City council chambers not yet ready for in-person meetings

The Homer City Council has a regular meeting scheduled for tonight, as well as a committee of the whole meeting, but city hall is still lacking some crucial equipment to allow councilmembers to meet in person. The city’s Jenny Carroll explained it on Thursday’s Covid Brief.
    “We are just like  many supply chains around the  country are experiencing this  anywhere from police vehicles all the way down,” she said. “It's a long wait for materials these days. And I'm really sorry that the timing has worked out that way, but that's what we are up against at this point.”
    The City of Homer is edging ever-closer to being able to remove Covid-19 restrictions in city facilities, but Carroll said masks are still required in city buildings, despite the recent guidance from the CDC regarding masking.
    Carroll pointed out that while the CDC has new guidance for full-vaccinated individuals, its advice for businesses and employers has not changed.
    “And that has been our policy, and it takes into consideration a couple of things; Many people, as we've just heard in the statistics that Derotha and Lorne gave, are still unvaccinated.  Vaccines aren't yet authorized for children under 12 years of age, there are immune compromised individuals, there are people who just don't, for one reason or another, don't get the vaccine,” Carroll said. “Our city facilities are open to the public and as such we feel like masks are a simple measure to protect those in our community who are more vulnerable to serious illness. And it helps make the public facilities open and accessible to all.”
    She added that as an employer, the city has an obligation to keep its employees safe.
    You can hear the city council’s committee of the whole meeting live on KBBI at 5, followed by the regular council meeting at 6 p.m.