The Wrangell Borough Assembly convened electronically on last Monday, April 6, to consider a new emergency ordinance in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The final vote on Ordinance No. 977 was delayed, however, to let city officials gather further information. The proposed ordinance would have mandated a two-week self quarantine for any intrastate travelers coming to Wrangell, allowed for modified quarantine plans for critical workforce, and required that travel safety and modified quarantine plans be submitted to the city for approval.
The ordinance was reconsidered in a special meeting on Wednesday, April 8. New information city officials discovered at the last minute, however, made the passage of this ordinance controversial. According to state mandates, only "small communities" are allowed to pass COVID-19-related ordinances stricter than current state guidelines. The state's qualification for a small community is to have a population below 3,000, to be separate from the road system, and to not have a "hub hospital" in their community. Wrangell, it turns out, only meets two of these three requirements. The Wrangell Medical Center is a critical access hospital, meaning it serves as a hub. Therefore, Ordinance No. 977 would have gone beyond what the local government is allowed to pass. With this new information in mind, several assembly members agreed that they were not comfortable with moving forward, as it could potentially lead to lawsuits down the road. A vote to withdraw the ordinance passed with a vote of 5-2. Assembly Members Mya DeLong and David Powell were the dissenting votes.
"I really think it should be the other way around, where the state can tell us no," Powell said. "I don't understand why we cannot put this into place the way it's written, and then make the state tell us no. They're not telling all those other communities no, that we know of. I'm really nervous about putting this off, I'm sorry."
"We can put this in place, and we are working outside the bounds of the authority within the state," Mayor Steve Prysunka responded to Powell. "People can just ignore what we'd said because what we've done is not recognizable by the state. So, in some ways, it's just a bunch of hollow legislation that has no teeth to it."
Following the April 8 meeting, the Assembly came together again on Thursday, April 9, for a workshop to discuss their next steps. It was generally agreed upon by the assembly that they wanted to install the requirements in the withdrawn ordinance. It was a question of how to go
about it.
"Even though state mandate 12 prohibits intrastate travel unless you are traveling for critical workforce infrastructure or critical personal needs, it does not include a self-quarantine mandate," Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said, explaining why the city was wanting to pass its own ordinance.
The workshop went on for about an hour and a half, and the assembly came up with several avenues of moving forward they wanted Von Bargen to research. Assembly Member Patty Gilbert proposed that while the City and Borough of Wrangell may have their hands tied, the Wrangell Cooperative Association may not. The city and WCA recently adopted a joint hazard mitigation plan. Gilbert also pointed out the Stafford Act, a 1988 piece of legislation, was meant to help organize federal disaster assistance to state and local governments. She argued that as a federally recognized tribal government, the WCA could potentially take action on their own, not bound by state guidelines. Von Bargen said she would reach out to the WCA to discuss the idea, but pointed out that recent state mandates also superseded tribal ordinances as well as municipal.
Another proposal was made by Powell, who suggested that they research the state's unified command for the COVID-19 situation. Von Bargen explained, after the meeting, that a state unified command is typically made up of federal, state, local, and "responsible party" representatives. As an example,
she said, if there was an oil spill then a unified command would be made up of the Coast Guard, state environmental agencies, the community the oil was spilled near, and
whoever spilled the oil. While the COVID-19 pandemic is an international issue, Powell argued that there should still be someone representing
municipal needs at the state level. Through this municipal representation, it might be possible for Wrangell to receive copies of travel and modified quarantine plans that the state receives. Again, Von Bargen said she would look into it.
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