By: Brian Evans

There are several things that I wanted to express following Monday night’s Joplin City Council meeting! I was one of the speakers that addressed the council, prior to their moving to phase 4, and deciding not to renew the mask mandate, and lifted capacity limits for struggling Joplin businesses!

Everyone knows where I stand on the issue of masks and mandates! You all know that I believe that businesses have the right to enforce masking protocols in their businesses, but the government has no place imposing authoritarian policies on businesses, especially when it puts in place policies that determine the success or failure of a business, especially when it is the business owner who has their life and life-savings invested, not the bureaucrats who run our nation, state, or city! But, regardless of my beliefs, we live in a Constitutional Republic, founded on…