City rescinds emergency declaration

Longmont City Manager Harold Dominguez has rescinded the local disaster emergency declaration the city issued in March 2020 that gave city government certain powers for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cancellation, which actually took effect on July 14, and city officials announced it this week, was done “in response to improved COVID-19 public health conditions throughout the city and in Boulder County,” city staff said in a news release this week.

The city’s responses to the pandemic are continuing, though, even if the emergency declaration is no longer in place, officials said, along with spending federal funds to assist in the community’s recovery efforts..

The original declaration, which Dominguez made on March 16, 2020, and the Longmont City Council affirmed on March 17, 2020, stated that “because the risk to life, health and safety is imminent, the city manager is assuming all powers set forth under local, state and federal laws” during such officially declared emergencies.

Assistant City Manager Sandi Seader said in an email this week that “one example of what we did during the emergency declaration was allow for remote meetings for council and various boards and commissions.”

Longmont City Council resumed its in-person meetings in the Civic Center’s council chambers on June 29. Advisory boards, commissions and committees have also begun, or are

in the process of, making their transitions back from virtural meetings to sessions the members and Longmont residents can attend in person.

Seader said that despite Dominguez’s cancellation of the emergency declaration, Longmont city government “will continue to follow public health orders and monitor the caseloads and vaccination status of our county.”

City officials said that when the emergency declaration ordinance was in place, it allowed Longmont to take advantage of any federal programs that became available during the pandemic especially for small businesses.

Peter Gibbons, the city’s recovery manager and emergency management coordinator, said in an email: ‘T’he emergency declaration was helpful to gaining access to disaster recovery funding, and to making emergency procurement of necessary materials possible.”

Gibbons said Longmont received $4.3 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding for its initial COVID-19 response and the first short-term recovery period.

He said one example of how the city used some of that CARES Act money was $1.3 million spent on a Boost Longmont Business Grant program. which city officials last year said was an effort to encourage the recovery, resilience, and long-term viability of local small businesses and nonprofits

The city’s 2020 Annual Report, which can be viewed onliine through a link at tinyurl.com/ u9yxdums , says that among the other amounts Longmont spent from the $4.3 million in CARES Act funds were:

•More than $700,000 the city provided to Longmont area child care providers.

•More than $1 million used to make city buildings, services and staff were in compliance with COVID health orders.

•More than $350,000 in utility billing assistance in the form of grants to the OUR Center and Longmont households.

•More than $195,000 to create additional outdoor dining and retail spaces downtown.

•More than $190,000 to expand city government teleworking capacities, allowing essential city services to continue remotely.

•More than $110,000 to expand the Longmont Public Library’s available digital technology.

•More than $106,000 in grants to Longmont area health and human services nonprofit organizations.

•More than $78,000 to help the Longmont Housing Authority comply with public health orders.

Longmont expects to be getting about $12 million in additional federal funding over the next two to three years, according to city staff, money from the American Rescue Plan Act that Congress adopted and President Jo Biden signed into law in March of this year.

The city has yet to publicly announce decisions and proposals for how it might spend that latest federal round of COVID-19 relief and recovery money.

Gibbons said, “We are currently working through the complex legislation and guidance that frames how we can use the fund in the best way possible for the community. We plan to have some clarity on what our priority recovery activities need to be in Longmont in the coming weeks and months.”