City of Ashland Action on COVID-19 and How You Can Help

I have written this post to share information about the City of Ashland’s Declaration of Emergency regarding COVID-19, actions the City has taken to respond to the crisis, and how you can help.

As COVID-19 arrived in the U.S. and it became clear that action would need to be taken at all levels of government to avoid the tragedies that had unfolded in China and Italy, the City of Ashland began emergency preparations following the emergency protocols already in place.

While no emergency can be fully predicted, local governments have a strong foundation of emergency preparedness procedures and structures that help them assess natural and human-caused challenges and determine the appropriate level of response. When that challenge reaches a particular threshold of seriousness and potential impact, a formal Declaration of Emergency is made to help the city or county manage the immediate response to the emergency.

Declaring a COVID-19 Emergency

That moment arrived in Ashland at 11 am on Sunday, March 15, when then City Administrator, Kelly Madding, declared a state of emergency. That statement was then ratified by the City Council the following Tuesday. In the meantime, City staff activated our Emergency Operations Center and department heads began meeting to assess the situation, assign tasks to gather further information, and develop emergency plans specific to COVID-19.

What a Declaration of Emergency Means

Declaring an emergency is a formal process that changes the authorities of staff, the Mayor, and Council for the duration of the emergency. In our case, Council is extending this Declaration of Emergency at each Council meeting for two more weeks until it is no longer needed. As the Incident Commander, our City Administrator has much more broad authority to allocate funding and make other decisions in real time that would typically require Council action. This altered structure acknowledges the speed with which a situation is changing and the need for staff to have the authority to act in the best interest of the community in real time.

This structure does not mean the Mayor and Council are entirely out of the picture, but it does mean that many things are handled differently while the Declaration of Emergency is in effect. It also means that Councilors need to be particularly careful about their communications with the public during emergencies so that only accurate information is conveyed and there is not confusion about what the City needs from its residents.

As part of this altered structure, each Council meeting that happens during the time that the Declaration of Emergency is in place will have a substantial amount of time dedicated to staff reporting on actions that have been taken and discussion of next steps so that staff and the Council stay in sync. This gives the Council the opportunity to discuss those actions and bring forward concerns from the community that may still need to be addressed. During this time, Council receives regular briefings from the Public Information Officer. In our case, these briefings have been posted on the City’s Coronavirus web page (www.ashland.or.us/coronavirus) to keep the community informed as well.

Protecting Lives and Securing Essential Services

As the provider of public safety and essential services for the community, the City of Ashland’s first order of business was to protect lives and ensure that essential services (electricity, drinking water, wastewater, fire, police, AFN, etc.) continued to function so that residents and businesses could navigate the new reality safely without adding problems with those systems to their list of stressors.

This first step meant addressing the potential health impacts through our role providing ambulance and police services, implementing orders that soon started coming from the Governor’s office regarding physical distancing, closing facilities, etc., and taking steps to protect the health of our staff while ensuring continuation of services. Like many local businesses and organizations, the City had to determine how to adjust workflows for staff so that they could maintain physical distance and create systems to allow staff who could do their jobs from home to do so.

City staff immediately began coordinating with Jackson County, which is the lead organization for public health for our area, as well as their counterparts in other communities. Ashland Fire & Rescue Chief Shepherd worked with other fire chiefs, Police Chief O’Meara coordinated with other police chiefs, and the emergency team put plans in place to prepare for a variety of scenarios. Those planning efforts included the first steps to help local service providers address the needs of Ashland’s unhoused residents.

Remember, when these first steps were being taken, we were seeing hospital tents in parking lots in Italy and tragedy unfolding daily as COVID-19 overwhelmed Italy’s medical system. It was an all hands on deck moment at the City of Ashland to make sure the City was ready to do its part, in close collaboration with the hospital and county and state governments, to prevent that scenario from playing out in our community.

Public Meetings

At the same time, the City had to transition Council meetings to electronic format (Zoom), adjust our process so that we could still have a way for the public to offer testimony to the Council, and train the Mayor and Council on the new format and software platform. Local government has specific requirements in terms of public meeting laws. Maintaining open and transparent decision-making is particularly important during emergencies, so it was critical that staff set up a new system that adhered to both the letter and spirit of our public meeting laws. This transition to electronic format has been very successful.

