OLDS — The town office along with other municipally run facilities will be be closed from Dec. 24 to Jan. 1, chief administrative officer Michael Merritt says.
The Operations Centre, Nu2U thrift store, fire hall and the town administration office will all be closed during that period.
He announced the closures during council's Dec. 14 meeting and initially broached a longer closure during council’s Nov. 30 meeting.
"I’m monitoring the situation in regards to our town hall, but I likely will be looking at closing the town hall to the public from the 24th through to January 4,” Merritt said initially during the Nov. 30 meeting.
“Not many people visit us during those days; a lot of other things are closed, and we just think that for precaution reasons we may want to remain closed ourselves during that period of time, but we’re monitoring the situation as we speak.”
Coun. Mary Anne Overwater asked if that means it will not only be closed to the public but that town staff won’t be working there either.
"The intent is that people can still pay their bills; they can drop it off at our drop box. They can phone in and get information with regards to what’s going on with the town," he said.
“We don’t want to close it down completely because of COVID. There may be information we need to pass on and things of that nature.
“But the number of visitations we’ll be getting during that period of time is going to be very limited -- and we will be on limited staff, as a number of staff will be taking Christmas vacation time during that period.”
Merritt said at the time, about half the town office staff was working from home.
He said that when the COVID-19 lockdown came into effect last spring, a lot of town staff began working from home. Some came back after the lockdown ended, but now that figure has climbed again.
Merritt noted the town is following Alberta Health Services advice to have as many people work from home as possible as the province battles the COVID-19 outbreak.
Mayor Michael Muzychka indicated that the Christmas period closure would likely be a good idea during COVID.
"I think we took a big leap forward going back to Zoom meetings here as well, so we’ll just keep council and staff and everybody safe,” he said.
