 I'd like to call the second special meeting of the 2019-2020 Common Council to order. Will the clerk please read the roll call? All right. I'm just going to call out your name. Let me know if you're here. Alderperson Donahue, Alderperson Wolf, Ackley, Savaglio, Decker, Phillips, Sorensen, Born, and Mitchell. Jim, please turn down the sound in your room. There are nine present. And Alderperson Feldy is excused. Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next will be Mayor's announcements. Thank you. A lot has changed since our last City Council meeting. I've called the special City Council meeting to update the Sheboygan residents on the coronavirus pandemic in the response in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County. At our last meeting, we had just closed the Senior Activity Center, the Water Utility in Maywood, and the next day Governor Evers closed all the bars and restaurants and limited gatherings to ten or less people. City buildings have now been closed to the public except for public meetings, appointments, and early voting. All City departments are manned and operating. All parks are closed and shelter rentals have been canceled. And last week, I suspended enforcement of the alternate side winter parking regulations. And I also announced that the Police Department will not charge late fees on pet license renewals. For the last five years, the employees of the Kohler Credit Union have organized the Memorial Day Parade and Program to recognize and thank our veterans. Today, in conjunction with the Kohler Credit Union, we are announcing that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Memorial Day Parade and Program will be canceled. The Governor's safer at home order marks new and uncharted territory for all of us. Tonight, you will hear from some of our dedicated department heads and several community partners on how they are adjusting to this new normal in Sheboygan County. I appreciate the commitment of all the staff here at the City of Sheboygan and these community partners who are doing their best to continue to deliver the services that our residents need and expect. Last year, the Council approved allowing remote meetings as long as there was a quorum of members in the meeting or attending remotely. We have begun to use this new policy to continue to hold our meetings as normal. All meetings will take place in the Council Chambers during this period at City Hall so that the meetings can be easily broadcast to the community and normal business of the City government can continue unimpeded. No one knows when the situation will end, so I'm asking for everybody's patience and understanding during this difficult time. We want to remind everyone to wash their hands as often as you can, keep a six-foot distance from others, cover your cough, stay at home if you're sick, do not assemble in groups of 10 or more, restrict your shopping to groceries, pharmacy, and takeout dining, and stay safer at home. Now we'll begin our City Department reports and please hold all questions until the end of the presentations next to City Administrator Daryl Hoffland. Thank you Mayor Van der Steen. First off, I want to thank City staff for the continued public service in light of the current challenges including potential personal health risk. I also want to extend my appreciation to Sheboygan residents who have taken time to show their support of City staff. Over the past three weeks, City leadership has been in contact, has worked with Governor Evers office, Sheboygan County including the Emergency Management, Public Health Office, Sheriff's Office, Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce, Sheboygan Area School District, Advocate of Roar Health, St. Nicholas, and numerous Sheboygan nonprofits. Several of these community partners in fact will be providing a brief presentation tonight. Residents or businesses interested in learning more about service level changes can find updates on the City's website including a section on COVID-19 resources. Many of the City links are referrals to the County's Public Health Office website. Please rely upon this county site for health-related daily updates. For businesses interested in learning about federal and state programs, please go to the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce website. The chamber will be coordinating with the SCEDC to share information so this will be the go-to site for local Sheboygan businesses. In closing, I want to identify my appreciation for the management team and working with their staff to find a balance for continued, to continue providing public service while being sensitive to the staff's personal matters. Next up is David Bebel who will be appearing remotely. Thank you, Daryl. Can everyone hear me clearly? Yes. Okay. I'd like just to give the council and those participating a quick update on the Department of Public Works activities. One of probably the earliest decisions that we've talked about is we suspended the Superior Avenue Reconstruction Project which was going to be from Taylor Drive to approximately 29th Street immediately adjacent to St. Nicholas Hospital. We've suspended that project for the next 90 days. After 90 days, depending upon the situation, we will evaluate if that project moves forward this year or not. Given the need for proper access to the hospital, we felt this was the best in the best interest of all interested parties in the community to keep this project on hold until this pandemic settles down. The other thing is we've done this on other projects. The other two projects would be Geely Avenue. We're holding off as the water utility would need to get into individual homes because we were going to be replacing lead water services. So that will be held for another 90 days. As well as the Badger Wops project. With that project, there was some water main that was in dire need of being reconstructed. Nevertheless, it's one of the main feeds for the Rockline Corporation and with their very important production of sanitary and disposable disinfectant wipes. It was very important to keep that water flowing. So we're going to hold off on that project as well for another 90 days until this is cleared off. Other areas that the public works has been mentioned is the parks have been closed. Rentals. We've suspended rentals until May 15th and that was about approximately 45 cancellations that we refunded residents. Approximately is around $12,600 in park rental fees that we're going to be reimbursing those. And unfortunately, we're unable to have their celebrations at the parks during this time. We've had one sewer backup already as a result of wipes being flushed into the sewer system. Again, it is very important that the wipes are not flushed. Only flush toilet paper, please. We have information on the city's website as well as our public works website to have further information to help people understand that. Our automated garbage collection program, we received our first shipment of carts today. They're being assembled. They're anticipated to be distributed next week for the first set and they will be dropped off at the curbside on front of your property. There will be no contact with individual households. And this is a very important subject. There's our garbage in the city of Sheboygan, as we mentioned, is manually collected, putting our employees and our collectors at serious exposure risk. So the timing is very important that this continues to get rolled out in order for protection of our employees as well as the public transferring bags to the curbside. The city staff is using proper protocol in terms of separating. We're not allowing individuals to ride in trucks together. So we're practicing our social distancing to keep staff and public works employees available for this. Lastly, a couple other concerns where the Wildwood Cemetery will be invoking some rules that are necessary in terms of family gathering. Again, this is all part of the governor's orders. So again, most of this information is on the city's website as well as our public works website. And I encourage residents to continue to look at these sources for daily updates as this is constantly changing. Thank you. Thank you very much, David. Next is Vicky Schneider, the Acting Director of Human Resources and the Director of Senior Services for the city of Sheboygan. As you know, that we had had to close the senior center relatively quickly in this process about three weeks ago. We have about 400 regular members that attend the senior center over the course of any particular week. So it's a very active place. And so we're concerned about the people who had used that as their second home. Our staff, Rachel Connery and Melissa Wolf in particular, have continued to stay in touch with members through Facebook posts. If you haven't seen our Facebook page, they're doing posts daily with challenges, exercise programs, things like that to make sure that people stay connected. And they are also doing personal calls to members so that they can check in on people who have been our most regular our participants. Our newsletter had been sent out. We did put a notice on that that we will not obviously be able to fulfill that programming, but we will reschedule everything as best as we can. And our staff continues to work through this in conjunction with the friends of the senior center that we're continuing to keep them whole by paying them to make sure that they stay connected to us as well. I am also the acting director of human resources for the past 13 days, but I'm not counting. It's been an interesting experience and I'm really enjoying it being able to work with the staff so that we can ensure that they too will be taken care of in this difficult time. Thank you very much, Vicki. Next is Derek Mink, the director of transit and parking. Thank you. Shoreline Metro has definitely had a unique and trying three weeks since this COVID-19 outbreak. So thank you for allowing me to touch base on the changes. Our weekday fixed route service is currently reduced to 545 a.m. to 545 p.m. That's a three-hour reduction in the evenings and a four-hour midday reduction in service where we went to hourly service instead of half-hour service. Paratransit services continue to mirror the hours and operations of fixed route. Saturday service is currently suspended. Paratransit service remains normal. Our fixed route customers are being temporarily accommodated to use a demand response service for essential and necessary trips through our trip reservation process. Fairs are currently suspended for both services to reduce exposure to germs and viruses and to provide financial relief to our customers making essential trips during this difficult time. Fair media is temporarily unavailable to customers for purchase. Temporary capacity constraints are in place with a limit of 10 individuals including driver and fixed route buses and three on paratransit buses to ensure social distancing of six feet can be encouraged and maintained on the buses. We're also maintaining this within office and office staff as well. The admin and maintenance facility is close to customers but our transfer station across from City Hall remains open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The