Going overboard.

That’s how Warren City Councilman Eddie Kabacinski describes the reaction of state government and many Michigan residents to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We can’t have a nanny state. We can’t have government telling residents, ‘We think we know better than you,’” he said.

- Advertisement -

The first-term councilman and 46-year-old retired/disabled Army veteran who served in combat during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm believes Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order aimed at reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus should be lifted. The order is scheduled to expire April 30, and Whitmer has indicated some segments of the economy may be phased back in if conditions are right and safety precautions are put in place, and that some portions will remain in place starting May 1.

Kabacinski believes an extension of the order will cause more harm than good by prolonging business shutdowns, causing some to go bankrupt and leading to more unemployment.

In addition to frequent hand washing and use of hand sanitizer, the Centers for Disease Control has recommended people wear masks in public. Kabacinski doesn’t feel masks are necessary. He said he recently stood in line at the customer service counter of a Walmart store in Livonia and felt a bump from behind. He turned to see a man wearing a “bio-suit” and who urged Kabacinski to maintain 6-foot social distancing.

“I said, ‘Don’t you think that’s ridiculous?’” referring to the stranger’s protective outfit. “He said, ‘I’m worried about coronavirus.’”

To show his amazement at that and other public actions, Kabacinski at the start of last week’s Warren City Council meeting wore his M17A2 military mask that he brought home after serving in the Gulf War completely over his head. As council members attended the meeting from home via video conferencing, Kabacinski was called out of order by council President Pat Green for wearing the military grade protective gear that Green didn’t feel was appropriate for a meeting shown on the city’s government cable TV channels.

After removing the mask from his head during the meeting, Kabacinski said:

“There’s been a loss of freedom,” he said, explaining he was objecting to Whitmer’s stay-at-home order as it applies to businesses, government operations and workers not deemed as providing essential services.

“The idea of ‘go only where I say you can go, do only what I say you can do, and disobey and I will lock you up in a cage for 93 days’ for a violation of emergency orders linked to a virus “you have a 98.5 percent chance of surviving” is wrong," he said. “The purpose to wearing the mask is to show the amount of lunacy that has taken place with this coronavirus. The whole idea is, if you use proper hygiene -- you wash your hands, you wash yourself, use hand sanitizer -- you’ll be fine. “

“There’s been a high recovery rate. Yes, there has been a lot of death, but we have had a lot of death from other pandemics that have taken place,” said Kabacinski. “Death is a part of life. I would know about that since I lost 14 men under my command before. I know what that’s like. We’re all going to have to deal with that. But we have to start our economy up again, because there’s going to be a lot more hurt, a lot more loss, if we don’t have that.”

During the council meeting, Kabacinski invited any Warren residents who agreed with him to join a caravan of people that planned to drive from Macomb County to Lansing to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders and restrictions.

Reached this week for additional comment, Kabacinski told The Macomb Daily he wore the mask while driving to and in Lansing. He said he had no passengers and only briefly got out of his vehicle three times – to grab a snack and soda from his trunk during the traffic standstill; to check a tire after hitting a pothole; and to add engine coolant. Anticipating opportunities to use a restroom would be limited during the traffic gridlock, he brought a “bladder bag” but managed to make it to a rest area shortly after leaving the Capitol.

Kabacinski, who identifies his political party affiliation as Constitutional Libertarian, said he doesn’t think that anyone who wasn’t practicing social distancing during the Lansing protest were strangers to those close by. Instead, he believes they were likely related to each other or close friends and probably had no reason to fear that individuals less than 6 feet away were infected with the novel coronavirus.

Kabacinski, who lives alone in the area of Nine Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue, emphasized to a reporter that he’s not suggesting the public should not be concerned about COVID-19. But he’s not worried about his own well-being.

“It’s kind of God’s will and it’s all in his hands,” he said. “If my days are numbered, I want to live my life and not be hunkered down for something big to get me.”

Kabacinski has unsuccessfully tried to convince other council members and Mayor Jim Fouts to drop the Zoom video conference software for their meetings. Noting reports of hackers getting into meetings to post objectionable material, and warnings from federal officials, he feels the video platform isn’t secure and could leave city departments and other government data vulnerable to “back door spying.”

“That to me is a clear and present danger to the City of Warren,” Kabacinski said, adding he feels council members should return to meeting together in-person.

“We’re confident that we’re on safe ground,” Green said of Zoom.

The council president opposes a return to meetings in public, sitting in the same room.

“We’ll err on the side caution,” Green said. “Like everybody else, we want to get back to normalcy. Right now, I think we’re doing the right thing.

“Is everyone going stir crazy everywhere? Sure. Everyone wants to be able to get out,” he said, “but we have to be safe.”

Kabacinski said a special meeting of the council on Thursday night was “zoom bombed” by nine individuals including one who cursed and uttered propaganda, forcing the meeting to be temporarily halted.

While much remains unknown about COVID-19 and some findings including some treatments are preliminary, health experts have said some people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus showed no symptoms yet transmitted the virus to others.

Kabacinski, however, believes the Warren Public Library and Warren City Hall should be reopened to the public. He suggested civil service employees use their own judgment about their health.

“If you’re OK, monitor yourself … and seek medical help when you’re not OK,” he said. “As the president (Trump) said, the cure cannot be worse than the problem.”

Fouts hopes Warren’s libraries, community centers and city hall can re-open to the public only when science and health professionals declare it safe to do so. Now isn’t that time, he said Wednesday.

When libraries and city-owned facilities are eventually re-opened, Fouts predicts employees and visitors will be required to wear masks and potentially additional protective items.

“While they may be civil servants, they’re not civil slaves. That means no one should be forced into working an environment that isn’t safe,” he said.

“I cannot take a cavalier attitude and say: ‘Oh well, there’s going be some deaths and I’m OK with that,’” he said. “Everybody deserves to live.

“My top priority is to serve and protect the citizens of Warren and making sure everyone is safe and doesn’t die.”

Fouts has been inundated with phone calls from residents during the pandemic. He hears desperation in their voices on issues such as the wait for unemployment checks, need for food, worry about loved ones in nursing homes, and claims that employers are not implementing sufficient safety measures.

“It’s just overwhelming. It’s a nightmare, just an absolute nightmare,” Fouts said of their plight. “I’m trying to give people hope.”

The mayor of Michigan’s third-largest city is concerned some aspects of the economy and society eventually will be allowed to re-open too soon in the eyes of health care professionals and potentially lead to a COVID-19 resurgence in the United States that he fears would lead to even longer stay-in-place orders and more severe economic devastation.

Fouts has asked Gov. Whitmer to establish a virus testing site at one of Warren’s community or recreation centers. The mayor also encourages people who have recovered from the virus to donate their plasma with the hope that possible antibodies will help with treatment of those suffering from the infection.

College seniors face job worries, family stress amid virus Sent home from college because of the coronavirus outbreak, Carter Oselett is back in his childhood bedroom in Macomb Township, paying rent on…

Macomb County in line to receive $152M from federal CARES program The state of Michigan is receiving $3.8 billion from the federal government to help respond to the coronavirus pandemic, but restrictions on h…

New Baltimore plans to offer virtual recreation classes Classes such as cooking, crafts and tai chi are among the virtual offerings being considered by the New Baltimore Parks and Recreation Department due to COVID-19 restrictions.