Updated at 6:40 p.m. Tuesday with reaction from School District.
BY LUCIE KRISMAN
Eudora City Hall has closed to the public in light of the first positive case of COVID-19 in Douglas County.
This means no changes to employees reporting to work and services provided online, Assistant City Manager Leslie Herring said.
“All of our employees are still reporting to work,” Herring said. “They are working remotely if they can.”
Due to this change, Herring said public meetings, such as the City Commission, will likely change as the city looks to other communities for examples of options for this while still adhering to the Kansas Open Meetings Act.
“I anticipate that the way we do public meetings will change,” Herring said. “We are recommending to the commission that we do a video meeting or something kind of remote.”
As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, the majority of city departments, such as police, fire and public works, have not had any major changes to operation other than this, Herring said.
“City operations are not affected,” Herring said. “When it comes to service delivery, we’re business as usual.”
Fire Chief Ken Keiter said while the fire department has yet to see major changes, the department has begun implementing asking questions at a 6-foot distance when responding to medical calls for the time being.
With 16 positive cases now identified in Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly announced Tuesday afternoon K-12 schools will be canceled through the remainder of the 2019-20 school year.
Eudora Public Schools released a statement early Tuesday evening.
"While this will place a tremendous hardship on our families and staff, and impact the social and emotional well-being of our students, we will persevere and overcome this together," Superintendent Steve Splichal and Board President Eric Votaw said in the statement.
"We have been working on contingency plans, including how we can meet the ongoing learning needs of our students and provide breakfast and lunch for our students. We are finalizing those details and will have more to share by the end of the week."
See the full statement here.
Last Friday, the Eudora Rec Center closed. Parks and Recreation Director Sally Pennington said the department is working with the Meals on Wheels program for seniors to continue deliveries to homes.
“One of our biggest worries of this whole thing was our mix of generations in this building,” Pennington said. “We want them to be as safe as possible. We are taking this time to deep clean and sanitize so when we open back up, we are the cleanest we’ve been in a long time.”
Although parks are still open to the public, Pennington said it is recommended that residents stay home from them for the time being.
She said the department is closely following information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parks and Recreation staff are working full time and can be contacted through the Parks and Recreation Facebook page.
“We’re recommending to everybody to stay out of public places as long as you can,” Pennington said. “We will definitely inform all our members and community of any updates as soon as we know them, so everybody can get back into their routines as soon as possible.”
Following the lead of the CDC and the Lawrence-Douglas County health department, Herring said city staff are working to continue to relay information to the community through Facebook, door signs and weekly e-mail.
Herring recommends residents stay aware of what the most recent guidance is through sources like the Lawrence Douglas County health department’s web pages at https://ldchealth.org/and practice personal precautions like washing hands and social distancing.
“What we want people to know and understand is that it’s business as usual for us,” Herring said.
Updates for Douglas County regarding COVID-19 can also be viewed at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department Facebook page.
Reach reporter Lucie Krisman at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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