warming shelter at the transfer station is also close to the public. Our customers must enter and exit through the rear doors on the fixed route service unless required or requesting to use a ramp or designated seats. This is just a requirement to limit exposure and near contact with drivers. We are doing thorough cleaning of all of our buses, offices, and customer areas on a daily and weekly basis utilizing drivers. We're also using drivers to clean bus shelters, facilities, and completing other projects essential to service allowing us to do things in our buildings that we haven't done in many, many years. Our website, Facebook, and bus tracker app, our technologies are all available to our customers during this time. We encourage our individuals and our customers to review these daily for changes or updates to service. We update these as needed. And just a note, service levels may fluctuate based on driver availability and customer needs. We continue to monitor the situation and make decisions in the best interests of the health and wellness of our customers and employees. We've taken the steps to reduce service due to a response in our drivers. As far as their safety and wellness, the response that we've gotten lately is that most of our drivers are feeling fairly confident in working and performing essential services. So we anticipate that their return to work will be within the next week or two, which may prompt us to return back to some sort of normal level of transit service. But we will be making those decisions as we have more information available from our employees. And lastly, just to update on parking utility. Parking utility has designated free parking spaces along A Street for customers picking up and dropping off at area residents and businesses. All other meters and parking lot fees remain as normal. And I do have just a sample of what the sign looks like. So the way to encourage individuals to support our businesses and be able to come downtown, we designated some free meter stalls. Thank you. Thank you very much, Derek. Next is Marty Halverson, the director of finance in our treasure. Thank you, Mayor. So finance, obviously, as is for all of you, our top priority is everyone's health and safety. And as a result, beginning mid last week, the finance department decided to separate its staff with two individuals remaining within City Hall's finance department. Our purchasing agent is working from his county office space as he is a shared employee with the county. And our remaining staff are all working remotely from home. This approach was taken not only to protect the individuals within the department, but also to protect the city. Should an exposure happen within City Hall, it would not render the entire finance department out of commission. And certainly, we want to continue to serve the residents of the city of Sheboygan. As a result, we do have our phone number listed on the city's website. So we are able to be reached during operating hours. That main phone number is currently forwarded to one of the two individuals staff in the department so that they can properly address the concern, question, or need and or route it to the other staff. Currently, I've also been collaborating with other municipalities, namely finance director up in Manitowoc. Steve Korbel and I have been discussing best practices and other ideas on how we can get through this together. Online payments continue to be an option for residents, both for ambulance and the municipal court. We also have our drop box and we've communicated the location of that so that we are able to frequently retrieve payments out of there, which we're doing throughout the day. The U.S. mail continues to be our primary source of all of our documents, so we'll continue to monitor that the mail continues. Should that change, then we'd put in alternate arrangements. We also, as you heard earlier from director Bebel, we're looking at and constantly discussing the prioritization of projects, as well as large purchases throughout the city. Situations such as the delay of the Superior Avenue reconstruction are things that we have to consider, both not only from a feasibility to accomplish the project, but also from a financing perspective. We are in contact regularly with Wisconsin finance professionals, our consultant who we utilize for our borrowing. The city is currently still on its timeline for its borrowing in 2020. This is certainly done and will be continuing up until that timeframe. We'll be working with them to monitor the market and certainly look at when it's advantageous for us to borrow, to be able to make the necessary purchases to keep the city operational. And that is all that I have. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marty. Next is Chris Domigalski, our chief of police. Good evening. So we've obviously started out with concentrating on updating both our hygiene and cleaning protocols, closed the lobby to keep citizens safe from getting too close inside there with each other. Because of our ability to do payments and things like that online, we've tried to get everybody to move to the phone. And so we've reassigned personnel, redone our phone system so that there's more lines that can provide service to the citizens and moved all of that that way. Physically, we've done a bunch of things. We've moved about 20% of our personnel with the help of DPW, IT, and Chad Peleshek to the Social Security Building. Main purpose of that, again, is physical distancing and really to provide a backup workforce in case our main service through officers on the street becomes impacted by the virus. We're currently in planning to go to a platoon system if needed. Many departments across the country have already done that. My concern with that is the substantial overtime costs that will come with that. Looking forward to what we're doing with the Detention Center, the Sheriff's Office, and the judges as far as who were taken to jail and pushing court dates off, that's already going to impact us at some point, I think, on the overtime side. And so we're really trying to stay within the budget and only do those things necessary. But really every day planning is going on. Both how we can adjust for what happens and plan for the future when this really resolves itself. So every day planning is going on to adjust practices, talk to our partners, and figure out the things that we need to do. We're also trying to use our social media sites as best we can really to keep pushing information and sharing information from our partners. Thank you very much. Next is Fire Chief Eric Montanello. Thank you, Mayor, Council Members. Although we've tried to remain as much as possible to work and operate as business as usual, obviously there are certain measures that we've taken to improve and look out for the safety of our staff. We've implemented policies that are in practice that are in coinciding with the Center for Disease Control Guidelines. Dispatch is currently screening the calls that come in for any COVID-19 concerns and that way they alert our staff members at a more, you know, so they're more aware and can take the necessary PPE precautions prior to arrival. We're requiring our crews to disinfect the ambulances and all our areas, patient care areas as soon as possible. We're also requiring the crews actually to work every day to clean the stations. Even though we've limited the visitation, the PubEd events, station tours, and etc., we are trying to take every precaution we can to keep the stations clean. Some of our EMS protocols have changed as well to allow for our COVID-related calls to be screened and increase the safety of our personnel and the patients as well. Even we've gone to measures of taking our temperatures on a daily basis for our personnel that are on duty every day, twice a day. Training has also been changed. We're not doing as much training as as a shift. We're trying to limit the exposure to each personnel, so we've decreased the number of shift trainings. In fact, we're trying to work with the training officer right now to limit company trainings as well. We're working with the local 483 to try to look at best practices for our members and try to look out for the safety and not only of the community we serve but our personnel. As far as the COVID calls, since we've been tracking, we've had approximately 20 COVID-related calls that we've responded to. However, only two of those have actually resulted in a COVID-related incident. Our current call volume is really on track. However, we're about 45 calls less than we were at this time last year. It could be just because of the isolation that everybody's doing, social distancing, and a lot of the business is not being open that it's limited to a lot of the calls. So we'll see where we end up at the end of the year. But we're doing the best we can to operate as best as usual. Thank you. Next is Assistant Chief Butler who's been working with the EOC. He's going to give you an update as well. Chuck. Thank you, Chief. As of late with the Emergency Operations Center being opened, you're going to start to hear a lot of emergency operation jargon, things that we use behind the scenes in our preparedness activities and our incident management structure. Tonight, I just want to take a second to give you a little bit of an update on our Emergency Operations Center, what it is and what the folks there do. Is there a different slide or is there a slide? So the Emergency Operations Center is right now both a virtual and a physical location. Typically, it's a physical location, but given the circumstances of this response, we are actually we're a little bit of both. We do meet and do some work physically in a single location, but with the number of people that are involved, we're doing an awful lot of virtual work and everybody is getting much better at using our phones and our conference systems and things like that. So we're doing an awful lot of work in a virtual manner right now. So the EOC right now and every EOC is made up of key stakeholders in the community. Those are people from emergency response, people from business, in this case, a lot of folks from health care, public health and a lot of business leaders from the community are part of this operation along with support staff for all of those individuals and so really what the whole concept of the Emergency Operations Center is to put all of these folks in a communication link and a forum and a place where they can work together and share ideas and make informed and very collaborative and cooperative decisions. So another thing that they do is actually function in in times where there are scarce resources and of course right now we are in a situation where there are a lot of scarce resources and a lot of unknowns and a lot of questions that are coming. So these folks that get together as a community they kind of work through some of those questions and they prioritize some of those resources out to the community as their best needed at the time they're needed. So our current EOC right now is actually and that's the next slide. Right now the city and the county are working together at the Emergency Operations Center supporting each