Cariboo Regional District offices in 100 Mile House, Quesnel, and Williams Lake are now closed.
The CRD announced the closure of its offices Wednesday morning due to the rapidly changing situation around COVID-19.
“The CRD has been monitoring the COVID-19 situation very closely trying to ensure for the safety of the public as well as our staff,” says Chief Administrative Officer John MacLean.
“Based on the announcements that have been coming from Dr. Henry and Minister Dix we felt it was the appropriate time to close our doors to not deal with the public face to face in any of our operations in 100 Mile, Williams Lake, or in Quesnel.”
Despite the doors being closed MacLean says staff will remain working.
“The public can still access our services via email or on the phone through social media and we’ll continue to offer those essential services making sure that our water services, sewer services, landfills remain open and available to the people that need them and we’ll continue to work here in the office and to support those services,” he says.
“We are also preparing for the possibility that we might be asked to actually work from home. For many of us, we do have the technical capabilities of doing that and we’re making sure that our systems are robust and that people have their training up to date so if we do get asked to isolate and to not come into work that we can still manage to provide those essential services (water services, sewer services, landfills) to the public.”
MacLean encourages residents to check the official sources for the latest information on COVID-19 which includes the BC Centre for Disease Control and Health Canada.
“Here in BC we are blessed,” he says. “We at the Cariboo Regional District are big fans of Dr. Henry like everybody else and the briefings that she’s providing with Minister Dix every day. It’s good information and she’s pointing us to the right sources.”