Assisting Our Most Vulnerable Residents

Once COVID-19 specific plans were in place and City staff felt confident that attention could be turned from those essential services to address other critical needs, work increasingly focused on elements of what we call “Value Services” at the City. Value Services are those services that are very important to our community, but are not the Essential Services that the city is legally bound to provide. The way the City of Ashland addresses Value Services is through collaboration and partnership with other communities and civic organizations that focus on the particular service.

In this case, focus needed to be placed on three of our Value Service areas: addressing the needs of our unhoused residents, addressing the needs of seniors and those with disabilities, and addressing the needs of our business community, which found the visitor economy grinding to a halt as physical distancing protocols came into play and OSF announced it would close until early September.

Assisting Unhoused Residents

In spite of the fact that addressing homelessness is a Value Service, work began immediately when the Emergency Operations Center was activated to address the needs of our unhoused residents. Some of our residents have suggested that the City of Ashland should take the lead on addressing the needs of our unhoused citizens, but the City does not actually run programs for unhoused people and is unqualified to do so. Our staff does not have the experience to offer direct services well, but other organizations in the community do have that experience. So, our City Administrator and Housing Program Specialist began partnering with several entities, primarily Options for Helping Residents of Ashland (OHRA) and Jackson County, to develop a responsible plan for assisting unhoused residents and put that plan into action.

The City’s appropriate role was to provide funding for daily food deliveries and bring to bear the tools the City has to help: namely, allowing expansion of car camping at three churches, and starting a pilot program to allow car camping in certain parking lots and on certain streets (complete with trash service, port a potties, and hand washing stations). The City also assisted OHRA with securing shelter and services for the residents of the overnight shelter when conversations with the Jackson County Health Department led OHRA to close the shelter early to protect the health of the shelter residents. During that time, Ashland Parks and Recreation installed hand washing stations at various points across the community. The City has done quite a lot more than what can be put forward here, including paying for hotel rooms for unhoused residents using federal funding, but there is a dedicated web page for the City’s response to the needs of our unhoused population here: http://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=17939

Assisting Seniors and Those with Disabilities

Seniors and people with disabilities are at particularly high risk for becoming seriously ill and needing hospitalization in order to survive if they contract COVID-19. Data regarding those who perish from the disease consistently show that advanced age and underlying health conditions create much greater risk for certain people than for others. In addition, the stay at home order can be especially difficult for people in this high-risk group if they are living alone. The Senior Center at Ashland Parks and Recreation immediately began working to identify services available to seniors and get the word out. They created the Senior Buddy program where they connect seniors who are at risk of feeling isolated so that they can keep each other “virtual company” while needing to self-isolate.

The Senior Center also collaborated with a group of local volunteers who created the Adopt a Neighbor Ashland program, a program to match high-risk residents with their lower-risk neighbors for help with shopping and running errands during this time. The volunteers created the program and website and continue to match the neighbors, but the Senior Center staff manages the rest of the program ensuring that participants have the information they need, checking in to make sure the matches are going well, referring people to other services, and offering additional support when necessary.

When the program began, Senior Center staff called through the Disaster Registry of people known to be most vulnerable in town in order to make sure they had what they needed and signing them up for the program if they needed help. Because Senior Center staff already provided similar referral services and volunteer management, it was a natural fit for Ashland Parks and Recreation to fulfill this service referral role. This program has also become a collection point for homemade cloth masks and has distributed those masks to its own volunteers as well as the Ashland Emergency Food Bank and Options for Helping Residents of Ashland.

Supporting the Business Community and Unemployed Residents

The impacts of the stay at home order on the business community and local employees were immediate and significant. Without funding necessary to provide direct support to local businesses, the City focused on what it could do to help individuals and businesses struggling to pay their bills. Opportunities came primarily through utility billing and payment of local Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and Food and Beverage Tax (FBT). The City quickly announced that there would be no late fees and no utility shutoffs through the end of April for individuals and businesses. In addition, businesses that collect TOT and FBT could delay paying the city for those collections until June 1. At our Council meeting on Tuesday of this week, Council extended both of those deadlines for 2 months (June 30 for utilities and August 1 for TOT and FBT payments).

