A non-binding resolution stating City Council’s opposition to vaccine passports was approved following a lengthy and sometimes heated discussion.
4th District Republican Jason Arp, joining Tuesday’s meeting over Zoom, proposed the measure and says it “sends a message” that documentation proving one’s COVID-19 vaccine status would not be required in Fort Wayne.
Some Democratic Council members pushed back and argued that the move was redundant, noting that the statehouse had already approved a measure denying vaccine passports in late April. As a result, Arp was accused of unnecessarily stoking political tensions on a local level.
But Arp had community support present; 14 individuals spoke in favor of the measure while using their time to lament vaccine passports as masks as discriminatory with one going so far as to compare it to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
6th District Democrat Sharon Tucker took exception to the idea of masking and vaccines as being discriminatory.
“For me, being a Black woman who has seen plenty of discrimination, plenty of people treated wrongly because they were female, black… to use the comparison is very, very painful to listen to.”
Tucker also emphasized realistic expectations, specifically repeating that state legislation ties up the body’s hands on any tangible action, and that this proposal gives local residents the wrong idea about Council’s relative power.
The measure is non-binding, and Tuesday’s discussion was only the introductory phase; it may return to the table in a few weeks for a final vote.
