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Previously:

• Del Norte COVID-19 Update: Ninth Person Dies; 55 New Cases Reported Over Weekend

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Though reluctant to follow state guidance on mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for city staff, Councilors on Monday asked the city manager to “bring back all options” when it comes to testing staff weekly for the disease.

In light of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases locally, the Crescent City Council were also supportive of a recent requirement for staff to go back to wearing masks when interacting with each other or the public.

But because of a procedural error, Councilors were forced to defer any decision regarding operational changes at city offices or the Fred Endert Municipal pool that could affect the public. City Attorney Martha Rice noted that the only item on the agenda related to COVID-19 had to do with employee vaccinations.

“With the pool, we’re talking a lot more about the patrons than we are the employees,” she said. “And I understand it’s completely tied to the employees’ safety and COVID-19, but if you were to read the agenda you wouldn’t necessarily know that would be part of the discussion this evening.”

Councilors agreed to meet again in a week to re-evaluate the situation. In the meantime, they said, they trusted City Manager Eric Wier to make “good decisions” regarding pool and City Hall operations if necessary.

Wier asked Councilors about potential mandatory COVID-19 inoculations for city staff about a week after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state would require its employees and healthcare workers to either show proof they were fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

Wier also noted that over the past week cases in Del Norte have skyrocketed, going from 55 active cases on July 26 to 141 reported on Monday. He also pointed out that the number of hospitalizations have increased as well.

There are currently eight people hospitalized from COVID-19, according to the county’s Information Hub, while a ninth person died from the novel coronavirus over the weekend.

“From what I heard, we had somewhere around, say, over 50 visits to the ER that were attributed to COVID-19… that sheer volume isn’t something that the hospital’s accustomed to,” Wier said, quoting from statistics taken Sunday. “And then from a hospital capacity standpoint, they are about 3-5ths full from those six that were admitted. In regard to the ICU, four out of six ICU beds are currently taken (including) two by COVID patients. So we’re starting to see an impact on our hospital.”

Because of the two-week quarantine period for those who’ve been in close contact with people who are infected with COVID-19, Wier said he reinstated the city policy requiring staff to wear masks.

Wier also pointed out that though state guidelines recommended local governments follow suit with vaccine requirements and the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena and San Diego have done so, some will mandate inoculations for COVID-19 as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approves them.

Currently the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines are being distributed under emergency use authorization from the FDA.

Though they didn’t want to mandate employees be vaccinated, in addition to requiring them to wear masks, Councilors also wanted staff to encourage the public to wear masks when visiting City Hall.

Crescent City Mayor Pro Tem Blake Inscore said he wanted to “err on the side of caution for the public,” but he wanted City Hall to remain open.

“I just don’t want to close City Hall,” he said. “To me, asking people to put on a mask is better to going back to doing business online. I don’t want to do that if we don’t have to.”

Wier said City Hall will also have disposable masks available for people who come in to do business.

Crescent City Mayor Jason Greenough also asked Wier to have N95 masks available to staff if they want them.

Though the item wasn’t on the agenda, Councilors asked Wier about social distancing at city offices including the Crescent City Police Department and the Housing Authority. At the height of the pandemic, only one person at a time was allowed inside the lobby, Wier said. This, he said, was easy to monitor.

Before Rice stopped the unagendized discussion, Councilors heard from Holly Wendt, the city’s recreation director, about potential changes to consider at the swimming pool.

Those changes include requiring guests to wear masks in the pool’s entryway and in locker rooms; to keep lifeguards teaching swim lessons from the deck and to consider closing the slide during recreational swims, according to Wendt.

“A lot of the time lifeguards have to be at the bottom of the pool to catch our smaller swimmers so they can safely leave the slide area,” Wendt said. “It will also minimize exposure to youth as they’re lining up to use the slide. It’s hard to maintain social distancing and in that area we do not ask guests to wear masks.”

Other recommendations Wendt made were in consideration for public safety. This includes closing the shower areas in the locker rooms. According to Wendt, the showers are tight spaces with no ventilation and no way to monitor them.

Wendt also proposed to limit the spa to two guests at a time with 15 minute rotations and recommended that the sauna be closed. It’s not safe to ask people to wear masks in the sauna, there’s no way to social distance and the virus thrives in that environment, she said.

“When numbers were this high in the community, the pool wasn’t allowed to be open,” Wendt said. “Our reopening plan, should we go to the Orange Tier, which is a much lower case load in our community, would limit us to have 27 people in the pool.”

Despite the higher number of active cases in Del Norte currently, Wier said the pool hours would remain the same and there wouldn’t be a cap on the number of patrons allowed currently.

“This would be an item to come back before the Council at our next meeting when we know more,” he said. “There’s only been five real days of data when the surge first started. We don’t know how this is going to go in the future.”

At that point, Rice said because pool operations weren’t on the meeting agenda for Monday, it wouldn’t be appropriate for the Council to take formal action.

Though Inscore initially called for a recess to allow the City Clerk to put together an agenda for a special meeting to be held Tuesday evening, he and his colleagues agreed to meet again in a week to evaluate the situation.

Rice noted that as city manager, Wier had the authority to make decisions regarding city office and pool operations.

Wier noted that he made some of those decisions Monday morning by reinstating mandatory mask policies for city staff.

“We will be moving forward with some of these recommendations,” he said, referring to the recommendations at the pool and at City Hall. “I’d still leave it up to the Council. If the Council wants to request a special meeting, we certainly can to discuss more.”

When it came to vaccines, Councilors didn’t want to require staff be inoculated against COVID-19. However, Councilor Raymond Altman said they should urge staff to get the vaccine.

“Nothing happened to me,” he said, adding that he also received several more shots for shingles, the flu, tetanus and whooping cough. “I don’t think people need to be scared or alarmed. the vaccine helps keep it from being mutated like we’re going through right now.”

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