Ensuring the business of governance

BARRHEAD – The County of Barrhead has a plan of action to ensure the business of governing will continue and the municipality will be able to continue to deliver its core services to its residents.

That is what county manager Debbie Oyarzun told councillors April 7 during their first meeting since Alberta Municipal Affairs set out new council meeting guidelines to protect municipal officials and the public from the coronavirus. The meeting was conducted via an online chatroom.

The last County of Barrhead council meeting was March 3, before the majority of the Alberta Health Services (AHS) public gathering restrictions were put in place.

She said ordinarily under the rules in the Municipal Government Act (MGA) the public must be allowed to attend or view the meeting.

However, in this case, Oyarzun said they (administration) were treating it as a test-run to get all the bugs out of the system before the county publicised how the public could participate in future council and other municipality hosted public forums.

She said the online meetings are one of the ways administration is ensuring the county is able to continue to serve residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staffing levels

Administration is continually evaluating its staffing levels and conducting regular health check-ins of all its employees to make sure there is enough staff to meet service needs.

The finance department is one person down as one employee just went into self-isolation.

"As required under the public health order if [an employee] exhibits any symptoms of cold or flu they are to take the online [Alberta Health Services (AHS) assessment tool] and follow its recommendations," she said. "If it says they are required to self-isolate than they need to do so."

Also, whenever possible, staff are being asked to work from home as much as possible, noting that she and finance director Tamara Molzhan are working on a flex-schedule conducting much of their duties from home.

The agriculture department recently found its ranks depleted as one employee was required to self-isolate while another is on a flex-schedule working mostly from home.

In public works, out of the 18 employees currently on staff, one of its three equipment operators and one of six grader operators are out temporarily due to self-isolation.

"We also have public works staff working from home, one being the utility officer, as he is deemed an essential service," Oyarzun said.

Four of the department's six grader operators use their homes as a base.

In the event that any public works employee deemed essential is lost due to self-isolation or other health issues, the county has a reciprocal agreement with the Town of Barrhead to provide the service.

Business continuation planning

Oyarzun said the municipality's business continuation plan is in a state of constant flux.

"We are making decisions and having discussions about how we are going to continue to provide services such as dust control, grading and gravel services, et cetera and what we have learned is we are a very paper-based organization and as a result, we are having to make a lot of these changes on the fly."

The other part of making sure the municipality's business continuation plan is up to date is by incorporating the frequent changes the province is instituting.

One of the most recent being the length of time a municipality can declare a state of local emergency increasing it to 90 days from seven.

"If you are declaring it because of the pandemic," Oyarzun said, noting so far they haven't deemed it necessary.

Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com

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