Two mayors stand divided on masks and vaccinations

LAKE COUNTY >> On one side of the lake, a city official pushes for masks and vaccinations as protections against COVID-19. Across on the other side, another city official says masks “do not work” and his research shows the COVID vaccine is “potentially lethal” and “utterly useless.” Both are city mayors. Both stand firmly by their convictions.

At recent City Council and Lake County Board of Supervisors meetings, Clearlake City Mayor Dirk Slooten announced his intent to reward Clearlake City employees who get the COVID-19 vaccine. He promised to pay $100 of his own money to each employee who gets vaccinated by Sept. 15, 2021, and shows him proof of vaccination.

Slooten’s vaxx campaign is fueled by personal experience and data indicating 95% of hospitalized patients with Covid-related ailments are unvaccinated. Though Slooten and his wife were

vaccinated back in February, his wife, who has a weakened immune system, tested positive for COVID-19 after July 4. “She exhibited all the symptoms of COVID and her doctor told us that had she not been vaccinated, I would have no wife today,” Slooten said.

Slooten added that his remarks at the City Council meeting did not generate any comments or discussion.

Guided by the data from his research, Lakeport City Mayor Kenny Parlet has chosen to continue appearing at City Council meetings via Zoom to avoid wearing a mask.

Explaining his position, Parlet said, in an email: “I learned for the last 50 years to never trust mainstream media. I am a very diligent researcher, and as a former pre-med student at UCLA, I know my science. For these reasons, I have questioned from the beginning that COVID is nothing more than another flu virus. What blows me away is that I sent out a comprehensive ‘scientific report’ against a virus that is only .125 microns in size. Even the M-95 top-notch masks only go down to .3 microns. So neither does any good. In that report, another 32 studies say that masking is in fact harmful in many, many different ways.”

Parlet said he sent the report to three county officials and none responded to him. All three were contacted by this writer and one of them responded by press time Wednesday. District 4 Supervisor Tina Scott shared her perspective, saying, “I see wearing a mask as a preventive measure to protect my family and the community around me. I would not want to be responsible for the harm of another if it could be avoided. It would be devastating if I knew I brought damage to another simply because I decided not to take these simple preventive measures. If the science comes back in years from now and shows that masking did not work, at least I knew I did not harm. I am less concerned about ‘being right’ than making sure I am ‘doing right’ for my family and the community around me.”

On the issue of COVID vaccines, Parlet said: “… the alleged vaccine has already killed well over 12,000 according to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, an agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), which routinely under-reports by as much as 90%. So we know the vaccine is lethal, and we also know that it does not prevent COVID. In Massachusetts just this morning (August 17, 2021), a report came out that 74% of all new cases are from the fully vaccinated. We, as a state and a country, are trying to force college students, travelers, workers, police, health care workers to take a potentially lethal, experimental drug to help against a flu virus when it is utterly useless and could be deadly…i have a list of 1,500 doctors and health care workers from all over the globe that insist that the entire COVID pandemic is a total hoax. I also have Nobel prize winners and esteemed virologists and bacteriologists that all agree. You cannot stop a virus any more than you can stop the common cold.”

Slooten ponders and wonders if Parlet may feel differently if he had a wife with a compromised immune system who contracted COVID after being vaccinated and was told by her doctor that had she not been vaccinated, she would not have survived.

As of August 9, 2021, state data showed Del Norte County jumped to the tob in the number of COVID cases with 108 cases per 100,000. Lake County dropped to fifth with 50 cases per 100,000. Also in the county, among those 12 years of age and older, 53% were fully vaccinated, and 39% were unvaccinated.