other for a large event of course remember we talked last time I was up here we talked a little bit about the city not having a public health department. So this is a public health emergency we are working primarily with the Sheboyin County EOC and supporting that operation. Currently the EOC is fully activated and all of the support areas are there and engaged. It is a daily operation that occurs even through the weekend and oftentimes staff are working very late from their homes and planning for the next day but we are using the incident command system and for those that don't understand that it's basically a military structure fire service uses it it's become sort of the standard guideline for how to do things in an emergency so everything stays organized everything stays on track and it's really a system of best practices in managing events and emergencies that have come down through the years and it's a little bit like best practice on steroids for an event like this so it's very driven the structure is very specific we have very specific positions in place very specific reports and so the activities of the Emergency Operations Center it's a it's really an ongoing cycle of activity and it includes things like information gathering operation support and daily briefings documentation of the event for long-term finance reasons and for resource supply we forecast as best we can based on the information that's out there and then we plan accordingly for the next operational period it just it continues to keep driving down that path to make sure that we're not missing anything that we are doing everything we can looking forward so we're not surprised anymore than we would normally be surprised the EOC also daily develops an incident action plan for the day and that operational period that operational plan includes the updated daily objectives our strategies for the day and a general situational awareness of what's going on around us so we're all making decisions the same I talked a little bit about resource sharing and prioritization an example of that right now might be the PPE use you know everybody is looking for face masks everybody's looking for gowns everybody's looking for hand sanitizer well rather than have it all stockpiled in one place we share information between all the different organizations and we try to allocate those resources to the priority to make sure that everybody has what they need and then we kind of keep moving forward a huge part of the emergency operations center right now is actually our joint information system and what that is is basically an agreement between all of the cooperating parties that are involved in this response to say look we understand information is extremely important and there is so much out there so what we've agreed to do is once daily at one o'clock we have a briefing that includes healthcare systems administrators businesses all kinds of folks that have a an interest in this event and we get together and they they sort of talk about the information what are their core messages for their business or their organization and that all gets compiled and you've probably seen these come out they come out at like three o'clock every day from Sheboyin County Public Health it is that culmination of all of that work and that collaborative one source information thing that we try to point everybody to and again I would encourage everybody to go to Sheboyin County Public Health their website and look for those updates again they come out like three o'clock but they are the best most accurate information up to date at that point so please try to avoid rumors speculation and all of the things that kind of come with that because it really gets people and the hard workers at public health you know when they have to chase down a rumor that doesn't seem right it takes more time off of their schedule and so try to go to those vetted sources if you could so really the whole idea of the the emergency operations center honestly is to just maintain that updated situational awareness and keep everybody on a common operating picture that way when we're making decisions for this community we're making them all with the same information we're making them with everybody else in mind and we're doing it in a very cooperative way so we stay extremely efficient and we actually get through this together and really that is the role of the EOC and the structure that's in place so thank you thank you very much next we'll move on to Joe Trubled the water utility superintendent he'll join us remotely thank you mr. mayor mr. Hoffman and council members I wanted to begin just by reassuring and reminding everyone that COVID-19 is not transmitted by drinking water municipal water is safe there is no need to stockpile bottled water or anything like that the core mission of the water utility is to provide safe drinking water to the community that includes Sheboygan Sheboygan Falls in the village of Kohler and that's what we're focused on during this emergency in order to do that we need the water treatment plant and full operation and that relies on a fairly small number of staff members who are experienced knowledgeable and expert in operating that plant so very early in this process we closed off the treatment plant and only our operational personnel are allowed to go in there uh just simply as a means of isolation as we've heard with some other of my colleague so those folks are pretty much sealed off from the rest of us at the water utility and we'll continue to do that until we're through this health emergency and that includes packages anything going in is disinfectant and we're really treating that water treatment plant as a safe zone of protection um the other aspects of of what we're maintaining during the emergency are are essential as well we uh have to operate the water distribution system we have to respond to any main breaks or problems getting water to where it needs to go and in order to do that we've taken a team approach so we've taken our construction maintenance crew and we've put them into smaller teams again just to isolate and again as uh as chief Damogalski mentioned trying to put staff in different places so if one does become ill or quarantine that we're not taking out a number of other staff members um in our office uh facility as well we are we are staff we're answering phones that come in we still have a lot of customer service issues water supply issues um during the weekday the the phone calls will be answered there there may be times where a person may have to come back come back and call a little later but we are still staffing our phone lines and providing all of that customer service as normal uh we are collecting meter readings out in the field that's a good work in isolation for our staff to do uh we are producing municipal billings water sewer garbage fee billing and we'll be sending those out however there is no late fee there is no uh disconnection process all of those kind of collection uh devices have been suspended during the emergency uh as well and I think we've also moved about half our staff onto remote platforms things like engineering some of our other customer service folks are able to work remotely our supervisory staff and uh about half our staff are able to do remote work so we're in very good shape we've actually quarantined some people that were in the Milwaukee area we've taken a very aggressive approach we don't want uh the virus to get into the quality facility if it does we're going to do everything we can to minimize this impact and each week uh we're we're taking another look is as everybody is that's a dynamic situation making adjustments and uh I think at the time being we're we're in good condition at the quality facility thank you thank you very much Joe next is Garrett Erickson director of the Mead Public Library thank you Mr. Mayor um the library has been closed since March 18th uh a couple weeks ago and normally when you come to the library there's lots of different things that you can do as a resident check out books attend programs use a meeting space we fill a lot of informational needs and so on so we have had to limit what we offer but we are still offering services the biggest of which is our digital resources so we've got a lot available for people to come onto the library's website if you want to learn a new language or do consumer reports ancestry.com New York Times those are the sorts of things that we have offered for people to come and we've actually seen approximately about a doubling in the usage of these online resources during this first month of this of the virus we also offer still offer research for people if they want to call up people that work normally on our second floor so if you have a informational question please just send the library either a phone message or an email and we'll get back to you our librarians are working from at home right now and are answering all their questions that they normally would we are also in the process of moving all of our access points in the building to the perimeter so that hopefully the weather warms up and people can come outside of the library during the day and they can still access our wireless service we have a tremendous number of people that depend on us for wireless that don't have it at home and then finally we are learning how to use online learning platforms like the schools so we're offering online book clubs and story times and things like that as best we can to try and make this just sort of a normal for people if they want to connect through us online they can so that's what that's what we've been working on at the library thank you very much Garrett next is Meredith de Bruin our city clerk you can do it right okay thank you mr mayor although we have many duties in the clerk's office I think our the thing that's been impacted the most has been the election an election is still a go as of today for April 7th our mission in the clerk's office is to have any eligible voter who wishes to vote vote and have that vote counted and we want to do that we need to do that in a safe environment so what we've been doing is encouraging people to vote by mail that is the best way to do it many people are going to the my vote site which is my vote dot wi dot gov to request a ballot we are fielding many phone calls in our office many times all four lines are busy as we're helping people navigate that system that they've never used before right now we have had over 6000 ballots issued to kind of put that in perspective April of 16 we had about 1500 absentee ballots requested and sent and in November which was the last presidential we had about 5200 so we're well over that and we keep seeing about two to 300 a day so that has been really what we've been working on in our office besides the phone calls that being said since the election is a go we need to staff our polls on election day which is next Tuesday usually for an April election we have a hundred plus poll workers right now we're down to about 85 the state just sent some clarification out today asking that people over the age of 65 or with underlying health conditions that are considered more of risk should not be poll workers so the underlying