City of Athens, Ohio Mayor's Press Conference 2020, 18 Mar 2020

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From YouTube: Mayor's Press Conference March 18, 2020

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Mayor's Press Conference March 18, 2020

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Good afternoon to welcome to the mayor's weekly press conference a little bit different today, as you can see, I am practicing a level of social distancing as we deal with and work through, the national international global pandemic that is kovat 19 or the corona virus.

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But before I get into some details of some rapidly changing things here in the city of Athens across the state and the United States I've got Kyle who's on the line and I'm gonna have Kyle Johansson, do the seven-day weather forecast and then also some updates on some of the statistics that he has been tracking with the.

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Selina showers, chance of rain 30%.

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There you have it and it's it's kind of dreary outside right now, isn't it Kyle.

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So Kyle give us a real brief update on what you're tracking, because I know that you are I, get your your your Facebook messages, often in terms of the National cases of Corona buyers that are positive cases at this point in time.

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Those are 88 positive cases. Is that correct, Kyle.

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I asked the to stay healthy and stay safe. Thank you as usual for doing the weather updates for the city of Athens, as well as now giving us the brief update on the national and state cases, positive cases of corona virus, so Thank You, Kyle.

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So that all said you know, I have several things: I want to bring forward and then I'm going to get into some of the governor's press conference items that have come forward today.

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Just to give an update on the city of Athens operations, the toughens Municipal Court is open, they are limiting their cases and several cave cases have been continued.

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If you have an attorney, please contact him with in regards to your case, if you did I'm an attorney and are not well, please contact the courthouse and ask for continuance and there's some several other things here with the courthouse. If you owe confines or costs, you can pay online Athens, County, Municipal, Court payments. Calm. Let me repeat that Athens County Municipal Court payments calm or by phone, which is seven four zero. Two four nine two one: zero eight and I'm sure that they will help you out.

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You can mail in checks or money order to the court as well: Athens, City, Police, Department and parking enforcement. They are open, but the doors are locked. They will buzz you if you are there at the door and they certainly have the dispatch office that is open, so the side door is closed. We encourage everyone to come around to the front main entrance into the police department. Some reports can be taken over the phone, but officers will respond.

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Obviously, if requested officers will still be out on patrol and responds to call respond to calls of service contact. Seven, four: zero, five, nine two, three three one: three for assistance in cases, as always in cases of emergency, please dial, nine-one-one fines may be paid and any of the payment boxes located throughout the city and in front of the city hall, parking garage and the police department. And then this is important. The 24-hour parking rule will not be enforced until further notice.

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The reason for doing that is if people are finding that they do need to self quarantine or being instructed to quarantine that we don't want them out having to walk their car every 24 hours. So that is certainly new in that the 24-hour parking rules will not be enforced until further notice. Trash and recycling services are still operational and currently are on schedule.

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If you have any concerns or questions, please contact the Athens Hawking recycling center and they can be reached at seven four, zero, five, nine four, five, three one, two four any questions utility billing is open for business and accepting payments online or through the outside deposit box. That's located right in front of the city building the city building is closed beyond the elevator, where the glass doors are that is for city employees only authorized personnel.

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It is closed to the public in order to contain kovat 19 from spreading throughout so know that that you can certainly pay your bills online or you can drop them off at the deposit box outside no impersonal payments until further notice. As a reminder, water disconnects your suspension, disconnections are suspended. We will not be disconnecting people's water supply that went into effect last Thursday and that will be in place until further notice and if you had your water, already disconnected the reconnection fee prior to last. Thursday, the reconnection fee will be waived with updated payment.

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You can certainly reach out to us the city at five, nine, two, three, three, four: seven for assistance, income tax; it is open for business and accepting payments online or by mail, walk-ins and in-person meetings are suspended until further notice. Please call the the tax administrator at seven four, zero, five, nine, two, three three, three: seven for assistance with your taxes, city taxes in particular Athens fire department- is open in both stations at both stations that they are not accessible to the public for non-emergencies.

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Please call five nine two three three zero one and again in case of emergency. Please contact five, our call 911 911 service, mayor's office. We are still operational, but we are closed to the public if you need to reach out regular business is being conducted by my office and my staff. I am all over the place, but doing my best to wash my hands social distance and to work remotely when possible. But if you do need assistance with anything, please feel free to call seven four: zero.

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Five: nine two three three three eight the auditor's office again is open for business by phone but is not accessible to the public for questions help with your tax forms. I already mentioned this, you can reach out to the tax administrator Tina Timberman at the number already provided, or you can email her at t, Timberman, that's t, IM, ber, ma, n @ CI, Gotham, Zoo, H, dot, us payments again can be mailed or you can pay by credit cards on the website at www.hsn.

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The city prosecutor's office, they are open and doing business, but again they are limiting outside contact and requesting people to reach out by phone. Their number is seven, four, zero, five, nine two three three three: two: if you need assistance with the law director or the city prosecutor's office engineering and Public Works, they are operational as usual and they are operational 24/7 all the areas, the department, including the office service garage and the plans, are not accessible to the public.

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If you need their assistance or are, if you are delivering things to any of those locations again the service garage, the office or either of the plants, you can call ahead or call once you arrive at the location at seven, four: zero, five, nine, three: seven: six: three: six code enforcement office code, the office of community development or development and code enforcement. They are open in doing business, but also not accessible to the public. If you have questions or permit to submit, please knock on the door and the applications will be accepted at the door.

