City maintains essential services during pandemic

The City of Poplar Bluff and its various departments had to make several changes to continue offering services as the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 came into the area, but says this experience has helped reaffirm certain priorities.

“I think one of the things that the pandemic has reaffirmed to us and really drawn attention to again is the need for partnerships and collaboration with other agencies, whether it be the county or health department or the different departments within the city working more closely together,” said city manager Matt Winters.

The city has also stayed in close contact with other partners, including Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center and local media partners.

“Having the DAR and radio station at (daily progress) meetings at the beginning and distributing information has been important for us as a city too,” Winters said.

Operationally, most changes due to the pandemic were minor, city officials said.

“It’s been different by department,” said Winters.

City Hall itself, Winters said, “closed early on for a couple of weeks.

“During that time, we installed plexiglass at all of the counters where we interact with the public to keep those clerks separated and give them some distance while still serving our customers.”

Operating hours at City Hall, Winters said, have remained the same and city operations are “business as usual.”

In March, Winters said, the Municipal Utilities office lobby on Sunset Drive was closed to public entry and remains that way.

“With their drive-thru, they are able to take care of pretty much everything (for customers),” Winters said.

The city’s library also closed its facility while adding an outside drop box and moving many functions online. It reopened in late May, but started a curbside service and now quarantines returned items for three to five days.

The street department, Winters said, has been working several different crews while trying to not have them intermixed in order to prevent any possible spread of illness.

The municipal court, Winters said, has the most restrictive measures, including allowing only 10 people in the courtroom at a time. Court restrictions are set by the Missouri Supreme Court.

To cut back on face-to-face interactions, Winters said, the city is looking at instituting an online payment system for many services.

“We are looking at hopefully having more ability for customers to pay online for our other services, but we haven’t gotten there yet,” he said.

The police and fire departments’ Winters noted, experience the most public interactions, and both have taken precautionary steps to protect staff and the public.

“We try the social distancing thing as much as possible, but in this kind of work, sometimes you can’t do that,” said Police Chief Danny Whiteley, who noted every patrol car now is cleaned following each shift.

Proactive work, Whiteley said, has been scaled back.

“Normal traffic stops and proactive contacts have been slowed down,” Whiteley said. “You don’t try to initiate contacts unless there is a substantial enough reason, like an accident or crime scene.”

However, Whiteley insisted, slowing down on contacts “does not mean slowing down on obvious flagrant or dangerous violations.”

At the fire department, Chief Ralph Stucker said, staff are “taking what precautions we can.”

Public entry into each of the city’s three stations is restricted, while masks, hand sanitizer and other protective gear is stocked throughout each station and on each truck.

Staffing remains a big issue at the department, Stucker said, so he is unable to separate his crews at a fire scene.

“If we get a structure fire, we don’t have the luxury of saying ‘we’re going to send these guys.’ They have to be there at the same time,” he said.