Sechelt Coun. Matt McLean says he’s concerned the reduced hours for front desk service at the municipal hall may be confusing and creating the impression that the district isn’t available to respond as well as it could before the pandemic.
During the presentation of the departmental progress reports for the third quarter at the Nov. 25 committee of the whole meeting, McLean asked why the office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. but the front desk is only staffed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“What is the operational requirement for the difference?” McLean asked. “Why can't we be open a full day?”
Director of finance David Douglas said it’s a question of restricting the times the general public can be physically in the office. He also said most front counter interactions involve making payments.
“There’ve been no complaints about the facility being only open 10 to three,” Douglas said. “And most people can get here to do their transactions. It’s just really reducing the risk to our staff.”
Douglas said mangers are also limiting in-person meetings for people who want to talk to someone in planning, for example, to five minutes.
Human resources manager Lindsay Roberts also said a plan to increase the hours was put on hold because of the latest orders from the provincial health officer.
“We’ve been asked to reduce contacts and not bring in more people than we have been previously,” she said.
McLean said he was concerned the district was creating the impression municipal hall isn’t open at all and “that we’re not quite as available due to COVID.”
“To me that’s a concern,” he said.
Communications manager Julie Rogers told McLean that “in some ways we're actually providing better service than we ever have before our staff were working from home.”
Rogers said that’s largely because of the district’s efforts to make the public aware of alternatives to dropping by the office and staff’s willingness to reply quickly to queries “on multiple platforms.”
The shift to more people interacting with the district online is also being given as the reason for a proposed $66,000 revamp to the Sechelt website, which could be funded through the safe restart grant.
“The website is our single most important communications tool,” a written report from Rogers presented later in the meeting said. “At a time when our staff and our community are working online more and more to avoid face‐to‐face interactions, a robust website with easy to find information and broad capabilities is more important than ever.”
