Carson City Supervisors agree to emergency declaration due to COVID-19 pandemic
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 2:41pm
The Carson City Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to a citywide declaration of emergency during the board meeting held Thursday afternoon.
Carson City District Attorney Jason Woodbury spoke on the emergency addition of the item to the agenda.
“We gave as much notice as we could,” said Woodbury, regarding the addition of the item to the agenda. “If the board elects to adopt the resolution, it would have the effect of officially declaring that an emergency exists in Carson City.”
Go here to read the resolution.
This would enact discretionary powers, Woodbury said. All of the powers that he identified during the meeting are discretionary, and the declaration itself does not mean that any of these powers will be exercised.
Some powers include the power to establish a curfew which could be a general mandatory curfew or a curfew with certain limitations. It could include a ration on gas or fuel, and the ability to protect or monitor stores which handle essential items.
“Such as toilet paper,” Woodbury joked.
FEMA disaster relief funding could have an impact once an emergency declaration is made.
“Thank you to everyone who has worked on this,” said Mayor Bob Crowell to all staff members.
Carson City Fire Chief Sean Slamon discussed the need for an emergency declaration and what Carson City has been doing this far.
“We’ve seen it go from an epidemic affecting China to a pandemic affecting the world. Over the past several weeks, we’ve opened a public operation center lead agency (to handle this issue)” said Slamon.
Additional staffing has been added to the center, and during this past week that center has transitioned to an emergency operation center that is a collaborative effort between the four counties.
The quad county partners have trained and planned for this for many years, said Slamon. A pandemic plan is in place and they’ve been essentially following exactly.
Special screening have also been implemented at dispatch centers. Any flu like or covid like symptoms means that protective gear is used by first responders.
Slamon believes this is going to be a long operation. He said he is hopeful a vaccine or medicinal cure is around the corner but is still planning for this to be long term.
All three counties in the quad county area other than Carson City have declared individual declarations of emergency already in order to free up emergency funding to deal with the pandemic.
“There’s probably gonna come a time where we need to act quickly,” said Mayor Crowell. “I’m not pleased to do an emergency declaration, but it is necessary in this case.”
“Emergency declarations are not uncommon,” said Supervisor Stacey Giomi. “We’ve done it for floods, the waterfall fire, snow storms. It’s not draconian, it’s just a step in the process.”
“The best thing we can do is not to panic,” said Slamon. “We can literally worry ourselves to death. Purchase what you need but don’t go beyond that. We’re going to get through this. It will affect a lot of us but do not panic. Make sure you take yourself. Don’t get too enamored in the news, you could get swallowed by the amount of news coming out.”
Information regarding local and state response to COVID-19 can be found on the Carson.org website, or here at CarsonNow.org and The Nevada Independent.
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