SPANISH FORT – City facilities should reopen soon with regular hours in upcoming weeks as state COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed, Spanish Fort officials said.
At the City Council work session Monday, May 3, officials said facilities, including City Hall, the Public Library and Senior Center, will return to the level of operations in place before the pandemic. Mayor Mike McMillan said residents have been asking when city restrictions will be lifted.
“I’ve gotten a lot of emails about wanting this facility to be reopened and I think it’s time to move forward.,” McMillan said.
He said restrictions such as temperature checks at the front door of City Hall will be lifted.
“I think we’ve got a good plan. We’ll change the way we do things. Let’s go back to what we were doing,” McMillan said. “No more temperature checks at the front door, although for at least two weeks, there will be temperature checks back in the Senior Center until the new state standards come into play.”
City Clerk Rebecca Gaines said that while the Alabama state of emergency order are expected to be in place until July 6, the orders affecting facilities such as the Senior Center should be lifted at the end of May.
A notice on the city Facebook page said the Senior Center would reopen on Monday, May 10. The gym and programming would resume at that time. Alabama Department of Senior Services regulations will require that employees conduct temperature and symptom checks of members and that members maintain social distancing and take other precautions.
McMillan said the library should also be extending its hours of operations. The library is now open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to information on the city website.
“As far as the library, that, of course, needs to come to the Library Board, so the Library Board will be addressing that in two weeks about the new hours or reverting to the old hours is what we’d really be doing,” McMillan said.
The mayor said the city should also soon return to taking reservations for activities at the Spanish Fort Kids Park and the municipal Community Center.
The City Council voted March 16, 2020 to declare and emergency and close City Hall, the Public Library, Senior Center and other municipal facilities at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
McMillan said that with the number of cases dropping, many residents vaccinated and state restrictions being lifted, the time has come to complete the reopening of those facilities.
“So, we’ll revert back to the old way of doing business a year and a half ago, normal business,” McMillan said.
