When Can Great Falls Get Back To Work?
Editors Note: Just minutes after posting this piece we learned that Governor Bullock has extended restrictions and closures statewide until April 10.
Yesterday, Monday 3/23, in a special meeting of the Great Falls City Commission we voted on the following two matters:
Resolution 10341, Affirming a Local Emergency and Acknowledging and Defining the City Manager’s Power to Declare an Emergency and The City Manager’s Exercise of that Authority. Action: Adopt or deny Res. 10341.
Ordinance 3217, Granting temporary authority to Approve Contracts and Expenditures in Furtherance of the Municipal Emergency Proclamation and Order and Suspending State and Local Procurement Requirements.
I voted for each and they both passed unanimously. You can find the details of both Resolution 10341 and Ordinance 3217 here.
In addition, I asked during the commission initiatives portion of the meeting that either the Mayor and/or City Manager reach out to both Governor Bullock and the city county health officer to get clarification on the criteria or conditions that would need to exist in order to either extend or, hopefully, end the state and county orders closing and restricting Great Falls businesses.
I intend to follow up until we get those answers. Because Great Falls needs to get back to work as soon as possible and local business owners and their employees need to have some certainty and some concrete benchmarks as to what to expect in that regard.
I also asked the City Manager to put together a draft resolution suspending city sanitation and water fees for the duration of the orders to close or restrict business for those businesses and their employees who are directly impacted.
We all need to do everything we can to help get through this situation. Together.
We are just leaving the driveway and already the voices from the back seat. How much longer? Are we there yet? No matter what happens it’s going to be a long trip.