While it is unclear if there are enough votes for the Chautauqua County Legislature to pass a motion that calls on the county to use “best practices to overcome COVID-19,” the county’s Board of Health supports it.

On Thursday, the Board of Health voted to unanimously support the motion, which was first introduced by Legislator Susan Parker, D-Fredonia.

Legislator Elisabeth Rankin, D-Jamestown, is a member of the Board of Health. She was asked if she thought the motion might fail. “Possibly,” she said, adding that some people interpret the motion as a mandate, which she said it is not.

Board member Dr. Robert Burke said opposing the motion doesn’t make sense. “For the life of me, I don’t see anything in there that anybody should object to. All it’s doing is supporting basic health measures to try and fight a pandemic that we’re involved in. It is not mandating anything. It is suggesting the best practices that we have put together,” he said.

Board member Dr. Elizabeth Kidder agreed. “It seems to me it would be a very smart move by the legislature to have bi-partisan support of this. The way it reads is we need to allow our public health leaders to do good public health to keep our community safe during this pandemic and it takes it out of the political messaging, saying, ‘let’s just listen to our scientists and our public health leaders to do the right thing and support our health department,'” she said.

Board member Mark Tarbrake, who is a former county legislator, said he likes how the motion is written. “It definitely sends the right message to the community. Like Betsy (Kidder) said, leave it up to the health experts,” he said.

The full legislature is scheduled to meet Wednesday night. The motion was debated during the legislature’s Human Services Committee meeting this past week. At that time, there were seven legislators who had sponsored the motion: Bob Bankoski, D-Dunkirk, Pierre Chagnon, R-Bemus Point, Thomas Harmon, R-Lakewood, Parker, Dan Pavlock, R-Sinclairville, Kidder, and Lisa Vanstrom, R-West Ellicott. The next day, Pavlock, who is the chairman of the Human Services Committee, said Chagnon, Harmon and Rankin had all pulled their names from the motion.

During the Human Services Committee meeting, newly elected legislator Marty Proctor, R-Findley Lake, said he was opposed to it in its current form. He wanted the motion to highlight freedom of choice as well.

According to county attorney Stephen Abdella, motions need 10 signatures before they can be voted on and must have 13 votes to pass.

Motions have no legal authority but are designed to show a position of a governing body.