City emergency team moving to pandemic recovery mode
Officials say peak has not yet passed, but readiness for next phase is crucial
City manager Steve Kanellakos told council Wednesday that the city’s emergency management centre has moved from a response posture to a recovery posture in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That is a significant shift for us,” Kanellakos said during the council meeting.
It doesn’t mean the city has reached a peak in the virus cases, but Kanellakos said city management doesn’t want to be caught flat-footed when life slowly begins to return to normal.
Kanellakos said new internal teams have been struck to prepare the municipal public service, manage the city’s finances, deliver city services and help economic recovery as bureaucrats plan for the eventual loosening of restrictions.
Just like their fellow residents, councillors were interested in knowing when some of the social and business restrictions can be reduced.
Vera Etches, the medical officer of health at Ottawa Public Health, said she first wants to understand what the provincial government is planning, but she listed some key items that will inform her position on relaxing rules.
And on that point, there’s a bit of optimism.
Etches said local COVID-19 hospitalizations have been stable and it looks like there’s a decline. Coupled with intensive care unit statistics, the hospitalization numbers provide a good indication of the impact of the virus in the community, Etches said.
It will take two weeks of monitoring those statistics to confirm trends.
However, there’s continued concern about outbreaks in institutions, such as long-term care homes. Of the 32 COVID -19-related deaths in Ottawa reported as of Wednesday afternoon, 21 were at long-term care and retirement homes.
Etches said she’s monitoring the local health-care sector’s ability to treat people and address “hot spots,” such as long-term care homes and retirement residences.
If some pre-COVID -19 activities resume, there should be prevention measures in place, and the city will need to think about how to keep the virus from being imported to Ottawa, Etches said.
Equally important is engaging residents and considering their feedback, Etches said.
While she said she has heard some good ideas from the public about easing the isolation burden — such as seniors having “pandemic buddies” or households letting their children play together — it’s too early to pursue them.
“I’m telling you, it’s still not time to implement,” Etches said.
For now, “the physical distancing is still critical to maintain,” Etches said, noting that the majority of the population hasn’t been exposed to the virus and wouldn’t be immune.
The province is leading an effort to understand antibodies to the virus, she said.
At city hall, finance staff are staring down a $35.8-million deficit in programs funded by property taxes if the COVID-19 closures last until the end of September. The forecasted deficit in the water rate budget over the same period is $3.5 million. Those figures take into account the lost revenue and reduced expenses.
That’s on top of the $3.8-million deficit projected at the health unit through September. The Ottawa Police Service is also forecasting a multimillion-dollar deficit.
The city has financial models for COVID -19-related restrictions ending in June, September and December, but staff are concentrating on the September scenario.
City treasurer Wendy Stephanson said the main focus in filling the financial hole is asking for grants from upper levels of government.
The biggest budget killer is the loss of OC Transpo fares. The city ballparks the fare-revenue loss at $98.4 million through September.
The $15.5 million in savings at Transpo from things like fuel, Presto fees, Para Transpo contracting and overtime comes nowhere close to offsetting the depleted revenue.
Stephanson said the city still needs to understand the financial ripple effect projected for 2021.
Mayor Jim Watson said he’s on a weekly call with other big-city mayors to the federal government about financial needs of municipalities, but there’s no solution yet.
There’s still a potential for city projects to be delayed in 2020 to free up cash, forcing council to prioritize work under the new financial constraints.
Council meetings continue to be held by teleconference under the state of emergency.