Belleville council votes to require city employees to get COVID vaccine
With coronavirus cases surging to record rates across the metro east this week, Belleville aldermen voted 14-1 to require all city employees to get a COVID vaccine unless they have a qualified medical or religious exemption.
The mandate went into effect immediately with the council’s vote on Wednesday night, giving employees until Feb. 8 to comply.
If employees are exempted from the mandatory vaccination, they must be tested for COVID-19 at least once every seven days if they are reporting to their workplace in person.
The coronavirus positivity rate in St. Clair County was at a record high of 25.9% this week, up from the previous record of 15.8% set in December 2020. And public health officials have urged everyone to get vaccinated as a way to slow down the omicron variant spreading around the world.
In St. Clair County, about 53% of the residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Most of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients were not vaccinated before being admitted, public health officials said.
Belleville Ward 3 Alderman Kent Randle cast the lone “no” vote against the city’s shot mandate.
Randle said he has been fully vaccinated against the virus but doesn’t believe the government should force someone to get a vaccination.
“I think everybody’s immune system is different and I just think that it’s a choice that people have to make with guidance from their health care provider,” he said in an interview after the council meeting.
“That’s for me to make that choice, I can’t make that choice for other people,” he said.
Randle noted that he understands what the city is trying to do and he respects the council’s vote. The council has 16 members and Ward 3 Alderman Scott Ferguson was absent.
In a statement released after the meeting, Mayor Patty Gregory said that the city and other local governments in Illinois are complying with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency temporary standards regarding COVID shots.
“As elected officials, it is our duty to provide a healthy and safe working environment,” she said.
Caller interrupts meeting
The council’s meeting on Wednesday night was conducted via teleconference that was open to the public. Just before the vote on the shot mandate, someone who called in to listen used expletives in referencing the mandate requiring “me to put something in my body.”
Gregory told the person, “It’s disrespectful sir, would you please mute your phone.”
The commenter’s identity was not certain, though the mayor offered speculation. Gregory said she hoped that it was not a city employee who interrupted the meeting.
The person then stopped making comments that everyone could hear.
The public was given time at the beginning of the meeting to make comments but no one did at that time.
The City Council meeting had originally been scheduled to be in-person on Monday night but was changed to a Wednesday teleconference as the number of COVID cases spiked. Aldermen had been meeting in person at City Hall since June.
COVID shot mandate
Here are more details about the city’s seven-page COVID shot plan:
▪ To meet the Feb. 8 deadline, all employees need to obtain the first dose of a two-dose vaccine by Jan. 10 and the second dose by Jan. 25. If the employee opts for a single-dose vaccine, this must be done by Jan. 17.
▪ “Employees will be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the requisite number of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine,” the plan states.
▪ The ordinance states it complies with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s mandate for vaccinations.
▪ To get a religious exemption from the mandate, an employee must show the policy conflicts “with a sincerely held religious belief, practice or observance.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 12:23 PM.
