The Grant County Court, in an emergency planning meeting to address the new coronavirus March 6, named Deputy Dave Dobler, county search and rescue coordinator, as incident commander of a new task force.

Due to new guidance from the Oregon Health Authority, the informational meeting scheduled for March 12th at 6:30pm will not be open to the public. The meeting will be broadcast by KJDY and live-steamed on Facebook by the Grant County Health Department and the Blue Mountain Eagle.

Kimberly Lindsay, Community Counseling Solutions CEO said up-to-date information regarding the the coronavirus can be found at communitycounselingsolutions.org/centers/grant-county-health-department. Lindsay said this will be the county’s official website for the coronavirus task force.

Although there are no known cases in Grant County, Dobler, along with his 30 search and rescue volunteers, will track people in the community who may have the virus using search and rescue software and will share the information with agencies such as police, fire and emergency medical services.

“We owe it to our community to be proactive,” Dobler said.

Dobler said the task force would also focus on prevention. He said there is more the county could do, such as hiring a part-time employee to circulate through the community to sanitize frequently used surfaces such as door handles, surfaces and keypads in public places.

“You can say, ‘Well, those are the business’ problem,’” Dobler said. “Actually, those are all of our problems.”

Dobler said the area has limited police, fire and EMS.

“Our ability to respond is limited if we are sick, and our community deserves better,” he said.

Dobler proposed the creation of an emergency operations center to be open during business hours. Dobler said he wants to set up phone lines, a website and an exclusive email addresses to track information about illnesses within the community.

He said, should there be any outbreaks within any neighboring communities, the hours could be increased, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And should there be any confirmed cases in the county, the center could operate around the clock.

Dobler said the task force would work with the schools, health care providers and senior centers to ensure people are following “good hygeine.”

“We are a small community, and the nice thing about being small is that we can be agile and do things that bigger communities are not going to do because politically they are afraid to take those steps,” Dobler said. “I don’t think we are in a community that is afraid to take those steps.”

Dobler said he would like to have a plan in place should any emergency dispatchers get sick. Dobler said he does not know what that plan would look like, but would like to have it tested within seven days. He said he would like to coordinate with Condon and Baker City on the testing. He said there is a process in place, but he needs to test it.

County Judge Scott Myers said the county currently has an Office of Emergency Management. Myers asked if Dobler’s intent was to change emergency management or include it in the process.

Dobler said it was to include emergency management.

Ted Williams, the county’s emergency management coordinator, said he had been monitoring the coronavirus and that the county health department should be the lead agency.

Dobler said the health department was invited to work within the structure his organization has created.

“They will decide how much they will be in,” Dobler said. “Hopefully it will be all in.”

Williams said he wanted to work together and not create redundancy by duplicating efforts. He said he worked on an emergency plan for four years.

The court suggested that Williams and Dobler work together and said now, given the seriousness of the virus, is not the time for infighting.

On Monday, Williams resigned, citing concerns about the task force and the lack of an emergency plan being followed.

Williams said the emergency plan he submitted in 2019 covered pandemics, viruses and other biohazards, and listed the health department as the lead agency. He said he was blindsided by the creation of the task force by the sheriff’s office at Friday’s meeting.

“We have a vulnerable population in Grant County,” Williams said. “For county court and the sheriff’s office to go off on their own puts people at risk.”