La Plata County and the city of Durango will return to in-person public meetings this week.
La Plata County announced Friday all county meetings will now offer in-person attendance after two consecutive weeks at “medium” on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 community levels metric. Durango’s City Council meetings will also return to in-person meetings Tuesday after the omicron surge.
As the pandemic recedes from its height in January, both governments will continue using hybrid formats for the foreseeable future.
“Over the past few months, we had to go back to the Zoom setting when the outbreak peaked in January with omicron, but we are now going back starting tomorrow (Tuesday) to a hybrid situation with people attending both on Zoom and in person,” said Tom Sluis, spokesman for the city of Durango.
Tuesday’s City Council study session at 2:15 p.m. and regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. will mark the council’s first in-person public meetings since last year.
In fall 2021, the city transitioned to hybrid meetings, but in January and February, the city switched back to virtual only because of the omicron surge. The city extended its virtual meetings into March out of an abundance of caution, Sluis said.
La Plata County’s public meetings have been conducted largely virtually since the county first shut down in March 2020, said Ted Holteen, spokesman for the county. La Plata County experimented with a hybrid format in the summer and fall of last year, but the delta and omicron variants forced the county to revert to virtual meetings.
The county commissioners’ special business and planning meetings Tuesday at 9 and 10 a.m., respectively, will be the first opportunities for the public to participate in person. Those who attend the meetings will not be required to wear a mask, though attendees with symptoms, a positive test or known exposure should wear a mask, a county news release said.
“It’s coming up on two years,” Holteen said. “There was that brief interlude toward the end of last summer where we tried to do (hybrid) again and we had done a couple hybrids in the fall. But other than that, everything has been remote.”
The decisions by the city and the county come as San Juan Basin Public Health and the CDC relax COVID-19 precautions.
SJBPH amended its public health advisory on March 1 to align with the CDC after the public agency’s jump to its new community levels metric, which relies on hospital admissions, hospital capacity and new case rates when evaluating the COVID-19 risk in communities.
Counties can be designated “low,” “medium” or “high” risk, and their classification determines the need for precautions such as masking. At low or medium levels, the general public does not need to wear a mask when indoors, according to CDC and SJBPH guidelines.
The CDC updates community levels every week. When SJBPH first announced its revised public health advisory, the CDC classified La Plata County as high risk. However, for the last two weeks the county has been designated medium, indicating that many residents can safely stop wearing masks.
The city and the county cited the CDC’s community levels and SJBPH’s updated advisory as keys to returning to in-person public meetings.
“This aligns with the recent San Juan Basin (Public) Health notification that we were in a lower warning level,” Sluis said.
While City Council will return to in-person meetings this week, the transition for city board and commission meetings will take longer, Sluis said. Many boards and commissions are still meeting virtually, though city staff members are currently working on preparations for hybrid meetings.
“Boards and commissions will also be moving to that virtual format,” he said. “It’s just going to take a little bit longer depending on how often they meet, what equipment they need, how soon we can get them set up and if we can get someone trained to take on those responsibilities.”
Other public county meetings including boards and commissions turned to hybrid formats Monday, a news release said. Residents can continue to make public comments virtually, though Holteen urged those who feel comfortable to attend in person.
“The board (of county commissioners) will be in person and anyone who’s got business is encouraged to come,” he said. “But again, we’re going to offer both methods. Anything that’s a public meeting we’re going to try to do hybrid.”
While the city and the county will use a hybrid approach moving forward, neither government plans to phase out virtual attendance as they shift back to in person.
“I can’t see it going away anytime soon,” Holteen said. “It really is handy if people in the outlying parts of the county don’t want to drive all the way in, so I think there’s still a great value in having the virtual access.”
Sluis said the virtual component is here to stay.
“We expect Zoom to be here forever,” he said.
ahannon@durangoherald.com
