In general, things are moving fairly slowly regarding county business, with Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive stay-at-home order requiring the Allen County courthouse to remain closed.
As commissioners want to abide by the governor’s orders, the closure will last, at absolute minimum, until April 19.
County employees are still hard at work, however, and residents can make appointments with appropriate county offices, as long as they pertain to essential business.
If you need the contact number for a particular office, you can call the Sheriff’s Department for a directory at 620-365-1400.
This week’s commission meeting began with discussion concerning an example of how the governor’s stay-at-home order is being enforced locally.
A resident approached the county/Sheriff requesting to use the bandstand to hold a concert for people parked in their vehicles around the courthouse lawn.
The request was ultimately nixed by commissioners given concerns over how many people would be on the bandstand performing (potentially exceeding the recommended 10-person limit), and due to the temptation for people to leave their vehicles to mingle or approach musicians.
“I think it’s a nice suggestion, but [for now] we should probably hold off, … hopefully, soon, we could do that,” said commissioner Jerry Daniels.
“Normally, it’d be an obvious ‘Yes,’” added commissioner Bill King.
To the Register’s knowledge, this was the first instance of the county publicly calling for enforcement of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beyond general recommendations for social distancing and crowd-size limitations.
At an earlier meeting, Sheriff Bryan Murphy said that he was reticent to enforce the executive order in any heavy-handed or draconian fashion, but added that if, for example, someone were holding a 50-person party, he and deputies would be compelled to intervene.
Again, to the Register’s knowledge, law enforcement has not so far had to resort to measures of this kind, either by breaking up gatherings, making arrests or issuing fines.
On a related note, in response to a question by the Register regarding Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for employees, commissioners suggested that supply availability had not yet become a concern, despite shortages in other areas.
“Locally, as a county, we’re holding up on goggles and masks,” said Sheriff Murphy, as well as having “a ton of gloves.”
“We’re all trying to get our hands on whatever we can,” he added, even going so far as to reach out to a distillery that has shifted its operations to focus on making hand sanitizer.
“There’s a lot of people out there being very creative, trying to help out,” Murphy said.
