The full Crow Wing County Board of Commissioners extended the local emergency declaration at an emergency County Board meeting on Thursday, April 23.
The board unanimously voted to extend the declaration for an additional 30 days that was set to expire at midnight on Thursday. A declaration of a local emergency invokes necessary parts of the county’s COVID-19 emergency response and recovery plan to authorize aid and assistance under those plans. This allows the County to act quickly without compliance with time-consuming procedures and formalities prescribed by law pertaining to: the performance of public work, entering into contracts, incurring of obligations, employment of temporary workers, rental of equipment, purchase of supplies and materials, and the appropriation and expenditure of public funds to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Crow Wing County.
“Our number one goal during these next 30 days is to be a service to our communities by helping to safely reopen businesses keeping the health and safety of our residents, business owners and visitors a top priority,” County Administrator Tim Houle said. “We still don’t know how far the impact of COVID-19 will reach, when it will peak or when we can let our guard down on the health side. We do know we can be proactive by working together to get businesses reopened SAFELY which should help to limit the impacts of COVID-19 in our local community and restart our economy.”
The declaration also provides authority for the board to limit the size of public gatherings at board meetings in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in such circumstances. This same limitation is also being extended to the county’s Planning Commission/Board of Adjustment (PC/BOA) as well as the County Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA). It also allows for meetings of these two bodies to happen via video-conferencing or telephone conferencing, should that become necessary.
The declaration also includes a requirement to live-stream County Board and PC/BOA meetings on the county’s website. The county already routinely stores videos of every County Board and PC/BOA meeting on its website. The web address to view County Board meetings live-streamed is http://crowwingcountymn.iqm2.com/citizens/default.aspx.
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Members of the public wishing to comment can write in to coadmin@crowwing.us.
