Donora, Mon City make COVID-19 preparations

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

Officials in Donora and Monongahela have taken steps to prepare for their next meetings in light of the ongoing public health emergency.

Donora canceled its workshop meeting set for last night and will hold its regular voting meeting next Thursday at 6 p.m. as planned, but it will be broadcast live on Facebook.

There will be a live quorum of four council members, including President Joe Greco, and the other three council members will participate by conference call.

The meeting will be live streamed on the official Donora borough Facebook page. 

Residents can use the comment section to ask questions and at the end of the meeting, Greco said, he will ask for public comment as usual and will address them. 

Solicitor Steve Toprani said the borough is going to look at different technologies going forward due to the pandemic.

“We haven’t found the software to maximize public participation, but President Greco came up with a good plan here to all for public participation and follow the Sunshine Act and make sure the public is safe during the height of the pandemic,” Toprani said.

Monongahela Mayor Greg Garry declared a state of emergency Wednesday to make sure the city is ready to respond as the situation continues to unfold.

“The purpose of declaring an emergency now is to be proactive and place the city in the best position possible to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Garry said. “We all recognize that this situation affects all of us, and the city needs to have the appropriate mechanisms in place to cooperate with our neighboring municipalities, purchase emergency supplies and continue to keep our residents, businesses and visitors safe and healthy over the coming weeks.”

Monongahela council will hold a special meeting today at 1 p.m. to vote on an extension of that state of emergency declaration. 

In keeping with the stay-home order of the Governor, the public will be able to participate via a teleconference line by dialing 978-990-5000 and access code 194491#.

The workshop meeting set for Monday and the voting meeting set for Wednesday have been postponed until the last week of April and will be announced by council.

Garry said no health officials have indicated there are any COVID-19 patients in the city and “we want to keep it that way, and it is the city government’s responsibility to assist in that goal. At the same time, we encourage our residents to look after each other. This is a time for all of us to band together.” 

With the declaration, all parks in the city are now closed, including the Aquatorium, until further notice. All city facilities are closed to everyone except essential personnel.

In response to the hardships during this emergency, Donora has decided to extend the discount time period for paying borough garbage bills. 

The deadline to pay the discounted rate was supposed to be March 31 and it was originally extended to April 15. 

“But, seeing that people are out of work and some of our borough residents are out of work, we’re going to extend it to the end of April,” Greco said. 

“Hopefully the stimulus checks will be gotten and they can pay their garbage. They can still pay the discount rate until then.”