Clear Lake city leaders talk about how it’s not totally “business as usual” during the COVID-19 crisis

CLEAR LAKE — Clear Lake’s mayor and city administrator say it’s not totally “business as usual” in the midst of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Mayor Nelson Crabb says while many offices are currently closed to the public, municipal work does continue.  “The office is closed, there’s a sign outside if you do want to communicate to call us and people do that. There’s a drop-box for people to drop off messages or bills to be paid. The library is pretty much closed down, there’s not much activity there, the employees are there every day. Public Works is very active but still maintain that social distancing among themselves and when out in public.”

Crabb says one of the things that typically takes place this time of year in Clear Lake, the spring large-item pickup, has been postponed until a date to be determined.  “We didn’t set another date for that but we’ll see how these next couple of weeks ago and then look at setting a new date for that. Once again, that’s not only to protect the public, but that’s also to protect our Public Works guys when they’re going out and picking up items that they don’t know where they’ve been. Again, face-to-face it’s not a time for that right now.”

City Administrator Scott Flory says the public health emergency has caused the city to rethink how they do a lot of things.   “In some ways going back to the tried and true methods of doing things, doing a lot of things over the telephone that we used to do face-to-face. We’ve just had to become a little more creative but we’re still delivering the same level of services that we’ve been able to provide for a very long time, so it’s just creating new ways of delivering those services and trying the recognize the need to be safe and conscious about that and the process of doing it.”

Flory says besides city buildings, they’ve had to deal with closing down areas of the city’s parks.   “We’ve of course had to close our playgrounds, shelters and restroom facilities. A lot of things have changed, but under the guidelines that the governor has put out and the department of public health, we’re trying to continue to provide as best of quality of service as we possibly can.”

Crabb and Flory made their comments on today’s edition of the “Ask the Mayor” program on AM-1300 KGLO. If you missed the program, you can listen back to it via the audio player below