March 24th, COVID Update

On March 23^rd as anticipated, Governor Jay Inslee announced a state-wide, “Stay at Home, Stay Healthy” proclamation for the State of Washington.

Here’s what the order means for the state’s 7.5 million residents:

• All residents must stay at home unless they are pursuing an essential activity, such as shopping for groceries, going to a doctor’s appointment, or going to work at an essential business.
• All gatherings of people for social, spiritual and recreational purposes are banned. This applies to both private and public gatherings and is effective immediately. The order applies to every type of gathering, including weddings and funerals. The governor’s office suggests postponing these events.
• All businesses, with the exception of essential businesses, are closed. Business closures will go into effect in 48 hours. Essential businesses include grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, food supply chains, and others necessary for continued operations. Newspapers, including The Daily News, are considered essential businesses and will continue operating.
• The PUD is an essential critical infrastructure and employees will be expected to support business continuity as necessary. Our customers need reliable power now more than ever.  Please contact your supervisor if you are unclear of your District role or schedule during the declaration of a Stay at Home, Stay Healthy 
• Going outside for a walk or exercise is allowed, and even encouraged but people are asked to keep at least six feet distance from others.

General Housekeeping:

• Attached is a step-by-step guide on the new additions to time-entry.
• Entering/Exiting the Main Office:  With the closure of the Drive-thru, we are expecting an increase in the use of the Kiosk area for customers.  Please use alternate entry doors into the building to avoid the high public traffic area at the main lobby entrance.  Employees may enter using the ramp door, Commerce Ave. door near Credit Union/Engineering, or the Customer Service/Garage door on 12^th Ave. 
• The courtyard gate will be unlocked by Customer Service at 8:00AM and should remain unlocked during business hours for emergency evacuation.  The reception desk will have a key for that gate.
• If you have perishables in the refrigerators, now would be a good time to clean them out.

Key Points to keep in mind:

• We have a healthy workforce. We do not have any employees out for COVID reasons.
• The PUD is triggering Pandemic Leave, which will take place at close of business today, is more fully described in the Supplemental and Pandemic Leave Authorization shared with you this past week.
• In short, non-essential employees are to remain at their primary residence, ready to work and fit for service, while essential employees may be required to report to work.  While on Pandemic Leave employees will be paid their regular wages, on Paid Administrative Leave status or regular time if working remotely.  While some employees may be at home initially, all employees need to be prepared to report to work if called in by your supervisor.
• We will continue to use our TFCC Communications that will send a text message to all employees notifying of any important changes. (You should have received a TFCC message via text message last night, please email your supervisor if you did not receive the notification sent out yesterday at 6:11pm)
• All supervisors have a phone contact list to get in touch with employees. Please make sure you have your supervisor’s contact information in case you need to reach out.
• If you have any questions about Pandemic Leave, your work schedule, or the newly implemented timesheet coding, please reach out to your supervisor.

We continue to stress the importance of social distancing and especially want to thank all of you for working towards our goals for keeping the workplace safe.

Notes below from today’s County/City meeting: 

EOC – Chief LaFave Update

• Joint Information Center operations continues to offer clarification on Governor’s order
• Looking to establish vaccination sites when appropriate
• Working alternative sources for PPE – some items will be coming in tomorrow
• PIO group is working on unified messaging related to park and open space area
• Direct people with questions to DEM website to maintain consistent messaging and answers

County Health and Human Services

• Working on outreach to all medical facilities, private physicians, long-term care, etc; collect their information; helping them to address their shortages
• Daily epi summary will be provided to PIO group (79 negative tests; 3 positive); at least 4 facilities in County doing testing
• Health inspections are still ongoing
• Testing — Cowlitz is at the top of the pile, but there will still be a several day turnaround

General County Admin

• Finance – working on assistance agreement (facility or equipment); now have a written template to document those things
• Finance – developing estimates on potential county revenue impacts from COVID-19; estimates of sales and property taxes; what expenditure adjustments may have to be made (60% of expenses are payroll)

Woodland

• Identifying essential staff and working with IT contractor for work-from-home expansion

Kalama

• Working on continuity operations plan for city

Kelso

• Important we all have unified message going out to the public

Longview

• Alabama St. homeless encampment closure has been postponed indefinitely
• Longview City Council will be meeting on Thursday – OPMA requires that the building remain open – the meeting will occur online with only 3 people from staff/council in attendance

 Castle Rock

• Stated they were doing good

Commissioner Gardner

• Approved/passed a supplemental declaration to delegate authority to other elected officials regarding office closures
• Gave delegation of authority to Chief LaFave