Mayor Ted Clugston speask to reporters at city hall on Tuesday, June 16, 2020 while director of emergency management Merrick Brown looks on. -- News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
The city is “aggressively” working towards opening recreation facilities and pools, but again on Tuesday defended the length of time it’s taking to get health safeguards in place and the facilities back open to the public, reporters heard at a press event on Tuesday.
Mayor Ted Clugston called for public’s understanding and backed the work of his officials.
“Calgary will not be opening pools at all this year, yet we’re talking about doing these things,” he said.
“I really think we’ve handled the situation well considering what’s going on in other places.”
Pools, parks, rec facilities and other public buildings were closed in mid-March as a measure to control the coronavirus pandemic, and more recently the province has allowed groupings of private and public operations to resume in a relaunch plan.
Stage 2 of the provincial’s strategy went into effect on June 12 – a week earlier than first advertised and on three days notice – and included gyms, pools and cultural facilities originally lumped in a later stage.
City director of emergency planning Merrick Brown told reporters that he expects to have a rough timetables for the facilities as well as city hall reopening complete by the end of the week.
“We understand the desire for things like the Family Leisure Centre or the wave pool to be open, but they are easier to shut down than open up,” he said.
Currently, the city is rehiring workers that were laid off in April and assuring that the city can meet sector-specific guidelines laid out by Alberta Health for safe operation.
State of emergency
Clugston also defended his council’s decision not to enact a state of emergency, as several other cities in Alberta did in March.
This week the province has cancelled its state of emergency and other cities are allowing theirs to lapse.
“I, and city council, were under immense pressure to declare a state of emergency … to follow along with other municipalities, that in my mind panicked and declared states of emergency for a non-local emergency,” said Clugston on Tuesday,
Such a declaration allows city to avoid some financial requirements, such as competitive bidding processes for emergency supplies, but is mostly seen as a way to open the process for compensation for provincial or federal disaster funds to recover costs from an emergency.
Questioned at Monday’s council meeting, Brown said that no such assistance programs are in place for COVID costs, but the city has been “diligent in recording COVID expenses” in case further financial aid is made available.
He added the city had taken advantage of a minor grant program to acquire items of personal protective equipment.
On Tuesday, he told reporters that the city would likely not be able to claim expenses of setting up temporary flood defences to have them in place in case of potential flooding, but actual flooding would open up channels for compensation.
