The Wrangell Borough Assembly met remotely last Tuesday, April 14, to hold one of their regularly scheduled meetings. It was a light agenda, as far as items requiring an assembly vote, but there was much discussion.
After opening the meeting, the assembly heard from two Wrangell residents who wanted to see the local economy start to reopen. Wrangell residents Dale Parkinson and Mike Lockabey both thanked the city staff and the wider public for doing their parts to keep the community safe during this COVID-19 pandemic, but they both felt it was time to start getting things back to normal.
"There has been enough fear dispensed by all levels of government and the media," Parkinson said. "Now is the time to start talking about reopening businesses and getting life back to normal ... Now we need you to encourage us that we can indeed move forward at some point, because you have done your job. The morale of the city is equally important to controlling the citizenry."
"At this time I don't see the need to have further restrictions here in Wrangell," Lockabey said after Parkinson. "I feel the state mandates are working and are enough for now. The governor even had some words of hope yesterday. Good for him, it was appreciated. These are concerning times for all of us, though we have no COVID cases in Wrangell, but I will not live in abject fear. I will not ... I know for a fact that we can be more open now and working more, the mandates allow it."
Mayor Steve Prysunka thanked both Parkinson and Lockabey for their comments, and agreed that it was clear the city needs to have a vision for moving forward economically. However, he clarified that the city is under state mandate for items such as quarantine requirements, so it will be up to the state government to loosen those restrictions. Later in the meeting, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen added that she is working to put together a sales tax relief plan for local businesses. Prysunka and Von Bargen also spoke about an economic recovery task force after the meeting, during the April 17 COVID-19 update, that will begin researching ways to safely get Wrangell back to a sense of normalcy.
During the meeting, the assembly also heard from Dr. Lynn Prysunka, of the Wrangell Medical Center, to provide a general update and to answer questions from the assembly. Dr. Prysunka, married to Mayor Prysunka, explained that WMC is an eight-bed critical access hospital. This means that they have eight beds available for acute care, whether or not Wrangell has COVID-19 patients. The hospital has access to three ventilators, she said, but these are old and primarily meant for transporting patients and not for sustained use. They've ordered three new ventilators, she said, but these were recently commandeered by FEMA to go to another community with greater need. While there are no confirmed cases of the virus in Wrangell, as of this meeting, she said that the hospital is doing its best to be prepared. The hospital's old operating room has also recently been converted into a five-bed ward for any potential COVID patients, she said.
"For now, the plan really is not to maintain a vented patient until they can come off that intensive care in Wrangell," Dr. Prysunka said. "For now the plan is to transfer patients to a higher level of care once we have deemed that they are sick, just like we would with anybody whether it's COVID-19 or otherwise."
During the meeting, the assembly held a public hearing on a modification to a contract zone agreement requested by Don Glasner, and approved of a contract for city dock summer floats, in the amount of $67,000, awarded to Heller High Water LLC. The mayor also read a proclamation declaring April 19-25 National Library Week.
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