As delta variant surges, Petaluma city staff, council lag in vaccinations

As the delta variant surges among the unvaccinated and county health officials reinstate indoor mask recommendations, Petaluma officials are still hopeful they’ll be able to partially reopen city hall and council chambers to the public this fall.

But with inconsistent levels of personal comfort – and vaccination status – among city council and staff, along with undetermined safety measures for in-person public meetings, details of a potential return remain unclear.

“This is all definitely a moving target, but we’re going to move deliberately through this,” Assistant City Manager Brian Cochran said.

City staff and leaders are gearing up for a second round of discussions and a possible vote Monday to allocate $2.75 million in federal pandemic recovery funds toward an extensive renovation of both city hall and city council chambers to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions and hybrid virtual meetings.

Yet behind the scenes, vaccination rates among city staff appear out of step with the community as a whole.

As of Wednesday, the city’s 327-person workforce is 67% vaccinated, Cochran said, a few percentage points behind the county’s recently-surpassed 70% milestone.

Across Petaluma, vaccination rates surpass both the countywide rate and city staff rate, with 84.1% of residents aged 12 and older inoculated in the 94952 zip code, and 85.8% in 94954.

And just six of the seven Petaluma City Council members are fully vaccinated.

Council member D’Lynda Fischer said she is not vaccinated, citing advice from her healthcare provider, and Fischer declined to say whether she encourages her constituents to receive the vaccine or if she supports vaccination recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control or Sonoma County’s Department of Public Health.

“My focus has really been on the cool city challenge over the past two months, and that’s where my energies are,” Fischer said Tuesday, referring to a city-wide carbon neutrality initiative.

But for several city council members, higher vaccination rates remains a key component for potentially moving forward with the reopening plan, and could dictate whether Petaluma City Hall will welcome back a full council for in-person meetings.

Mayor Teresa Barrett said this week that she doesn’t anticipate a quick shift to in-person meetings anytime soon.

“I am willing to go back, and I do think in-person meetings have a lot to offer people. But I also understand it can’t be only in-person meetings,” she said. “So that’s the big post-COVID change, that I don’t think there will ever be meetings that aren’t also simultaneously streaming.”

Council will weigh in on a proposal Aug. 2 to commit $2.5 million to reconfigure City Hall to meet several COVID-19 safety standards, such as creating more space between employees, establishing a new permit center, and replacing its aging HVAC system.

Another $250,000 is proposed to prepare city council chambers for hybrid virtual and in-person public meetings, which will replace technology systems and renovate seating arrangements both on the dais and in the public seating section.

Council member Kevin McDonnell said he’s eager to return to in-person meetings after more than a year, missing the energy and ease of communication that doesn’t translate to Zoom screens. But he’s supportive of a more cautious approach,

“I am worried that people who are unvaccinated are slowing our progress to full reopening,” he said. “We really have to get a real confidence so we can live in a post-COVID world. This isn’t one of those things where there is room for compromise, because this is a life or death scenario.”

Cochran said members of the public are still required to wear a mask while at city facilities, and said employees who interact with the public are also required to don face coverings.

Yet for that limited percentage of city staff that have returned to the office, Cochran said the city has implemented a “vaccine for mask” trade-off. For those who show proof of vaccination, masks are optional.

But whether this policy will transfer to city hall and to city council chambers is not clear, and there have been no formal discussions among city leadership over the possibility of implementing vaccine requirements for either staff, council or visiting members of the public.

Across the country this week, several states and cities announced vaccination requirements for government workforces, demanding employees either show proof of vaccination or submit to regular COVID-19 test and health screenings.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared such a requirement for the state’s 246,000 employees, along with all public and private healthcare workers.

Municipalities appear headed toward similar requirements, with Pasadena becoming the first such city in the state to follow suit.

In Petaluma, city council members say they haven’t yet discussed the possibility or requiring proof of vaccinations for either city staff or for members of the public wishing to enter city council chambers.

But for council member Dennis Pocekay, a retired physician, vaccine passports for city workers is something he’s willing to seriously consider, as rising case numbers stir concerns.

“That is where I’d like to see the city go,” he said. “I think it’s reasonable to ask something else of folks that have decided not to get vaccinated, like regular testing. It is hard for me to accept there is a good reason in most cases for someone to not get vaccinated.”

Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.