The City has worked closely since the emergency began with the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, the entity that is taking the lead (and rightfully so) on economic recovery in the community. Economic development and recovery issues are the Chamber’s specialty, so the City’s appropriate role is to support the efforts the Chamber is putting in place by spreading the word about the resources the Chamber is offering and encouraging local residents to shop local when possible, order takeout, etc. Some have called for direct support from the City to the business community, but the resources are not available at the City for that type of support given that the City is also going to have to cut expenses in order to address the shortfall created by TOT and FBT revenue that is being lost.

At the same time, City staff worked to educate local business owners and residents about how to stay safe with physical distancing by producing posters for local businesses, directly reaching out to share information from Jackson County, and addressing complaints when local businesses were just getting up to speed on the precautions that needed to be taken with their customers. 

Staff Transitions

Two weeks after the Declaration of Emergency, we also transitioned two primary leadership positions at the City – the City Administrator and Director of Public Works – to existing staff (Adam Hanks and Scott Fleury respectively) who will serve as interim staff for the time being. At the same time, we named an Interim Finance Director (Bryn Morrison) as our City Administrator had been serving in both roles since that position was vacated late last spring. Normally, this might be a recipe for trouble, but the three staff people who are now serving in those positions bring decades of experience to their respective roles, and these transitions were part of the initial emergency planning. The transition has been very smooth.

Financial Implications for the City of Ashland

Early action protected essential services, put procedures in place to protect City staff and our democratic process, and took decisive steps to meet the needs of our most vulnerable residents, business owners, and the newly unemployed. Alongside this, reports from the state were making it clear that Oregonians, including and especially southern Oregonians, were behaving responsibly, staying home, and very effectively flattening the curve.

With the scenario of hospital tents in parking lots fading further into the rearview mirror, the City turned its attention to the implications of the COVID-19 emergency for City finances.

Constraints of Local Government Funding

Local government finances are much more complex than what most businesses and individuals have to deal with in times of emergency. For most businesses, and most individuals too, a dollar is a dollar. There are not generally restrictions that say businesses and individuals can spend this dollar on this expense, but not that one. Not so with local government. Different departments have different funding sources and much of it is restricted, which means that funding can only be used for that program, project, or department. It is not one big pot of money that the City can spend any way it deems necessary, so determining where the financial shortfall will hit, when it will hit, how big it will be, and what is available to close the gap is complex, especially when the disaster causing the shortfall is still unfolding in the community.

That being said, staff arrived at the study session on April 6, just a mere three weeks into the emergency, with an early assessment of where inside the budget the shortfall was likely to hit – the General Fund, Public Works, and possibly Utilities. The General Fund houses Ashland Fire & Rescue, the Police Department, the Community Development (planning) Department, Ashland Parks and Recreation, and some other smaller functions.

70% of the money collected through the Transient Occupancy Tax goes to our General Fund, which will be down with hotel rooms sitting empty. The rest is restricted by the Oregon Legislature to expenses that encourage tourism.

Revenue from the Food and Beverage Tax goes to fund the debt payments for our wastewater treatment facility, to Parks and Recreation (also services some debt there), and for street repair in the Public Works Department. Food and Beverage Tax revenue will also be down as so many restaurants are closed or only offering take out.

Finally, we do not know what impact the stay at home order will have in terms of net electrical and water use, although with fewer people in hotels and eating in restaurants and the region facing drought, we need to expect utility usage will go down. Some amount of decrease can be handled within the budgets for the Electrical and Water Funds without impacting rates.

At that study session, Council discussed the process of assessing the financial impact with staff. It was clear that staff was well underway with its assessment, was continuing to develop possible scenarios, and would have more detailed information at the upcoming Council meeting on April 21.

Early Financial Action

Knowing these realities, City staff immediately halted work on street projects that rely on Food and Beverage tax funding. Parks and Recreation also immediately halted work on projects that would be paid with Food and Beverage Tax money, including the Daniel Meyer Pool Remodel. They are working to determine other potential funding sources for that project, which is necessary for Ashland residents to continue to use our community pool.  

