County to consider postponing all activities at Expo Park through April 30, approves contract with Alluvion for viral screening clinic
During their regular work session on March 18, County Commissioners were asked to add an item to their agenda for the March 24 meeting that would postpone all activities at Montana Expo Park through April 30 due to COVID-19.
Commissioner Jim Larson said “many people feel all events should be canceled” but wanted the public to have a chance to be involved in the discussion at their next public meeting that is properly noticed.
The county called an emergency meeting following their work session to discuss another COVID-19 related matter and Commissioner Jane Weber said they could add it to that agenda.
Under state law, public bodies are exempt from giving 48 hours of public notice for a meeting in emergency situations.
Weber said “the county does not appear to be taking leadership,” in closing Expo Park and that the county was backed against the wall begging organizers of the gun show and another event to cancel due to COVID-19 concerns.
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Commissioner Joe Briggs said that no events are scheduled at Expo Park through April 1 so he said it was an attempt to bypass open meeting laws and that it could wait until Tuesday’s meeting since it’s not an emergency.
“I think we should follow open meeting laws wherever possible,” Briggs said. “I think the public should have a say when we do something of this magnitude.”
Larson said the item would go on the March 24 agenda since the two events planned for the rest of March had already canceled. He disagreed with Weber’s assertion that the county wasn’t showing leadership in the response efforts.
Weber asked what Expo Park staff should do if they get a call asking to book events for April 2.
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Briggs said that he directed the Expo Park staff not to book any events for the next few weeks and that common sense would dictate that they don’t book events for at least the next few weeks.
During the commission’s emergency meeting at 2:30 p.m., commissioners unanimously voted to contact with Alluvion Health to set up a viral incident clinic in what is currently vacant space at the Cascade County City-County Health Department.
Alluvion offered the service to the county, according to commissioners, and initially has no cost to the county.
At the viral incident clinic, Alluvion staff will test patients for two strains of influenza, strep, Respiratory Syncytial Virus and other respiratory issues, according to Trista Besich, Alluvion’s chief executive officer.
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She said Alluvion staff discussed with Dr. Ray Geyer, the local infectious disease doctor at Great Falls Clinic, about what to screen for and he didn’t believe it was necessary to test for the full panel of viral infections at the temporary clinic.
Besich said that if someone tests negative for those common viral infections and staff believes a patient could have COVID-19, they’ll coordinate with CCHD for the COVID-19 test.
The clinic will be open at CCHD, likely beginning Friday at 7 a.m., weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Besich said they anticipate being open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.
Beish said they wanted to offer the screening at CCHD, where Alluvion previously had a footprint, to separate sick people from healthy people at their main clinic at 601 1st Ave. N. and it would create access for people without transportation to get to Benefis Health System or the Great Falls Clinic.
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Besich said Alluvion will provide staff, equipment and supplies. She said that they’ll try to use their old web based phone line in the clinic, or ask the county to supply a landline while they operated in the space. The agreement also states that Alluvion will provide cleaning services and pay for utilities in the space while they’re operating the clinic.
Commissioners approved the contract with no specified end date.
Alluvion is still making payments to the county on funds owed to the county related to a billing error discovered last summer and no promissory note regarding rent from county facilities previously occupied by Alluvion, or supplies, has yet been approved.
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Typically, the county still sends an email with the agenda to county employees and the media in the case of special meetings and posts the information to the county website.
On Wednesday, the county sent an email at 1:50 p.m. for the emergency meeting at 2:30 p.m.
On March 17, the health board, which is a public body, convened an emergency meeting, but no notice or agenda was posted anywhere on the county website or disseminated publicly by email, nor was it added to the commission calendar though a county commissioner sits on the board and typically, meetings they attend are added to the calendar.
The Electric heard about the meeting and attended, as did several members of the public to offer comments.
During all of the regular and emergency county meetings this week, commissioners, staff and members of the public passed around a clipboard with a sign-in sheet and more than 10 people were in the room.
