The city of Arnold will close most all its buildings and offices to the public starting Monday (March 23) in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, City Administrator Bryan Richison said.
He said the Police Department lobby, though, will remain open. The Police Department is at 2101 Jeffco Blvd.
Richison said the city will continue to restrict public access to buildings and offices for the foreseeable future.
“We are planning on this lasting for months,” Richison said. “We will continue to provide all the services we can. There may be some areas where we cut back temporarily or where things are slower; particularly it will take us longer to process building permit applications.”
Richison said the city will divide its 130 full-time work force into two groups. One group will be scheduled to work one week, and the other group will work the following week on a rotating basis.
However, Richison said he will continue to report to work everyday during the rotating schedule, as will department heads and Police Chief Bob Shockey.
“In general, we are trying to minimize the number of people coming into our buildings to minimize exposure,” Richison said. “Plus, if we do have an exposure and have to quarantine a good number of employees, we will hopefully have a good number of employees who have not been exposed.”
Richison said all full-time employees will receive their regular paychecks, even when they are not reporting for work during their scheduled off week.
“We feel it is the right thing to do,” Richison said. “Also, we expect them to work from home, if they can. We also expect them to be available on short notice if we need to call them in. We are asking employees to restrict their travel so they are not encountering the virus and bringing it back.”
Richison said part-time employees will only be paid for hours they work for the city. He said part-time custodial staff members will continue to work regular hours, and there are a few other part-time positions that will continue to work normal hours.
“For others, if we don’t need them to work, we will not pay them,” Richison said. “That will occur mainly at the rec center (which closed March 18). The last several days, part-time staff came in to do extra cleaning (at the rec center), but that will taper off.”
Richison said the city is expecting to see a drop in revenue from sales tax because of the pandemic.
Some businesses have ceased operations, such as Kohl’s, 2150 Michigan Ave., which announced the temporary closure of its stores at least through April 1. Other businesses have remained open but have cut back on hours of operation on services provided.
For example, Jefferson County announced that all restaurants and bars had to stop allowing dine-in services as of March 20.
“I expect that there will be an impact,” Richison said. “I don’t see how there cannot be, but how big that impact is, I really don’t know. I’m expecting this to go on for months. I’m not an expert, but from what I read, this is not a couple of weeks and we are past it type of deal.
“It is going to hurt. I just don’t know how bad.”
