County departments report preparations

COLFAX – Whitman County Commissioners met for their weekly workshop before a live and web audience Monday.

To help promote social distancing, county commissioners set up a Zoom video conferencing service for those who would like to attend the workshop, but to keep distance from large crowds. There were other department heads and elected officials present in the commissioner’s chambers.

Whitman County Health Department Director Troy Henderson reported to the commissioners, starting Monday, the health department recommends Whitman County operations to shift to where non-essential offices are closed to public foot traffic.

“This isn’t much different than where we are at now,” Henderson said. “We want county operations to maintain public services as much as possible through phone or internet and for some county operations to work from home if possible.”

Commissioner Michael Largent agreed with Henderson stating that many department heads and elected officials are essentially already going in this direction.

“The Public Works Office is closed to public access and only open by appointment only,” said Whitman County Public Works Director Mark Storey. “I’ve sent a couple of people home because it’s not necessary to expose them to the risk, they are on stand-by where they are available to come to work if I need them to come to work. I also have an operations plan for public works for different stages of the COVID-19 virus scenario if needed.”

Like the Public Works Department, many other offices in the courthouse and Public Service Building have been closed to the public.

“We are trying to reduce as much human contact in the courtroom as we can,” said Judge Gary Libey.

Last week the Treasurer’s Office closed its doors to the public, but has placed drop boxes in the hall for those sending in payments.

“We have placed in the hall some secure boxes where people can drop tax payments and title companies can drop their X-Is or other documents that might need to be coming in,” said Whitman County Treasurer Chris Nelson.

Nelson said currently, there is no change to the April tax deadline in Whitman County.

On Monday, March 30, the county commissioners will be discussing with Nelson different options for tax payments and deadlines during this time.

To help with the change of departments switching to an online prominent format Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories is offering assistance to many government entities in the area during this time.

“Schweitzer Engineering stepped up and they are offering any help they can give to us and they might be able to provide our IT department with a few things they need,” Commissioner Dean Kinzer said.