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All routine housing inspections have been suspended until May 3rd of 2020 or until further notice. Again, if you have questions or concerns, you can certainly call the Director of Development and code enforcement at five nine. Two three three zero six for assistance, Department of Human Resources, is open and available by email or phone. Only the number there is seven four zero, five, nine two three three six seven applications for any of the open positions can be emailed to human resources at CI, Athens, Oh, H, dot; u s, Athens City Council and the government channel.

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They are open and doing business, but also not accessible to the public. If you need assistance from the government channel or city council, please call seven four: zero. Five, nine two three three four two for further assistance: the community center is closed until further notice. All programs and activities have been suspended. Arts West is closed until further notice. Again, all programs and activities have been suspended. The boards and commissions I'm not going to get into every single board in Commission just know this that all chairs of boards words or Commission's.

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If you have questions about their meetings likely, a lot of them have been suspended until further notice, but feel free to contact the chairs of the different boards and commissions. Some of the boards will be meeting as needed likely they will be remotely attended by the board members.

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We are still getting guidance from the Attorney General State general's office on remote meetings.

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That all said, you know the governor's press conference, which started at 2:00 p.m. some very valuable information that was conveyed during that particular press conference. Some of the things I really want to reiterate that came out of that. As we all know, bars and restaurants have been closed and carryout is permissible, but not dine in in restaurants. So if you have carry out that is still operational in most places that provide that service, gyms and rec centers were ordered to be closed as well, so those facilities have been under the governor's mandate to cease operations.

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Today, the governor announced another round of closures, the first of which was BM V's Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

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For them they are closing statewide 181 Bureau of Motor Vehicles throughout the state. There are five open. Those five that are opened will be for for truck drivers to be able to continue to renew and get their CDL commercial driver's licenses, but all others will well. It will not be open to rear-end astir somebody.

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What they also stated in the press conference is that if you were pulled over by State Highway Patrol and do have a license, that is, has expired as of today moving forward that there will be a grace period in which you will not be cited for having a expired driver's license, but that I'm sure is until further notice when the board of the DMV is open back up again and that people can renew their drivers licenses. The other announcement that was made today is that barber shops, beauty, salons, spas and tattoo parlors or establishments.

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Those two are to be closed today and no longer operational until further notice. So keep that in mind as well.

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We may be seeing more this as time goes on, as Kyle mentioned earlier in the program, there are 88 positive cases in the state of Ohio I, believe that is in 18 counties. Currently, what I can share with those viewing this the athens county?

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We still have no positive cases, but that is likely to change with the speed at which this virus is affecting individuals and the quick pace at which it is spreading, because, if you think about it, it's a virus and the viruses the way the virus works is to maintain stay alive and the way it stays alive is from transmission from one person, one host to another host to another host and so on and so forth.

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So the best things that you can possibly do for yourself is frequent hand-washing for at least 20 seconds or hand sanitizing with hand sanitizers that have ISIL alcohol in them at least 70 of 90 80 percent alcohol concentration. In your your end, sanitizer wipe down surfaces that are commonly are frequently used.

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Social distancing, you know social distancing is probably gonna, be one of the key things that we should all be doing as a public to where you maintain a six-foot distance from people around. You I know that currently, the mandate is that there are to be no gatherings of greater than 15 or greater in the state, but what the CDC is recommending, not a mandate, but what they're recommending is that you reduce that to groupings of 10 or less as opposed to 50.

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But again that is not a mandate that is CDC's recommendation that we not be in places that have more than 10 people, which I would encourage people to do. It makes a lot of sense. The last thing I want to share is, if you are not feeling well, please stay away from others stay home.

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The best thing that you can do is to contact your primary care provider. If your primary primary care provider tell them what you're experiencing and they will take it from there, they will deem whether or not you do need to be tested.

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They will also probably recommend further actions for you, if necessary, so again, socialite social isolation, washing your hands, don't touch your face or eyes us, as human beings tend to touch our faces and eyes. You know our faces in particular very frequently more than you would imagine. You know, on average, about nine hundred times a day, so the more you can reduce that and become hyper aware that you shouldn't be touching your face.

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That's a good good practice to take in place again washing your hands and if you aren't feeling well, you know, call your primary care provider at this point in our time. You know in history. It is so vitally important that we all really work together do the best that we possibly can to not expose ourselves and equally not to expose those around us.

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I know that for some with school being out, the kids are getting stir-crazy and not knowing what to do, and that was a good time to read to your children now's a good time to make up all kinds of games. My daughters and I were playing life the other game day.

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We actually played two rounds of life and a round a monopoly, and during that time we took the opportunity to teach them how to to count and subtract the money they were receiving when they were whoopin, daddy playing Monopoly, and they certainly did it and we were playing life, but those kinds of things just be creative, with what you're doing with your children.

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You know, there's certainly, okay, the book platforms that are out there to where you can start downloading books and getting caught up on your reading list that you may not have been doing and know that your mayor is doing everything within my power to continue to protect the city and make sure that we are doing the right things as we move forward.

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Certainly your water is still going to be delivered. The sewer is still going to be functioning. Our people at the plant are going to be working as they always have been working. I say again: the Athens Hocking recycling center will be picking up your refuge and your recycling as we move forward so citizens of Athens. Please do everything in your power to remain safe. We will get through this, but take some extraordinary precautionary measures as we move forward.

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Who knows where I will be broadcasting from next week, possibly here, possibly somewhere else in my house. Who knows, but thank you for tuning in and please join us again next week for the next updates, as well as things all around the city with the mayor's weekly press conference. Take care.