City officials today announced plans for reopening the Hopkinsville Municipal Center and for resuming in-person council and committee meetings with requirements for face masks and distancing to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Beginning Monday, July 6, the city hall will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Everyone entering the building will be required to wear a mask and have their temperature taken. Disposable masks will be provided for those who don’t have one.
Anyone whose temperature exceeds 100.4 degrees will have to leave the building and should go immediately to a COVID-19 testing site, a physician’s office or the health department, city officials said in a press release. In addition, city employees will request the person’s name and contact information to provide to the health department for contact tracing purposes.
Several safety measures will be in place to limit the number of people inside the council chambers during public meetings, according to the news release.
The city has outlined the following guidelines for meetings:
- COVID-19 restrictions currently limit meeting size to 50 people or less. Twenty chairs will be available for public meeting participants, staff, and the media with remaining chairs available for guests. All chairs not separated by partition will be located 6 feet apart.
- Masks and temperature checks will be required for all guests, media, and staff attending public meetings.
- Overflow areas will be set up in conference rooms where a broadcast of the meetings will be televised if seating becomes unavailable due to capacity issues. Employees attending meetings, but not scheduled to speak or needed for Council member questions, should sit in the overflow areas.
- If more guests are in attendance than available seating and they wish to speak during public comments at City Council meetings, speakers will line up outside the Council Chamber using six-foot social distancing protocols until their turn to speak.
Hopkinsville City Council and Committee of the Whole meetings will stream live on City TV and will be available on the city’s website. Viewers can also access the City TV feed on Facebook Live @CityofHopkinsville or by tuning into Spectrum Channel 376 or AT&T U-Verse channel 99.
Healthy-at-Work Coordinator Kenneth Grabara is available to answer questions about the city’s response to COVID-19. His phone number is 270-890-0264.
Community and Development Services, which is housed in city hall, will also reopen to the public on Monday. The Human Rights Commission office will continue to conduct business by appointment or phone at 270-887-4010.
COVID-19 is the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The city closed the municipal building to the general public on March 16 and reassigned several employees to work remotely.
(Jennifer P. Brown is the editor and founder of Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
