masking rules, but that remains to be seen.

“This executive order gives the school districts their own individual right to make decisions within the country under our home rule authority that we have as a county,” he said. “Our county is larger than nine states and we don’t need people in Albany telling us what we should be doing.”

Blakeman signed two additional orders, one that allows public county workers to not wear masks indoors and another that formalizes his decision not to enforce Hochul’s mask mandates that “unfairly fine residents and small businesses thousands of dollars.”

“We are taking a very aggressive approach in fighting COVID-19,” he said. “But this aggressive approach must be balanced by keeping in mind the psychological and economic risks of every decision we make as well as individual constitutionals rights.”

Blakeman also announced that the country will double distribution of free test kits this weekend, establish free vaccination sites and provide KN95 masks to all private and public school teachers and employees.

“I think there is an unreasonable focus on these masks, especially the paper mask,” he said. “The data is not there that they materially provide the kind of protection that people would want. It’s a false sense of security. So what we are doing here in Nassau County is we’re doing meaningful things, we’re doing material things.”

Blakeman reiterated that Nassau cops and firefighters won’t enforce mask-related mandates from the state.

“They have far more important things to do than chase people around to see if they are wearing masks,” he said. “They will not be doing that.”