MOULTRIE, Ga. — The City of Moultrie is choosing to support people trying to protect themselves throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — but it isn’t making any mandates.

City council met Aug. 4 and considered a resolution “urging face coverings to be worn in public during the COVID-19 public health emergency.” It will be written in the coming weeks, City Manager Pete Dillard said.

He said the city doesn’t want to mandate anything, as he and the council feel that promoting masks will be more effective. Dillard’s seen it himself.

“I was in North Carolina this [past] weekend and I can tell you from my observation, a state mandate doesn’t do any good,” he said.

This support for the masks will be displayed on the city’s Facebook page and even on the mailed out utility bills. Dillard said they were inspired to support it with the “good shape” the county has been in recently.

“Our hospital reports that in the last seven days, we’ve averaged three positive cases a day — some of the days were one,” he said. “The hospital’s in good shape to handle it, but counties around us are having a big surge [and] we just don’t want to be one of them.”

 The prevention steps Moultrie and Colquitt County citizens use are working, so the only thing to do now is keep pushing them until the county is in the clear, city leaders said.

 City Council amended its zoning ordinance, specifically Article XIX, to allow one day of advertisement in the paper prior to consideration of a zoning change.

“We used to say you had to advertise three days in a row,” Dillard said. “Of course, with the change in the paper, we can’t do that, so we changed it to adjust to the paper schedule.”

Change order number two for the South Main parking lot improvements for $34,000 was also approved. This was an expected measure for the city as there were some infrastructure improvements needed in the project.

“Primarily, we got in there and found a lot of infrastructure that we felt like needed to be updated before we put down new concrete and asphalt,” he said. “And of course, we had the underground storage tank that had to be removed.”

These actions were already taken as the South Main parking lot improvements are finished. The vote was simply to update the budget.