The City also:

·         Froze hiring of temporary/seasonal workers

·         Halted Cost of Living Allowances for all non-represented staff (roughly 1/3 of staff)

·         Stopped hiring processes for unfilled positions

·         Began tracking direct costs associated with COVID-19 as this is necessary to receive federal reimbursements later

·         Continued to advocate for federal funding opportunities, expansion of TOT uses, and debt restructuring

Action to Address the Shortfall

Some have put forward the notion that responsible governance requires across the board cuts, including freezing Cost of Living Allowances and step increases for all employees, laying off “non-essential” staff, and freezing all capital improvement projects. While there is some comfort in simple solutions like that, we should not confuse motion with progress.

What we are up against is just not that simple and actions taken by local government have economic implications beyond their borders that we, and other communities, will do well to remember. First, unless there are work tasks that simply cannot be done because of the emergency (as is the case with the six staff positions that were laid off by Ashland Parks and Recreation), we would be hard-pressed to identify any “non-essential” personnel. The City does not keep staff positions that are not contributing to the work of local government.

That being said, as we move along in this process, it is likely that there will need to be some adjustments to hours and potentially layoffs. However, those adjustments should be done with surgical precision, not a chainsaw, to avoid decreasing service levels when our citizens need help the most and exacerbating the economic impacts of the shutdown. Surgical precision requires an accurate diagnosis, which has been well underway since the emergency began and will continue to be refined as actions are taken over time and more information comes available.

While we will have to make decisions at the City before we know exactly the extent of the problem, it is important to have more clarity than we had at the beginning of this emergency before taking action that will have long-term consequences for our community.

Cost of Living Allowances and Step Increases

The freeze on Cost of Living Allowances and step increases is also not as simple as it seems because many City employees are employed under union contracts that stipulate Cost of Living Allowances and step increases. Declaring an emergency does not mean we get to toss those agreements out and start from scratch. There are constraints, and while I am hopeful that the unions will work with the City to make necessary adjustments to avoid full layoffs, the fact is that the City does not have the power to simply do what it wants with those contracts. The City has, however, sent inquiry letters to the three unions whose contracts are not up for renewal this spring requesting that talks be opened to discuss adjustments to existing contracts.

Capital Improvement Projects

Capital improvement projects need to be carefully considered at a time like this, but a complete freeze is a good way to turn a downturn into a recession and a recession into a full-blown depression. Freezing all construction projects creates more unemployed people, who then draw more heavily on unemployment resources. The longer-term consequence is less income tax revenue at the state level, which leads to less funding coming to local governments from the state, which leads to more layoffs, etc.

As hard as it may be to power forward on infrastructure projects that still have solid funding, it is critically important that the City of Ashland does so – and that other entities do too. This is because infrastructure projects sustain construction jobs and construction jobs underpin our economy. So, while we absolutely need to carefully consider infrastructure projects that are in the pipeline in light of our current situation, and we have been doing that, we need to proceed with infrastructure projects that are still necessary and financially viable. Other local entities understand that as well, which is why the Ashland School District, Southern Oregon University, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival are all moving forward with infrastructure projects.

Case in point – Council recently approved a contract for just under $150,000 to make repairs to our wastewater treatment facility that are necessary to remain in compliance with regulations. The City has money in the Water Fund to pay for this project and it is necessary to protect public health and avoid compliance issues. It was a good decision to approve that project.

Latest Information

At the April 21 Council meeting, staff brought forward the latest estimates of shortfalls for our TOT and FBT revenues. At this point, we are expecting to have to deal with a roughly $6 million revenue shortfall over the course of our 2-year budget (2019-21). Estimates put shortfalls in both funds at roughly $3 million each. Some of this shortfall will come in this fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, but much more of it is expected in the second year of the biennium, which starts July 1 of this year.

As mentioned, the action to halt parks and streets projects that would be paid with Food and Beverage Tax will help considerably. Adjustments will need to be made to the expenditures from the 30% or so of TOT that is restricted to tourism-related expenses. So, we will not have to cover the full $6 million gap with staff reductions. While stimulus funding may help local governments close the gap, it is prudent to develop a phased plan to address these shortfalls that can be adjusted over time as the situation becomes clearer. That process is underway at the City of Ashland.

Moving Forward

I write this just five weeks and four days after our City Administrator declared a COVID-19 emergency. Everything I have written here has happened in those five short weeks, and it has happened because the City of Ashland has a highly skilled, dedicated team of people who really know their jobs, understand the systems they maintain, are committed to serving our community, and are willing to invest the time needed to get the job done right.