conditions they have included are chronic lung disease moderate to severe asthma serious heart conditions immunocompromised status which means poorly controlled HIV or AIDS or cancer patients and pregnant women so those people are better off to stay home we have had some outreach from city workers which has been wonderful I talked to somebody at Lakeland today and the Sheboygan area school district so we are helping to fill those spots we are taping a training session an hour training session we're going to be doing that tomorrow and sending the link out to people who want to be poll workers on election day the polls we we have eight polling locations we've had to move two of those due to churches that just weren't comfortable having us there on election day so we moved EV free to city hall which are awards five through ten and we also moved first united Lutheran which is 16 17 and 18 to the police department some of the things that we're doing at the polls are signage the state has sent us some signs that we can post talking about not enter the building if you're feeling sick that we can do curbside voting we I've been working with DPW we've ordered eight hand washing stations so there'll be a hand washing station at each poll as well as hand sanitizer and bathrooms to wash up we have a multitude of pens that we will ask people to use a pen and then have it sanitized so take a pen when you come use it throughout the process and drop it off to be sanitized the floors are going to be marked we had some guidance about how to do photo IDs by putting which we started in our office actually because we're doing in person absentee is marking off a spot for them to put down their photo ID and then stepping back that six feet and then coming up to sign the poll books but again stepping back that six feet we have magnifying glasses for people that it's those those IDs are really hard to see little writing so we have magnifying glasses to see them better we also do have some disposable gloves and some face masks but they aren't the 95s so we also had a call from somebody who is a new poll worker who has agreed she asked if she could make some for our poll workers so we will have those available as well we're still encouraging people to vote by mail they can vote up until April 2nd if they're a regular voter and then in person in our office we are still doing that eight to four thirty this week if voters are concerned about their mail it's getting back to our office by mail we have a drop box on 9th street right outside a city hall that we are checking daily and we will get their ballot counted and to the polls on election day that's it thank you very much appreciate all the work you and your staff are doing to get ready for this that'll conclude our our city reports next we'll go on to our community leader reports and we'll start out with Joe Sheehan the executive director of the shabuigan county economic development corporation joe is joining us remotely joe are you there we seem to be missing joe so we'll go on to the shabuigan county chamber of commerce and executive director didra martinez is going to join us didra yes hello mr mayor thank you for having me the shabuigan county chamber of commerce has certainly had to transition how we operate our office is closed to the public and my team is working remotely but they are working and probably more than they ever have before thankfully with modern technology we were able to transition all of all of our needs to our home so we're still fielding phone calls we have actually been inundated with phone calls there's a lot of uncertainty out there and you know the business community as well as the community at large you know looks at us as a trusted source which we take that responsibility very seriously so with that being said some of the things that we have done it at my office is really spent a significant amount of time researching and studying the emergency response legislation and subject you know working with subject matter experts so that we can share that understanding with businesses and guide them through this process with everything flying at us so quickly it you know creates anxiety and uncertainty and fear and you know a feeling of i just don't know where to begin so we put together the small business owners guide to relief programs in the cares act in conjunction with some of our board members as well as legal counsel we are working closely with the county and of course the vision of public health we want to ensure that any information that we are making available to our members and non-members alike is verified is clear and concise information and we encourage other like organizations throughout shaboykin county to utilize the information that we're preparing so that we can take that burden off of them we are providing a number of web-based professional development opportunities answering questions providing guidance and allowing for a safe space for business owners to connect we recently launched an economic impact survey throughout shaboykin county and of of our respondents we see that there's a significant amount of businesses primarily small businesses at this time that have either had to shut their doors completely in order to of course keep the community safe but but others that can be open have had to limit their hours due to just lack of customers so you know we we want to make sure that we are making ourselves available to our our businesses especially small businesses during this time and we've really kind of opened our reach to include non-chamber member businesses as well we understand that in order for in the long term you know for our community to recover and get to where we need to be we need to be supporting all businesses and so you know the members and board members have accepted that challenge and you know we're open to it so through that we are supporting businesses that have remained open whether it be restaurants with takeout or delivery options and we have a dedicated website that we are updating in real time as things change we have created a page on our website to also break down the different business resources available so whether you're an employer and you've had to lay off your staff and now you want to give them as the best guidance on unemployment their links can be found right on our website to take them to the places they need to be or if you're a business owner and you are attempting to understand what the CARES Act means for you we have resources for that if you're looking to apply for small business loans or grants opportunities that information is available it's become really a one-stop shop and then of course most importantly from the healthcare perspective working you know updating the division of public health information as they send it to us and making sure that our our folks are getting what's current what's real information for our county and then we also have wonderful partnerships with both Prevea Health and Aurora and we've had an opportunity to do some online virtual meetings with Dr. Rye of Prevea Health just talking about talking through you know some of what's happening in healthcare with COVID-19 how to keep ourselves our families our employees safe and an opportunity to ask questions as well and we find that you know when when there's so much uncertainty and we need we need to create a calm and sometimes just having that conversation and being available to answer questions or making subject matter experts available to answer questions of our public as well as our business owners is really a strong and positive way to do things and of course you know working with organizations like the SDEDC Joe and I spend a lot of time communicating as well as other chambers of commerce throughout the county local municipalities the county itself so really just making sure that you know at the higher level you know we're all communicating we're all expressing the things that we see happening in our respective areas so that we can create a strong successful plan for what this looks like in the long term you know the initial impact is scary and we know that and and I'm not going to tell anyone this shouldn't be afraid because that's a real feeling but in the long term we got this and Shabuigan County is said and it rally and so if we continue to work together the way that we have and empowering our businesses and our leadership we will absolutely be successful and that's all I have thank you very much for that update Deidre next we're going to call on Natasha Torrey is our judge for the Shabuigan and Kohler Municipal Court Natasha is joining us remotely Natasha can you bring your sound up a little bit thank you very much Natasha next we'll move on to Kate Bear Kate Bear is joining us remotely Kate oh can you hear me yes Kate go ahead okay hold on let me just add you on speaker so um thank you Mr Mayor I'm really excited to take this opportunity to give you an update about the social sector in Shabuigan County and United Way so we are also I echo the gratitude I hear in tonight's meeting in regards to just being so thankful for all of our community members businesses and government to unite together to answer the needs of our friends family co-workers neighbors in need United Way continues to respond to our community's evolving needs through a number of different avenues we have a nonprofit response network that we've convened there's our volunteer center that has both volunteer center opportunities and wish list opportunities for nonprofits to post tangible items we are also kind of collecting and gathering the most up-to-date resources working in conjunction with the Chamber of CDC public health all those great avenues and we have implemented a Shabuigan County COVID-19 release fund so I'll quickly kind of speak to what we're doing in each of those areas regarding the initial and ongoing response it's been interesting navigating these unchartered waters as you all know we actually sent out a needs assessment survey to all nonprofit agencies and social sector serving orgs I think that was Friday March 13th I just have the utmost respect and appreciation for my staff and board who rallied to the challenge and like many of you working long hours to make sure that we can be of best support in our community during this trying time we initially hosted two conference calls to gather more of a needs assessment around what's happening with our nonprofit friends as well as did the actual assessment survey so we are of course encouraging local nonprofits to think differently as we all are about how they can fulfill their current needs nonprofits are collaborating and partnering problem solving in new ways which has been so exciting to be a part of that and we're also hopeful that the CARES Act will be of support to local nonprofits because of the increased cost loss of revenue for many organizations which is a frightening recipe as we all know and very it's deeply concerning so we're continuing to convene these weekly calls with nonprofits and social sector serving organizations so all sorts of folks kind of come to the table every Tuesday at 9 a.m everything I'm referencing is on our website uw of fb.org so definitely just go to the website we have a ton of