JAMESTOWN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Jamestown Finance & Legal moved to extend the COVID-19 Leave Policy for city employees beyond June 30th.
The program was created for extra sick and family leave for those who have become ill with COVID-19 or needed to quarantine due to exposure.
Mayor Dwaine Heinrich brought up the possibility of extending the original deadline of June 30th to beyond that with one exception.
Since being installed, more than 40% of city employees had taken advantage of the program, which allows for each employee to receive up to 80 hours and was mandated as part of the CARES Act during 2020 and option in 2021.
City Administrator Sarah Hellekson added that the vaccine was not available when the leave was first extended.
Councilmember Dave Steele agreed that as long as a city employee could get vaccinated, they should not be allowed to utilize the policy.
Councilmember Dan Buchanan made the motion to extend the policy through October, adding the language that limited the policy to those who could not receive the COVID-19 vaccination. The committee unanimously approved. Councilmember David Schloegel was not present.
Later, Councilmember Steele informed the committee of the need for State of ND CARES Act reimbursement to be used toward infrastructure and building repairs and improvements at the Frontier Village.
The amount of $25,000 was considered to be paid from the Frontier Village Fund to begin some of those repairs, which Steele says isn’t enough to do it all, but Jamestown Tourism was looking to collect donations to move forward with more repairs.
Mayor Heinrich added they could move forward after having exhausted all other needs for the CARES Act funds.
The motion was made and approved unanimously.
In other committee business, the committee approved to create a public hearing for June 7th at the regular City Council meeting to discuss creating a James River Valley Library Building Fund for the purpose of construction, addition, alteration, purchasing land, or purchasing a building.
The committee also moved to recommend paying the $480,000 portion of the $600,000 JSDC request for the next steps in the Buffalo City Park project.