Commission approves resolution encouraging masks, social distancing

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During the July 13 meeting, the Shelby County Commission unanimously approved a resolution encouraging citizens to follow the guidelines established by the Alabama Department of Public Health to help protect themselves and others by wearing face coverings when leaving their home and maintaining a six or more foot distance between themselves and people from other households.

Commissioner Kevin Morris said that the commission is strongly encouraging this to help with the spread of COVID-19. However, it is not a mandate, as the commission doesn’t have the ability to mandate. 

EMA manager, Hub Harvey, said that in the last few weeks, the Alabama Department of Public Health has created a new risk indicator dashboard that shows the risk of COVID-19 spread in individual counties. It is broken into four phases, and Shelby County is currently at high risk.

“We started out three weeks ago at very high risk, then last week we moved down to high risk, then last Friday, moved back up to very high risk,” Harvey said. “Our goal is to get down to green as soon as possible. The way to do that is by encouraging social distancing, wear a facial cover and if you meet the criteria, go get tested.”

The color is based on the number of declining cases for the week and is tiered from low to moderate to high to very high. To get to green (low), Shelby County has to have 14 days in a row where the number of new cases is moving down. Harvey said the county is clearly meeting its testing goal of 870 each week.

“Three weeks ago, we tested over 2,000 and in the last two weeks have tested over 3,000,” he said. “There are 10 locations citizens in Shelby County can get tested.”

CFO Cheryl Naugher provided a brief financial update. Compared to June 2019, there is a negative variance of $41,000. Rental taxes continue to be down. Lodging is down 55% from June 2019 and the gas tax is at a 16% decrease. 

County Manager Chad Scroggins said they are currently preparing budgets for Fiscal Year 2021, and the county will take a conservative approach. 

“We are making sure the budget expenditures are low in case the budgeted revenues are lower,” he said. “If we do anything to increase, we would have to find a place to decrease.” 

Randy Cole, County Engineer said with the new gasoline tax passed, he will have items for the next round of projects the highway department will be doing to present to the commission in August. 

Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego was in attendance at the meeting and gave an update on how COVID-19 is affecting the jail. He said out of 500 inmates, only 10 tested positive and only six are being treated. 16 jail deputies have been exposed or contracted the virus, but all but about six are already back at work. 

“We’ve had quite a few deputies on the road that had to be quarantined, but haven’t had one test positive yet,” he said. “They are doing their job as well as they can by creating distance and using PPE.”

Resolutions passed during the include:

  • Bid award for chlorine for water department to Allied Universal Corporation
  • Bid for door and door hardware to Building Specialties
  • Approval for purchase of land parcel (previously discussed) at 19340 U.S. 280 in Chelsea for $430,000
  • Approval for construction, right-of-way and franchise agreement provided by C-Spire. This will allow the installation of broadband internet to rural communities. 

The next Shelby County Commission meeting will be July 27 at 6 p.m. at the Shelby County Administration building in Columbiana. 

For information on COVID-19 in Shelby County, visit shelbyal.com/987/COVID-19-Information.