By Chad Ingram

The County of Haliburton has closed its office on Newcastle Street in Minden as of 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday March 17.

County councillors held a special meeting Tuesday morning where they passed some perfunctory resolutions. Regularly scheduled meetings of county council and its advisory committees have been suspended amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and chief administrative officer Mike Rutter told the paper that after Tuesday a number of county staffers would be working from home.

“We’re just trying to limit the number of people in the building” Rutter said reassuring the public this was not a paid vacation for staff. “Everyone is really working – we’re not paying them to stay home.”

A number of ongoing county projects are subject to timelines including the service delivery review the county is having performed for itself and its four lower-tier townships which is supposed to be completed by mid-June in accordance with grant funding. Rutter told the paper the county will be seeking relief from the province on some of its timelines in the wake of the COVID-19 situation and that a list of those projects was being sent to Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Laurie Scott.

Initially Tuesday’s special meeting had been called to discuss the county’s draft shoreline preservation bylaw but those conversations have been put on hold indefinitely until such time as county business is able to return to normal.