Earlier today Helotes City Government officials conducted a virtual town hall to update residents on the City’s response to COVID-19. Please view the video.
We reviewed the video and wrote some bullet points on what we determined were key points. The bullet points below are drawn from the video. For a few of these points we took some journalistic liberty to create our sentences from different parts of the presenters’ speech. If you find any errors on our part, please contact us, be specif and reference the video time so we can review and edit as needed.
Mayor Tom Schoolcraft (First Segment)
- All City departments providing essential services
- Recognize Saliena Perez for handling technical aspects of the meeting
- Recognize Andrea Wazir for presenting the idea to have a virtual town hall and she is running the Facebook live stream
City Administrator Marian Mendoza
- Following Governor Abbott’s March 19th, Executive Order
- Law enforcement, fire and EMS operating services continue
- Public is asked to limit physical access to City Hall, try transact business online or via phone where/when possible
- Notary and finger printing services are considered non-essential and are not available via the city at this time
- Municipal Court proceedings cancelled through April 30th
- City Council, board and commission meetings conducted as needed, limited access to the public, and use of tele-conferencing, live audio via GoToMeeting
- Check the city’s website for the meeting agendas to read the instructions on how to access the meetings virtually
- Helotes Park Playground is closed
- Helotes Fitness Park & Disc Golf Course is open, equipment disinfected regularly
- MarketPlace at Old Town Helotes is cancelled until further notice
- April 19th, Helotes Area Community Band Spring Concert cancelled
- May 2nd Cornyval Parade is cancelled
- May 15th Movie Night cancelled
Dr. Craig Manifold key points:
- After being exposed, symptoms will occur between 2 and 14 days
- Fever, cough and shortness of breath
- Recommends following CDC guidelines
- Try tele-medicine hotlines to avoid sitting in emergency rooms near other sick people
- First responders may show up in personal protective equipment that might be scary for children or make communicating difficult, these measures are to protect the first responders
- Local hospitals will not allow visits or family members to accompany patients unless there are extreme or special circumstances
- Exercise, eat well, limit time on news feeds, be active, spend time with family
Fire Chief Scott Moreland key points:
- Reiterate much of what Dr. Manifold discussed
- Fire Department made operational changes to limit exposure risk to fire fighters
- Fire fighters and EMS have personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Only call 911 if you have an immediate life-threatening emergency
- If you call 911 for a life-threatening emergency, do not hang up, the call taker needs more information while fire and/or EMS is on the way
- When arriving at a call, may only send in one EMS in PPE if respiratory illness is suspected to evaluate the patient, if after the evaluation it’s deemed necessary for additional EMS to enter and assist they will be in PPE
Police Chief Robert Hunley
- Officers patrolling as normal
- Physical distancing as much as possible
- Some lower lever calls may be handled through phone calls
- HPD must enforce Governor Abbott’s Executive Order on public gathers
Mayor Tom Schoolcraft (Last Segment)
- Friday March 20th, Mayor issued a General Declaration of Disaster as a necessary step to allow us to apply for financial assistance from FEMA
- Take care of one another, support one another, pray for one another