North Frontenac to open community halls

Craig Bakay (with files from Jeff Green) | Oct 07, 2020

Community halls in North Frontenac should be ready for re-opening in the middle of October, Manager of Community Development Corey Klatt told Council at its regular meeting on Friday (October 2).

The meeting was a hybrid of in-person and phone-in with Mayor Ron Higgins, Dep. Mayor Gerry Martin, and Coun. Fred Fowler in the Plevna Council Chambers; Coun. Fred Perry, Vernon Hermer and Wayne Good on the phone and Coun. John Inglis absent.

Klatt said the Community Control Group (a committee that meets regularly regarding the spread of covid 19) was set to begin work next week on protocols groups regularly using the halls will have to follow. He said they will also establish similar protocols for one-off uses of the halls.

“In two weeks max, hopefully we’ll be ready,” he said.

The protocols will likely include cleaning instructions, social distancing, masks and things like sign-in sheets (for contact tracing) for attendees.

Coun. Hermer asked what good is opening the halls if you can only have 10 people in them.

Higgins said the 10-person indoors rule won’t apply because another aspect of the hall protocols will be the inclusion of a “monitor” from each group using the hall — in other words, someone will have to be responsible for ensuring all the attendees are adhering to the rules and cleaning is done.

“We’ve checked with the Health Unit and they’re OK with the monitors concept,” said Higgins.

Coun. Good expressed concern about “moving too fast, given how things keep changing.”

CAO Cheryl Robson and Mayor Higgins agreed that things do change a lot these days but Higgins said: “the community wanted us to open up the halls six weeks ago.

“If the situation changes, we can hold an emergency meeting and shut things down fast.”

In a subsequent interview, Cory Klatt said that a lot of work has gone in to deterring all the necessary protocols for the resumption of community use of halls.

“Each hall has a limited capacity, and I will meet with the designated person for each hall about what is required for different activities, whether it be a sewing group, an exercise class, whether food or coffee is being served. We have consulted with Public Health extensively, to make sure we are interpreting to rules correctly,” he said.

He said that while some people are very keen to get back into the halls for community events and have been asking the township to make it happen, others have said they won’t be coming back, at least not right away.

“We will take it slowly. I need to meet with everyone first and we will go from there.”

At the meeting, Mayor Higgins said he has considered lifting the state of emergency designation in the township, but upon consultation with the Healthy Unit and Province, he decided to wait until daily new cases in the Province falls below 100.

As for the financial burden COVID-19 has added to municipalities, Higgins said the township is in good shape.

“The province gave us $215,900 and we still have $128,000 of that left,” he said. “We also approved $25,000 from reserves if we need it in an emergency.

“The message here financially is that we’re doing well compared to some municipalities.”

One of the COVID-related purchases includes two Clorox 360 machines which can be used to provide an electrostatic spray application of a premixed sanitization liquid (approved by Health Canada) in a vapour form to hard, high traffic surfaces such as door handles, counter tops and filing cabinets to disinfect.

Township employees have been using them to sanitize all Township vehicles as well.

In early June the COVID-19 dashboard on the KFLA Public Health website began to show the breakdown of confirmed cases by township. At that time 1 case was indicated for North Frontenac, and it had been resolved.

Since then, no new cases have been added to the North Frontenac tally. There have also been no new cases in neighbouring townships to the south (Central Frontenac) or west (Addington Highlands) since early June.

To the east, there are currently 8 active cases in the entire Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit, which does not break down its case-load by township or county. The townships of Lanark Highlands and Tay Valley, which abut North Frontenac, are two of the least populated townships in a district that includes Carleton Place, Almonte, Perth, Smiths Falls, Brockville, Gananoque and Prescott.