Naples vice mayor gathering people’s thoughts about a vaccine mandate

Mask mandates are a hot button issue, but is a vaccine mandate the next thing to come? We looked into whether a government can mandate you to get a vaccine?

The short answer is probably not, but that isn’t stopping Vice Mayor Terry Hutchinson of Naples from asking people who live and work in the city what they think about it.

Instead of waiting for Hutchison to tell us about his findings, we decided to also go out and ask people what they thought about a possible vaccine requirement.

“I would fight it every step of the way because I don’t need it. I’m healthy,” Claudia Smith said.

“You don’t know the reactions to it,” Kim Wilson said. “How someone’s going to react to it?”

“It takes a long time to perfect a vaccine,” Cierra Dominguez said. “So, if it was super soon, I don’t think I would trust it.”

Don’t worry about it. Attorney Pamella Seay, a professor of justice studies at FGCU, said it’s not going to happen.

“There is no means by which a local government can require someone to have a vaccine,” Seay said.

What about Florida or the federal government?

They could try, but Seay said, “I don’t envision a mandate coming along, recommendations, suggestions, making it on the list as something you need to have. But to say absolutely you must have it, I don’t think that’s a realistic option.”

We reached out to the Naples mayor, city attorney and members of Naples City Council, and we have not received a response yet. We expect to hear from them at the latest when Hutchinson brings up the issue for discussion at a future city council meeting.

Seay gives the Naples vice mayor credit for asking the question.

“Whenever you have something of this magnitude, you do need to ask the people, ‘What do you believe? What will you do,’” Seay said.