What is also true is that this is everyone’s first encounter with a pandemic and we are making decisions often without full information because the situation requires it. Everyone is. The Council is not perfect, and neither are City staff, business owners, individuals, or the leaders of civic entities in our town. But we are all working hard and bringing our best selves to the task of getting our residents and community systems through the immediate crisis while laying the foundation for recovery. What we need right now is steady at the wheel and decisive action at the right time. Fortunately, we have that kind of leadership at the City of Ashland.

How You Can Help

Below is a list of ways that you can help our community move through this crisis in a way that makes us stronger and even more resilient going forward. But there is one primary way you can help that I want to call out before you get to the list.

The City of Ashland does not have a Communications Director. The last budget process resulted in that vacant position not being filled in order to help balance the General Fund budget. What this means is that communication is being handled well and valiantly by Chris Chambers who has been designated as the Public Information Officer during the emergency.

The City has a COVID-19 webpage that has news alerts, daily briefings, updates from different departments, announcements about restrictions, etc. And, we put information out to the papers and through Facebook. As it happens, though, Chris also has his regular work to do with Ashland Fire and Rescue, which means that there is no capacity for City staff to monitor social media to respond to misinformation that can take on a life of its own in our modern world.

What you can do to help out on the communication front:

1.       Give the City the benefit of the doubt knowing that competent people are on the job and are working as quickly as possible to respond to a variety of pressing needs.

2.       “Like” the City of Ashland Facebook page and share posts from the City so that your neighbors have accurate information.

3.       Visit the COVID-19 webpage (www.ashland.or.us/coronavirus) on the City of Ashland site whenever you have a question about actions the City is (or isn’t) taking. If you do not see the answer to your question, reach out to Council at council@ashland.or.us.

4.       Be our eyes and ears in the community. If you see something that needs to be corrected, or an opportunity for us to do a better job, bring it to our attention via email above (respectfully is always the most effective – we are human beings) rather than a social media blast. And please be patient with the response. While your message is important, everyone is very busy.

5.       Correct misinformation if you see it and gently encourage your friends and neighbors on social media to take a step back if a conversation is getting out of hand. People are anxious and stressed and that means they can post without thinking something all the way through. They may need your help to live up to our commonly held values of honesty and respect. You can tell much about a community by how people treat each other in times of stress and adversity.

What Else You Can Do To Help

If you can pay your utility or local business taxes (TOT and FBT), please do. The more businesses and individuals can stay on top of their payments to the City, the more flexibility the City has to work with those who are struggling.  

Give blood with the American Red Cross – blood donations are still needed, but harder to get.

Volunteer at:

Ashland Emergency Food Bank – 541-488-9544 or info@ashlandemergencyfoodbank.org.

Options for Helping Residents of Ashland – 541-631-2235 or https://helpingashland.org/support/volunteer/

Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice – 541-841-8341

Meals on Wheels – Contact Jon at 541-734-9505 X 4 or jpfefferle@rvcog.org

These organizations also need donations….

Sign up to help a neighbor with shopping and errands (or sign up to get some help yourself): www.adoptneighbor.org

Support local businesses. Purchases at local restaurants will have a particularly powerful impact on the City’s budget - http://www.ashlandchamber.com/page.asp?navid=1456  

Donate Personal Protective Equipment - http://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=17946

Make homemade face masks - https://www.ashlandzencenter.org/face-mask-sewing/

If you are a senior, you can be matched with a "buddy" for check-ins and socializing by phone or video chat. Call Ashland Senior Services at (541) 488-5342 or email seniorinfo@ashalnd.or.us.

Reach out to anyone you think might be having a hard time staying at home. People who struggle with depression and other forms of mental illness are finding it particularly difficult to manage during this time, so make a list of the people in your life who should be checked in with and call them regularly.

FireWise your yard in preparation for fire season. It may seem a long way off, but every person who does their work in their own yard improves the safety of the larger community. Other families may not be able to get to their yards this spring, so the work you do in your yard is especially important. Information is here: https://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=17769

Tune in to Council meetings to stay up to date with the discussions we are having about next steps. Meetings are the first and third Tuesdays of the month and agendas can be found here: https://www.ashland.or.us/Agendas.asp

Pray for rain.

Thank you for reading this post. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me at tonya@council.ashland.or.us.