Recovery & Resilience
What will it take to recover from COVID-19 and how do we build lasting resilience into the future?
Background Information and Key Issues:
Our community is being significantly impacted by COVID-19. These impacts both make existing challenges worse and are likely to persist well into the future. The size and uncertainty of the challenges make enhanced partnerships across sectors and collaboration with the broader community critical for successfully getting through the current crisis – and becoming more resilient for the challenges of the future.
The four general local governments came together in June, and jointly agreed to work in close partnership to provide the structure for an inclusive and coordinated community-wide approach to recovery and resilience. The City joined Jefferson County, the Port of Port Townsend and the Jefferson County PUD to form the Intergovernmental Collaborative Group (ICG) with representation from all elected members.
The purpose of the ICG is to adopt a COVID-19 Recovery and Resiliency Plan that endorses community-based actions to better recover from the impacts of the pandemic and build greater ability to weather future events. These actions are meant to be specific projects and initiatives that are tangible, fundable, legal and able to be implemented in the near term. Projects and initiatives are meant to empower the community directly to support long-term resiliency with an emphasis on what individuals, organizations and businesses can do together, with an appropriate supportive role by local government to assist those community projects and initiatives.
To those ends and to expedite quick progress, the Collaborative Group has designated two representatives from each of the four organizations – one elected, one chief executive – as the Intergovernmental Coordinating Committee (ICC). The Committee will recommend a Recovery and Resiliency Plan to the ICG and provides a regular, monthly interface with the community. The Committee will consider strategies and actions brought forward by six community-based groups comprised of people with specific expertise and/or sector experience and representing different sectors for inclusion in the plan. The groups include:
Culture & Events |Economy & Jobs |Children & Families | Human Services |Food System Resiliency | Broadband
Those groups are meant to work quickly, collaboratively and constructively over the next 3-4 months to develop those tangible, fundable, and legal actions that are able to be implemented in the near term. Proposals from each group will come to the ICC for consideration in October and may be incorporated into a plan ultimately adopted by the ICG in December 2020. Actions are meant to be short-term actions that build momentum and early success for issues that may require a subsequent set of longer-term solutions developed at a later stage.
Objectives/Desired Outcome(s):
A community-informed and community-wide COVID-19 recovery and resilience action plan, mobilizing collective efforts for near-term action and setting the table for longer-term success and collaboration.
Fiscal Considerations:
It’s clear that COVID-19 has already caused major impacts to the financial sustainability of individuals, organizations, businesses, and agencies. While some of the actions are expected to focus on partnerships or policy change, some will undoubtedly require an approach to funding. The six focus area groups will likely bring forward such funding approaches and priorities. Overall, drawing on a collaborative approach and working through top near-term priorities is meant to enhance the chances that local priority projects and initiatives will be successful in attracting state or federal funding.
Outcome :
The Intergovernmental Collaborative Group unanimously adopted the community-driven COVID Recovery and Resilience Action Plan and is now assisting in ongoing implementation.
Contact Information:
John Mauro | City Manager and ICC member | jmauro@cityofpt.us | (360) 379-5043
