Pottstown declares local state of emergency
POTTSTOWN » Mayor Stephanie Henrick declared a borough-wide emergency Tuesday afternoon related to the widening impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
The declaration legally allows the borough to “waive procedures and formalities” regarding performance of public work, entering into contracts, incurring obligations, employment of permanent and temporary workers, utilization of volunteer workers, rental of equipment, appropriation and expenditure of public funds.”
The declaration also activates the borough’s emergency operations plan.
Borough Manager Justin Keller said the declaration “won’t really affect the lives of our citizens or what they are supposed to be doing right now.”
Rather, he said, it was done primarily because it allows the borough to begin tracking costs for possible reimbursement down the road.
“If say, some of the staff had to be quarantined and the remaining staff had to put in a lot of over-time as a result, we could get money to cover those costs if the federal state or county government makes anything available,” Keller explained.
“We don’t know what’s going to be included in the relief bill they’re talking about in Congress right now, but we want to position the borough to be able to get reimbursed,” he said.
The staff is also looking at whether the state legislature will alter or suspend the open meetings law so borough council and other boards can meet virtually.
“I can watch the school board meeting being livestreamed, but currently state law does not allow municipalities to meet that way,” Keller explained.
“We can go a month without a meeting, but we start to run into problems beyond that with things that need council approval,” said
Keller.
Having that meeting publicly becomes difficult when complying with President Trump’s recommendation to steer clear of any group with more than 10 people.
Just the seven council members, mayor and borough staff adds up to more than 10 people without even having an audience.
“I think people are starting to suspect that this is going to last beyond two weeks so there’s really no reason why we can’t get some kind of work-around. We’ve got businesses we need to get done,” Keller said.