While we adapt to life in a coronavirus crisis, staying engaged and serving others as best we can is of crucial importance. The Mayor of Ypsilanti is spending some of her "Stay Home, Stay Safe" time reaching out to the community's senior citizens. Seniors are most at risk in this crisis and are more likely to be disconnected from electronic communication. Beth Bashert joined WEMU's David Fair to discuss her outreach efforts, community observations during shutdown, and explain current and future city operations.
City Hall is closed per the Governor's orders
The City is continuing to provide all essential services including, but not limited to:
- Garbage pickup
- Recycling pickup
- Police services
- Fire services
- Park maintenance
- Safety DPS services such as dangerous trees, etc
- Many staff are working from home
- All staff is continuing to be paid by the city and we are planning on continuing this as long as fiscally possible
Changes in services:
- Issuing no parking tickets and planning waiving late fees on existing tickets (Time frame of waived tickets TBD and will be based on timeline, etc).
- Interior building inspections are halted for the duration
- Permits for construction cannot be started at this time. Staff is working on completing existing permits
- Work around solutions for basic home projects that need permits to allow small projects while Sheltering in Place at home
- Our EMT Fire fighters are responding to life threatening emergencies only. We have limited fire fighters and increased calls means increased exposures and we have to maintain enough staff for actual fires
- No changes in police coverage or services
RESOURCES:
City of Ypsilanti Civic Alerts
City of Ypsilanti COVID-19 Response
Michigan Executive Order 2020-21
Bashert's Bi-Weekly Mayoral Bulletin (03/20/20)
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— David Fair is the WEMU News Director and host of Morning Edition on WEMU. You can contact David at734.487.3363, on twitter @DavidFairWEMU, or email him at dfair@emich.edu
