All major Riley County facilities will be closed through the end of April to outside group gatherings.
This decision was made by the Riley County commission on Monday. After a department head meeting, HR Manager Cindy Volanti brought the request to the commissioners.
“We will be cancelling all access to county office space to outside organizations or outside groups to eliminate spreading of any disease,” she said.
Volanti says this also affects their employees who need to be on site at these locations. This includes cleaning staff who would have to re-sanitized after each gathering.
“That through the end of April is for all facilities including training rooms, Pottorf Hall, second floor,” she said.
The only exception to this ruling is the American Red Cross and emergency services if need be. The Red Cross will continue to have their blood drive at Pottorf Hall.
Commissioners are also looking into the possibility of local disaster emergency declarations due to COVID-19.
County Counselor Clancy Holeman said Monday that since the governor has declared a state of emergency, that opens an opportunity for counties to sign on.
“Every county has the authority to enter a local emergency disaster declaration related to conditions locally,” he said.
The statewide declaration was only in place for 15 days before the legislature voted to extend it to the end of the year. The state statute for local declarations is set for seven days for the first order.
“You’ll end up signing off or seeing probably three of these at some point, if things continue to go the way they are. The local disaster emergency declaration also has an important component in it the ability to later on get reimbursement to the extent that it’s available,” he said.
Holeman says from a financial point of view, they want to make sure these declarations are in place if need be. This will allow the county to collect reimbursement if the need arises.
In other business Monday:
Riley County commissioners approved the purchase of portable radios and pagers for the Riley County Fire District.
The radios are for the new county emergency services radio upgrade. Fire Chief Pat Collins says the hope to purchase the radios by June 1, so they can test them before the live date on July 1.
“We originally though we were going to need 68 of them, portables bumped up a little,” he said.
Collins says they will need 46 mobile radios since they have that many vehicles. There is a trade-in program the district will use for the radios with the current contractor. They will be able to trade in each of their portable and mobile radios for $200 each.
“We’ve got a company in Denver that have said they’d give us two radios for every one of ours. That would solve my problem with the 15 battalion chief radios I’ve been talking about,” he said.
This purchase is only for the fire district’s part of the radio purchases. Each agency’s part of the upgrade will have to purchase their own separately . The total cost for the radios is $213,000.
Collins also announced during the meeting he will retire effective at the end of the year, following a career that spans three decades with the county.