information what you would expect and anticipate for needs that we keep hearing is around basic needs assistance right so food access and security transportation to food sites childcare rental and utility assistance also of course and lots of concern around lots of revenue during the safer at home process layoffs to their own staff impacts to operation and program changes and then I'll explain a little bit how the fund is responding to these needs but just a quickly to update on the volunteer aspect so obviously anticipating volunteer needs changing we have an area on our volunteer website that is specific to COVID-19 pandemic opportunities and also this wish list specific but as we motivate healthy community members volunteer continued health and safety for them as our top priority um it's a constant reminder we're able to share out different information we get from public health and from CDC around you know health and safety protocols for volunteering what that looks like a lot of folks have had change obviously their their way in which they're utilizing their volunteers and so then the Sheboygan County COVID-19 Relief Fund really excited and again proud that we were one of the first united ways to implement this in the in the state of Wisconsin acting fast upon those school closures and and working working really hard so the function of this local relief fund is to provide resources to nonprofit organizations that directly support community members who are disproportionately impacted by coronavirus um a hundred percent of the funds raised go directly to the Sheboygan County Fund and United Way is absorbing all internal and administrative costs um financing any of the online platform fees we were able to initially just kind of feed this fund with ten thousand dollars we have raised we have raised two dates around seventy thousand almost seventy thousand dollars but we've had requests for over eighty seven thousand dollars and so we really are calling upon the community to if a person or business is in any sort of position to give every little bit matters every little bit counts these nonprofits are in need we have granted out for phase one right now because this fund is really two phase so multiple phases of funding are anticipated because of both acute needs and then these longer term impacts and the primary goal of phase one is to help meet basic needs and increase that resiliency that our community members are impacted by and then the second phase will kind of look at returning the local social sector back to normal as quickly as possible so that organizations can continue to serve um so we have granted for that phase one over thirty thirty two thousand I think around thirty two thousand dollars to date and again though we receive inquiries daily around this fund and our board and leadership team our meeting every other day to kind of go through applications continue the plan of raising funds and because we find ourselves in a critical position um community support and financial resources are urgently needed so again if anyone would like to donate to the fund I would happily take this opportunity to say visit our website uw of at uwossc.org um and continue to help us kind of meet the needs of our local nonprofits and those we serve um we also have a community uh resource COVID-19 specific resource card that we've been working with um cross-sector folks on and that should be available very soon and we continue to reach out cross-sector as everyone else has mentioned prior to this to kind of figure out ways in which we can coordinate and collaborate around helping the public so I just um echo that I believe that you are all such a bright light um during these dark trying times and that humanity is shining in different ways even though this is incredibly um scary and concerning we we really shine as a county and I'm so proud to work alongside all of you so thank you mr mayor thank you very thank you very much Kate uh next uh is Sheboygan county uh Sheboygan county has been a great partner for the city and really has uh you know led this effort with the COVID-19 response I'd like to call up Adam Payne the county administrator to introduce his team and uh look forward to their report thank you mr mayor thank you common council uh thank you Daryl Hofflin and all the members of the city's team for your leadership during this time and the tremendous collaboration we have between the city of Sheboygan and Sheboygan county it is appreciated and we appreciate being able to share a little bit about what's in play these are just extraordinary times absolutely extraordinary times um it's heartening to hear the the the updates and everyone's involvement engagement it is all hands on deck in this community and it's certainly all hands on deck in Sheboygan county I think of just how quickly the information has changed it just keeps coming at us so so fast and those of us at the county that are really engaged such as our emergency management director and public health and others it's really been all consuming the last three or four weeks without question for me personally it's just remarkable that how much can change in two or three weeks I mean we went from hearing limiting non-essential gatherings to over a thousand to two fifty to fifty to ten in less than a week on March 12th Governor Evers declared the public emergency March 12th on March 17th he came out with another emergency order on that day the county board also met and declared a state of emergency in Sheboygan county which provided emergency powers to the county board chair and myself to to provide whatever necessary resources we need to protect the health and safety and welfare of the community that day on March 17th the state of wisconsin had 72 confirmed cases and of course today less than two weeks later it's 1221 on the 17th we had four confirmed cases in Sheboygan county and today it's 10 it is just remarkable to me how quickly information is coming at us and how quickly it's changing you recall when the governor closed down the schools what an impact that had on the city of Sheboygan and Sheboygan county just our our workforce alone yet alone the community as a whole and before that day came and went the schools some of the districts closed even more quickly so we had such limited time to work with them and then on March 20th the governor updated his mass gathering band and ordered closure as we know of all non-essential businesses a 24th the safe at home order which really was further clarification of what he put in his original order but suffice it to say it has been a whirlwind of activity and just remarkable times for all of us in Sheboygan county we have tremendous people on our team and we all know you'll learn so much about one another during tough times don't you we learned about one another's character and how we step up to situations like this and everyone's different but i can't tell you how proud i am of our team as you mentioned mr. mayor with me today is our emergency management director steve steinhardt i think i've known steve for nearly 20 years and he has always been a cool informed customer a good leader and i've been so impressed with his steady leadership star has aptly named our public health officer she has truly been a star during this trying times our sheriff kory raceler of course is very engaged he shut down the correctional facility to visitors right away our health and human services director matt strip modder who obviously works with star and our public health information officer liby jacob's all hands on deck there are a purchasing agent that we've been cheering for some time bernie romer has been outstanding and turning over every rock and looking for every opportunity to get additional masks or gloves or gowns or whatever personal protective equipment we need not only for rocky knoll but people throughout this community and he's been tremendous as was mentioned by chuck we have this pandemic plan this and administrative panel and and it's nice to see the community come together and see the representation of course chuck's the leader on that mayor you're involved city administrators involved all of our community leaders including our hospital representatives and and clinic folks are involved i had a chance to talk to dave grabner the aurora president later this earlier this afternoon and really heartened with the planning that the hospital aurora in particular is doing in preparation for this it is truly all hands on deck our hr director denis miller i think he started about the same time vicki did a few weeks ago talk about getting thrown into the fire when you have 850 employees at shabuagan county they are looking for guidance just as your employees at the city are and government as you know is exempt from the governor's orders we have essential programs and services so what does that look like and who what are the essential functions who can work from home we've been doing the best we can to provide weekly routine information we have about 130 employees working at home if they can but most of our employees continue to work at law enforcement health and human services rocky null we have many many essential functions and we continue to be open for business and to serve the community our corporation council crystal feebers been rock solid our it director crystal winsky all these committee meetings including this meeting today and doing as much as we can online or or through what is it called zoom is that the the buzzword right now that everyone's using to stay in contact we've made so many adjustments with our standing committees as i know the city has as well so we appreciate our it director in their office support and then rocky null this is near and dear to me my wife's a registered nurse my two daughters are health professionals it is so critically important that our emergency responders and health care professionals get the resources they need every patient they interact with they're taking a risk and for me personally that's been one of the areas where i've been very engaged working fact with mayor van der steen we had a discussion with the governor last week about making sure that we're getting those supply chains here and then our county emergency management director is the key contact so we know what's coming from these stockpiles who's ordering it when it's arriving who has what because how do we establish priorities how do we distribute limited resources if we don't know who has what and where those needs are but again steve bernie and all involved have been doing an outstanding job and finally i'll end with you know the county's been doing our best to promote social distancing as i said those employees that can are working from home we've encouraged the public and for those that are watching this or listening to this please if you don't have to come to a county facility don't call ahead email make an appointment be mindful of coming to county facilities for your own good health in our employees good health there's often other means where we can provide service whether it's a simple phone call so again we're open but we're hoping people will be mindful about coming to the county administration building our courthouse we have restricted