PORT ANGELES – Port Angeles City Manager Nathan West signed a Declaration of Emergency Tuesday under the direction of the City Council in response to the current outbreak.
We asked West why the declaration is important at this time.
“One of the advantages that provides is the ability for us to suspend bidding requirements that enables us to do direct contracting with local businesses to ensure that we’re getting the services we need met for our local community.”
Other benefits of the declaration include the ability to modify business hours of city facilities, to implement emergency actions to protect life and property, and to implement creative solutions to provide relief to citizens impacted economically, to name a few.
West has been meeting daily with city staff, the City Council, and various community groups and partners to avoid any gaps in services.
“I think too, it’s really good to point out that the city is so prepared due to a continuity of operations plan to ensure that we are going to be providing, in the long term, all of the essential services that our citizens expect. That includes keeping all of our utilities on, our electric, our water, our wastewater. The utilities are going to be continuing to run. In addition to that, our First Responders are very well prepared on the ground, doing all they can to make the situation better for our community members.”
While the City has already implemented a “no shut-off” policy plan that instead offers a payment plan, West says that the City Council has directed him to identify additional measures to find utility bill relief for residents.
He says the Economic Development Department is working hard to find ways to help business owners deal with the latest restrictions, and offered up one interesting example.
“I can tell you yesterday a suggestion came up. Can, you know, someone that owns a restaurant, start up a food truck? And while we normally have significant regulations with that, that’s something that we were able to do without the need to do a typical permitting process. We are in an emergency situation, per that declaration Tuesday night, and we’re going to have an immense amount of flexibility to simply make things work so that these restaurants and other businesses can continue to function in this difficult time.”
The City has set up a dedicated page on their website with multiple links to keep up with many of these issues. (Click here)