The city of Dover plans to reopen its offices in March.
City offices in Delaware’s capital closed to the public Nov. 5 and have been operating over the phone, online or through Dover’s drive-through window since.
Dover’s acting City Manager Matt Harline says the city plans to start offering in-person services again starting March 8th. He says three guidelines are driving the decision.
“Number one: the health and safety of our employees and the public we serve. Number two: providing good customers to the citizens, business and visitors of Dover,” said Harline. “And then the third thing is to make sure we maintain equity between the different employees so we’re not asking more of a sacrifice or more effort of one versus the other.”
City police and waste management have been operating normally while much of the office workers have been working remotely while the offices have been closed to the public.
Harline says the restart date for the offices could change, depending on the spread of the virus and the availability of vaccine for city employees.
“I’m hoping that we have the opportunity to offer vaccines to a number of our employees to reduce the risk, if we do that,” he said.
Harline notes most city employees are part of the 1C vaccine group, which is tentatively scheduled to begin getting shots around the start of March.
The city has about 350 employees. Harline says there is one active COVID case among them and a total of 51 have tested positive—most in the weeks between late October and early December.