access at our rocky noel nursing home just as all nursing homes have now for obvious reasons to protect our residents we were one of the first in the region actually to do that and we hope that we're able to continue to protect our residents but of course you never know when that might come in the door whether it's an employee or anyone else so in summary i'm so proud of our team at sheboyan county i'm really proud of this community and how everyone is stepping up and doing what they can to be part of the solution cooler heads prevail my dad used to always say that to me and it's so important that we all remain calm and mindful yet with some urgency we're fortunate that unlike some parts of the country we have more time to prepare and make preparations and we need to take advantage of this time check on your neighbors maybe that was said with one of the earlier presentations but i don't think it can be emphasized enough that there's a lot of people who can't get to the grocery store or are afraid to go to the grocery store check on your friends and neighbors especially if you have elderly people in your neighborhood and make sure they're okay and finally thank your health care providers and your emergency responders and the folks at the grocery store and stocking the shelves be patient with them be grateful for the good work they're doing and how important they are to our overall success so again thank you mr mayor for this opportunity and our emergency management steve steinhert but then take the podium if that's okay with you thank you very much adam thank you good evening mr mayor and uh city council members i want to start out by first giving everybody or at least chuck butler a huge thank you chuck has come into our eoc integrated with the facility just at a running pace i have known chuck again pretty much for 20 years now as long as i've been emergency management director and like this virus that we have we're dealing with right now most emergencies don't know boundaries so when something comes up whether it be in the city of shaboy again or whether it be somewhere in casc like cascade i know i can call chuck and he'll be there because again emergencies no no boundaries and having another person with me is just it's a godsend so that's how i want to start again because chuck is integrated into our eoc along with star when we we're coming here today we kind of divide to conquer kind of a thing so we weren't going to talk about the same things so i'm kind of going to go off on a little bit of a tangent on some of the things we could do there's a power point if you could adam had brought up how things are changing continuously right now the information is at a flow like it's trying to drink water from a fire hose and that is true with except for two things and a lot of people have brought this up wash your hands social distancing that has been said from the outset of this epidemic or pandemic and it's been said and it's still said because it's true if your hands don't hurt right now a little bit if they're not a little chapped a little sore you're probably not doing it enough mine hurt because i'm washing my hands all the time um there are things we still should do for our community because we don't want to lose out on our community this is a excuse me sir this is stars little trunk there we go go back one there we go but there are still things we need to do for our community even though we are social distancing even though we are staying at home to the extent practical and right we still have to go to the store probably once a week and pick something up and they say once a week is probably the max you should be doing but if you're there maybe just pick up a few extra things for the local food bank now is the time when people need that probably most due to all the unemployment we're going to see they need help and it's up to us to pick each other up um also blood donations just because we're having an a pandemic doesn't mean emergency surgeries stop people having heart attacks people in a car accident people need blood elective surgeries may have been stopped but emergencies still happen we need to help our friends and neighbors adam touched on this but call your friends and neighbors and relatives uh this past weekend i spent a good time in my office just calling and checking on people and literally people what should have been a 30 second conversation would go on 10 minutes 20 minutes 25 minutes and it had little to do with why they called they just needed to talk someone and not about COVID they just needed to talk so check on your friends and neighbors and loved ones um boost your immune system a lot of people are getting starting to run ragged make sure you get enough sleep take care of yourself get some exercise you can go outside to get some exercise don't do it in groups of 10 50 20 don't do group yoga but you can get outside and go for a walk eat a well balanced diet i sure hope that people aren't drinking as much as they say they are on social media because that seems like a lot take care of yourself uh next slide stay informed with good information avoid spreading rumors it's been said already but i can't tell you say it enough if the number of people that called in saying they know someone that is positive for coronavirus to the eoc was true a good chunk of shabuigan would have coronavirus um and a lot of these are coming from what i would consider very trusted sources people that typically if i heard them tell me something i would trust it we're getting a lot of bad information right now so unless it's something that you specifically know from directly from a source don't repeat it if you don't know it's absolutely true don't repeat it like i tell my mom just because it's on facebook or the internet doesn't make it true watch the news in moderation people need to be informed people are getting consumed by this though stay informed the best way to stay informed is our county public health website that is the news directly from the from the source from the people that are getting the test results back from the state they know before anyone else knows so if you really want to know what's going on focus on our local public health department i wanted to touch a little bit about code red code red is an emergency mass notification system the county had purchased uh in february due to timing it didn't kind of roll out the way i wanted it because i didn't want to create some panic in the community of doing a test call we've gave it some long thought and decided we still needed to do a test call to make sure the system works so we did our test call on thursday march 26 around one in the afternoon i'm hoping most of you people got it again this is a system that allows us to notify the public via a phone call a text message or an email if there's an emergency in their neighborhood we have some basic information on most people already in the system so part of this test call included information and again my apologies to the lady who recorded the message spoke a little too fast but if you have other means of getting a message such as a cell phone or an email that you would like that information on go to the sheboygan county website which is www.sheboygancounty.com at the bottom of the page is a link where you could sign up to modify your own information to make sure you're getting the messages um you can also go and there's a couple that you can also text to enroll and that number is on the next slide so there's multiple ways to get the messages uh i wanted to make sure that the citizens of sheboygan knew it was out there know it's a mass notification system and know it's primarily going to be used in emergencies we're not going to tell you that the fire department's having a broad fry it's going to be when something needs to when you need to take action for a specific event like a gas leak or a chemicals spill so i want to make sure the public knew about that thank you sir thank you very much steve and this next i'd like to bring up starlene grossman please come to the podium and let us know what's happening in your eoc thank you mr mayor um and thank you everyone for all your support as we've been going through this process it's been a long couple of weeks but we are um we feel very blessed to be part of this community and sheboygan county public health is uh doing hard work to make sure that everyone in our community is safe and healthy um as adam kind of laid out a timeline of what we've been experiencing here things are changing very quickly um as of today we do have 10 confirmed cases within sheboygan county and so what that means for public health is that we are doing um we've started our contact tracing so contact tracing means that we are following up with every confirmed case of COVID-19 and we um asked them a lot of questions about when they became sick um how long that they've had the symptoms and we go back two days prior to symptom onset and um ask about anybody that they've been in contact with during that time period and then follow up with all of those persons um to let them know that they should um isolate our quarantine at home for 14 days post exposure to make sure that in case they do become ill after being exposed to the illness that they don't spread it further in our community so we're doing a lot of contact tracing right now a lot of conversations with a lot of people um we're also issuing isolation and quarantine orders so isolation is where um if you have someone that's ill you ask them to stay home and and stay away from other people and quarantine would be if you were exposed to someone who was ill we ask you to stay home even though you're well to make sure that if you do become ill in the future that you don't spread the illness so we're doing that um we're also working closely with our health care providers to make sure that they have the most current recommendations related to testing and the testing guidelines from the state uh the state of Wisconsin uh uh state lab of hygiene um has issued updates to their testing guidance as of the 25th I believe was the most current ones that came out so we're trying to make sure that health care providers are aware of who they should be testing um and what that testing process looks like working with our health care providers also to better understand their lab capacity and what tests are being done and where they're going so that we can be aware of the results as they come in in real time and get started on those contact investigations as quickly as possible um we also do a lot of information sharing so we have a long-term care facility um small group that's going to be meeting weekly to just talk about what long-term cares are experiencing and what their needs are and um be very intentional about making sure that that high-risk vulnerable population has the the workers in those environments have the things that they need to successfully um stop the illness from spreading should it be introduced into a long-term care facility setting and then we are meeting with our health care provider systems daily um to just check in to see where they're at to see what kinds of um testing that they're doing um if they're seeing a lot of increases in ICU beds or use of