City to limit public council meetings

State of emergency in Ohio prompts paring public meetings to twice a month

In the wake of five residents testing positive for novel coronavirus, Avon Lake City Council will limit public meetings.

On March 23, Council passed legislation to limit its meetings to twice a month in line with the state of Ohio’s decision to declare a state of emergency.

Council President Martin O’Donnell said the move was necessary to limit in person interactions while keeping the city running as smoothly as possible.

In the last week, positive cases of COVID-19 across the world have increased dramatically prompting the city to take action.

“The state had 30 cases, Avon Lake had no cases; there were no deaths in the state caused by the virus and I think it was in 12 counties in Ohio,” O’Donnell said. “As of today (March 23), we went from 30 cases to 442 cases.

“We have five in Avon Lake now and deaths in the state have gone to six and what was 12 counties is now 40. So, you can see the dangerous situation we’re dealing with.”

The next meeting April 13 is a double session with a collective committee meeting and regular session.

O’Donnell also wants to start meetings earlier at 6:30 p.m. due to larger agendas and will cancel all committee meetings.

“We’re trying to be as careful as possible,” he said. “We’re not going to have any committee meetings until this period is over with. We’re going to bring everything to the CCM (collective committee meeting).”

Law Director Gary Ebert added once operations return to normal, he would like to see the legislation amended to include other types of emergencies such as natural disasters.

Avon Lake Mayor Greg Zilka provided updates on the five individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Zilka said the four men and one woman are all recovering at home.

Four are in their mid-50s and one individual is in their

80s.

On March 24 Zilka announced two additional positive cases in the city. Ages and genders are not immediately

available.

The mayor is in regular contact with Lorain County Public Health Commissioner David Covell and expects more positive cases to come in the near future, he said.

One of the individuals who tested positive was an Avon Lake police officer.

Zilka said the individual came to work March 18 not feeling well.

The officer did not come into contact with the public and interactions with other police personnel were limited and did not require anyone else to self-isolate, he said.

Avon Lake police Chief Duane Streator has had his retirement pushed back to April 27 to help the city deal with the crisis, Zilka sad.

Streator is set to become the safety director for the city of Avon.

“I’m very pleased that our police and fire departments are being vigilant and they right now have the equipment that they need at this point,” Zilka said. “We’re all working together to get through this crisis and we’ll take anything on that comes to us, and we’re going to be stronger because of it.”