Osseo, New Hope, Brooklyn Park Declare Local Emergencies
The Osseo City Council added their city’s name to the growing list of local governments in the northwest metro to declare a local emergency in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. During the Tuesday, March 23 council meeting – held over video conference to abide by social distancing recommendations, Mayor Duane Poppe read a proclamation declaring the emergency.
City staff pointed out that the declaration was not because anyone in Osseo has come down with the illness. Rather, a local emergency declaration allows Osseo to potentially recoup some expenses such as overtime related to the outbreak from the state.
Brooklyn Park and New Hope councils also held remote-meetings Tuesday night. Brooklyn Park Mayor Jeffrey Lunde declared a local emergency on March 16, and Tuesday night the council voted unanimously to extend that declaration indefinitely, until the council agrees to end it.
New Hope, too, declared a local emergency in their remote meeting. That city has closed City Hall, and are no longer routinely providing non-essential services. New Hope anticipates potentially losing more than $400,000 due to the closure of the New Hope Ice Arena and, should the COVID-19 situation last into the summer, the closure of the city golf course as well. The emergency declaration could allow the city to recoup at least some of those losses.
Plymouth and Brooklyn Center have also declared local emergencies.
Brandon Bankston, Reporting
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