ICU beds so we've been um keeping up to date with that and then we also have our daily communications calls that happen at one o'clock every day so um public health has been certainly been very busy but we uh appreciate all the support that we are getting from our community and um thank you for your time today thank you very much for joining us today now that we've concluded with the presentations we'll open it up for any questions all the person sorenson thank you mayor um and thank you everybody for presenting what everybody is doing i do just want to say thank you so much for making sure that our meeting is safe um making sure we're practicing social distance um as well as making sure that our space is clean um so for usual i do have a few questions um so i guess i'll just ask my questions for for those individuals um star you just spoke so i have some for you too thanks again for coming um wherever is comfortable for you um so you mentioned uh testing just in the community um i'm curious more about what what that process looks like um for for individuals in shibuyen county um i know that the shibuyen press um did an article about if folks feel that they've been symptomatic what their process should be what's the average timeline that we're seeing in our community um for individuals to get access to a test and then once they do get a test how long does that take until that test result comes back sure those are good questions so the um access to testing um there if you look at our daily updates every health system has a little bit different way that they're funneling people into access for testing testing does require a doctor's order so most systems have a triage process or all systems have a triage process where people can call and go through their symptoms go through their history and then the health care provider is making the the decision based off of dhs guidelines related to who they're able to test um right now the wisconsin state lab of hygiene is prioritizing testing for people who are um critically ill and i see you are hospitalized health care workers and long-term care are those who live in like congregate settings like cbrfs and things like that so those are the top tier that we're looking at testing um and those get those tests get priority so when i'm when you're talking about how long does it take to get test results back it varies a lot based off of where the where people fall on that priority testing list so people who are in those top tiers their test is going to be prioritized and um will be run more quickly than um folks that are maybe in top in tier three or four for the testing categories from the state um and so uh tier one tier two testing is usually coming back within 48 hours um and then the tier three four could take longer i've heard of it taking or i've seen it take up to a week or more okay and what are we generally seeing in our community a lot of the testing that's being done right now is in those tier one tier two okay um i did think i jotted down another question here so um i think this week we've seen a lot of what's going on like in new york and um in washington state um and there's um some numbers and information coming out um the last few days that the peak that wisconsin will have will be you know late april early may ish what what is the sense from from the folks that you're communicating with and this is open to chuck too as well i'm another folks on the eo um eos um team um in terms of how prepared is our community do do our hotels have enough icu beds are we short on ventilators in the state in our community what's our capacity um to handle that once we hit that peak and what what what is your what's your sort of expert opinion on what that peak and will look like for our community once we hit that is our community ready for that right now where are the gaps how can the city help fill those gaps so i that's a very i know very general question very large question um so i'll try my best to answer it as best i can um we are collaborating uh fairly uh very well with our healthcare providers and both health systems are working um diligently on preparing their search plans so those search plans include um what to do or what their plans are if they if we start seeing more cases showing up that need to be i um in the icu or need ventilators um right now after our administrative panel meeting this morning we learned that um both of our hospital systems um do not have any persons that are in their icu that are suspect of covid or for covid at this time as of this morning and that um they're none of the ventilators are currently in use within our community uh both health systems did kind of share that the systems themselves so aurora is a a large system that spread across the region and st nicolas also um is regional has some regional ties and so those systems um so if we said that we had 14 ventilators i think was the number from this morning i don't remember the exact number um 14 ventilators in our community uh aurora system could say well we're not using any inshuboigan right now but they need them in grafting and pull ventilators there and then if we would need them inshuboigan then they might come back so it's it's kind of um influx based off of what the needs are um within the aurora system or within the st nicolas system but i would say that both of our health systems are diligently preparing and um have plans in place for how to manage the surge if um if we see a large one here in our follow question to that okay are there difficulties when you so you say our healthcare providers they're preparing are there difficulties at getting equipment or getting those necessary items right now so um both health systems have um are have applied for s and s which is a strategic national stockpile um to get additional items like ppe um and so um after this morning's meeting they indicated that they're feeling pretty good about where they're at with masks and things like that so that's good to hear yes last question i have for you so i think there again everyone spoke on just rumors that they're hearing um about this in our community and you see it on social media just blowing up so i don't envy your job having to um kind of comb through that can you give us a general sense if you can just about where are these cases occurring throughout the county are they in the city of shuboigan are they in the city of plymouth and kohler is it is it concentrated in one area or is it sort of individual by case yeah it's it's pretty individual by case um our majority of our cases are related to travel either international or domestic and so um and then contacts two cases that traveled other so we have clusters of cases that are related to that travel experience so um and they um are spread throughout the county in in various jurisdictions okay thank you thank you ryan is there any other questions i do have more questions for individuals mayor mayor allerman jim borne i have a question okay go ahead jim thank you mayor i believe this question will also be from star for star i've been uh getting the daily report and i noticed the last three days there were three different uh cases reported and my constituents and some of my neighbors think it would be very helpful and maybe would cut down on some of the rumors that are going around if you could provide what city those cases are in you know our our four of them in random lake our four of them in plymouth our eight of them in shuboigan uh i think it would be helpful you know i understand hippo laws but you're not naming the individual i think it would be helpful if you could provide in tomorrow's report if there's another case where it is and maybe where the cases have been so far so decisions related to what we can release and what we can't we've been um uh in consultation with our corporation council our hippocompliance officer and also just looking through best practice public health to try and decide what kinds of information we can release and what kinds of information we should not and so that's kind of been guiding the the types of information that you're seeing in the report um also because we have a limited number of cases within our community we certainly don't want to run the risk of having um inadvertently um sharing information that would lead back to community members being inadvertently identified as having COVID-19 to protect their privacy and their confidentiality so those conversations are happening regularly about what we can share safely and what we can't share safely and um so we make decisions about that um on a case by case basis as we know more we certainly um when we the information that we share is the information that um is needed to protect the health of the public and we do share um you know if there's any kinds of concerns about um what um what's needed to be shared in order to protect the health of the public those are the types of messages that we're sharing thank you for that explanation if i if i if i if i if i could follow up mary i have one more question for star go ahead jim and if you're allowed to go up uh thank you if you're allowed to give out this information star uh other questions i've been getting from my constituents is that have the cases been serious enough where the the patients have actually been hospitalized or have they been the nature of the case where once they're identified they've just been able to recover at home so i believe that that is information that we do include in the daily update um the our cases right now are all in isolation at home thank you any back to ryan thank you mr mayor next up is uh the police chief um chief domigowski i know um and i appreciate you at the other law enforcement officials throughout the county sending out that press release just in terms of when folks are traveling and what's classified as essential and non-essential i've been getting a lot of those calls too and they're still coming in about how individuals have to manage through that but one of my questions that i got from a constituent today was concerned um around out-of-state travelers and how or if there's any protocol for for for our law enforcement um offices you know if they see someone coming up from illinois or coming in from minnesota and staying at you know their summer home up here is is there any concern about community spread um from a lot of these hot spots and do we monitor that at all or is the police i guess mine for my question is you know how do we enforce folks when we know that they might not be necessarily essential but they come here um you know to stay at their summer home on the lake or something to those terms there's seven questions in one question yeah essentially it i think the easiest way to answer it is we're looking for for citizens to voluntarily comply with the guidance that's out there we understand that the guidance isn't always clear and so we need to try to use common sense and and go through the guidelines and determine if it's essential or not the governor from the conversations that law enforcement has had with with the governor's office has tried to um develop ways for that to happen for businesses whether they're essential or not is through the WEDC um they're trying to develop my understanding is some kind of call-in line to try to make that work as a smoother process but it's quite clear that we do not have the resources to be able to monitor people in the way that you're suggesting and quite frankly somebody with out-of-state plates could be involved in essential business or essential travel to do those kinds of of things so really following the guidance and everybody um complying is really the the best method i think okay while i have the mic i'm going to steal it for a second and say to to the question that jim borne asked about sharing individual city information i think with the number of cases that we have in the community the message that we need to send to the community is it doesn't matter which one it's at we should all be treating these cases like they're happening in all of our communities because if they're not right now they're going to be very soon thank you very much i one more question for the chief um so with with the stay the stay for at home order by the governor this this creates a different social dynamic where individuals are staying in the homes um much longer in some cases if there's a domestic violence situation people are saying what their abuser kids are viewing violence in the home are we seeing a different shift in calls maybe maybe it's too premature for that but are there different natures of calls that we're getting um that that that are caused because people are staying home together in um potentially violent or tumultuous situations so i would say that uh similar kind of thing to what the fire chief said our calls in general are are down okay still seeing a lot of disturbances but we're not seeing as many actual what i would call assaults okay um so i so i think we're getting called um before things are are heating up too much um but we are seeing some spike in in some of our property crimes um and so that's why we've been putting out the information and trying to shift resources to address some of those things one of the things that was recently on our social media page what was about our essentially um i won't think of what the program is now of course but our checks on our vehicle check program something we've been doing for more than five years that's helped to drastically drive down our thefts from autos because just like we're doing with public health the response that we've done that to um law enforcement and policing in this community over the last 10 years isn't just focused on response it's focused on prevention so trying to get citizens to work with us to do those things that they can to prevent crime from happening before or or in something like a theft from auto there's really two things going on there a motivated offender and an available target and we're trying to take that available target away so that the motivated offender has to work harder to find something um to victimize somebody with so i don't know if i answered your question or not but sort of i appreciate it thanks chief um if i could just go ahead mr mayor if i could just kindly ask that if anybody has any questions of star or steve if they could start with them they're working incredibly long days nights weekends and if you don't have any questions for them i'd like to see them go home to their families so i would just ask if mr mayor if that'd be all right very good thank you are there any other questions i have more questions if that's okay one of them um not from them okay are there any more questions for star or steve from the county seeing none you're dismissed thank you for your time today is didger martine is still on the phone i am still here awesome can i ask you a few questions didger just kind of about um some of the conversations that you're having with local business leaders uh whether that's um small folks downtown that might be in the bid district or whether it's some of our larger employers throughout the community are there different common themes that you're seeing um with a lot of businesses that are struggling um whether it's it's maintaining their services or the the food or other products that they provide um what are businesses doing to support their families um that that they're laying off is there some sort of common theme or some sort of um path forward that these businesses are looking for that that you and your team have experienced so i would say that um of the industries or the smaller businesses hardest hit now this is initial impact um information so certainly not the the whole picture just the current picture and as i think adam mentioned earlier it is changing so rapidly so drastically we can barely keep up so um as i'm looking at the initial impact of some of our smaller businesses um we've seen about 29 percent of our respondents tell us that they've reduced their hours due to demand which means that they have laid off um or limited hours of their workforce and we've seen roughly 25 25 and a half percent of these of businesses closed completely during this time which means that there is a complete layoff of staff now prior to uh the the bill that was passed earlier this week or last i don't know what day it is anymore last week um i think there was a lot of concern about holy moses what do i do to support my team um at this time i think that there since the bill has passed there that has created uh a little bit of level of um you know kind of calm if you will and now it's a matter of getting them the right information on how to deploy um how do they get that info to their staff how do they um use that info for themselves i mean when we look at small business owners you know sometimes their staff can be taken care of but um they themselves as a business owner are kind of left you know without so you know we're really looking at um you know kind of two fold what are the resources that they need to support their staff because what we also don't need is once the dust settles in a few months and everything kind of you know hopefully goes back to normal as um as it was or as it can be that we also don't have businesses that can't open their doors because of lack of resources and or because of lack of workforce which is something that we've experienced in this community for quite some time now so we you know that's really kind of some of the concerns that they're sharing with us is what are the resources how do i access them and they're not looking for this um you know kind of big pie in the side idea of what it means they want direction they want step by step go to this website do this thing talk to this you know xyz person um they need directive and you know so that is where my staff and myself and our partners have really been trying to kind of hunker down and figure out what what does that directive look like um who should be giving it so if it's if we're just a conduit of information who is the right person um that we have access to that can share that information with them so that they're hearing it from you know subject matter experts and you know not not just the chamber of commerce um but you know the the concerns are certainly health and well-being right nobody wants their friends or their employees or their family members or what have you to get sick but then how am i going to you know pay for this and am i going to have enough money to reopen my doors when the desk settles so those would be your three like largest concerns that we are hearing from our folks right now okay thanks didger i appreciate that thank you no problem any other questions for me because i am going to remove myself from the call as well thanks for being there didger we appreciate it thank you mr mayor have a wonderful evening we'll do i did have one last question for the city administrator if that's okay go ahead unless more questions come up i'm just leaving your light on thanks mr mayor i appreciate that daryl i i i hope i think it was you or mike um in your statement that that we've been communicating with our state representatives and individuals from um at the state level have they provided feedback at all are given any insight um about how they plan to support the city in our larger community just with with a lot of the information that we've shared i think oh there's been a lot of departments and individuals throughout the community that have expressed um struggles that they're they're facing definitely you know props to our city clerk and her team um for making sure that we can carry out the election but just in terms of you know election security safety um i'm worried that you know what we see going on with people flushing down disinfectant wipes down pipes you know is that gonna um cause more infrastructure damage you know are they planning on resources um that the city might be able to have access to um in terms of um how they can help us out that was a big question and just just a general sense of you know how they're digesting the information what they're saying right i'm going to feedback they're going back to us uh state elected uh representatives both senate and assembly have been in contact with city staff as well as uh city leadership they've asked us to verify if if we do need any additional information from them or the governor's office um we have a great resource as many of you do have through the league wisconsin municipalities as far as being a clearinghouse for us of programs and key information as it affects our operations we are we do have a tally of costs that we're keeping track of if we should be so fortunate to be able to seek reimbursement for some of our costs i think our hard costs not unfortunately any of our soft costs being personnel related i don't think those will be reimbursed either at the state or federal level uh chat fellowship on the city's behalf did receive information as a result of the federal legislation that additional block grant monies may be coming our way based upon the current formula but going back to your original question again there is a dialogue or discussions with state uh representatives for the city of shabuagan in the county uh that they're concerned and they are ready to uh try to be responsive to any way in which they can help but as as it was mentioned earlier uh early last week uh the mayor and uh county administrator pain uh did have a one-on-one call with the governor evers which i think was helpful for a two-way conversation thank you darrell and i should add to that that today senator tammy baldwin called uh to make sure that we understood you know the federal um legislation they did to help our cities and so she explained that more detail and also was interested in our local situation and how we were doing good and i believe terry kotsma did call as well and uh just wanted to check in as and see how we were doing cool any other questions okay then we'll move on to resolutions no other questions item 3.1 is resolution number 196 of 1920 by all the persons wilf and donahue establishing an early retirement incentive program and that will be referred to the finance and personnel committee and with that we're ready to accept the motion to adjourn all the person wilf motion to adjourn second thank you for that motion and support all those in favor of adjournment please signify by saying aye we stand adjourned thank you very