PEABODY — Things are starting to look a little more like normal at City Hall. Despite the drought, the grass is still green and members of the public are gradually gaining greater access to the building and city services.
The building opened to the public, by appointment only, last week. Beginning next week, the city will offer expanded services to give residents more options in how they transact their business. The city plans to set up two tents for service, sidewalk or curbside-style, outside in front of the building for residents who are uncomfortable about entering the building who nonetheless need to communicate directly with City Hall employees.
“We have started to open the building now and it has been open for appointments since last week. We’re not getting many people, but it was important to open for appointments,” said Mayor Ted Bettencourt. “The next step for us is starting a program where we will have two tents out front with greeters along with people who will take in information and set up meetings with the different departments or even the different departments will have people go out and meet with people.”
The tents will be manned every day from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bettencourt said if something needs immediate attention, “we’ll send it right up.” For other requests, such as dog licenses and marriage certificates, Bettencourt said the business will be completed within 24 hours of the request, adding, “which is kind of what we’ve been doing now anyway.”
“This is a fantastic way to have City Hall reopen with safety protocols in place,” said City Council President Tom Rossignoll. “It’s been a long time coming and I know a lot of people missed interacting with the employees for a lot of reasons, so this is a great way to go about reopening.
Bettencourt said the tents are just the first steps in what he hopes will be a gradual reopening of the building to the public.
“What I’m hoping is we will be able to get into the building once the weather gets colder, but the greeters will still be there for the city,” he said “It’s not going to be fully operational where the doors are wide open, but it’s going to something offering much more access every week. That’s why having the greeters will be so important, they are going to be so instrumental.”
According to Bettencourt, all departments are operating on rotating schedules. A few offices have been fully staffed including the City Clerk’s office, the tax collector’s office, the health department and office of veterans services.
“We’ve been open with people in here every day so we have been operating fully, the only difference is the building was closed to the public,” Bettencourt said.
The move is just another in a series of the city’s attempt to resume pre-pandemic practices for the conduct of city business. In mid-August, the School Committee voted to return to in-person meetings. The meetings, held at the Higgins Middle School, are now broadcast live on Peabody Access Telecommunications (PAT).
On August 27, the City Council followed suit and held its first in-person meeting at the Wiggin Auditorium late February/early March. As with the School Committee, the meetings are limited to committee members and necessary staff and are broadcast live on PAT and are also available for later viewing on PAT’s website and Facebook pages.
Bettencourt said he wants people to know that city business is being taken care of.
“I want to make it clear to people that say, ‘how can you open schools when City Hall isn’t open?’ That’s just not true, City Hall is open, all of our employees are here,” he said. “It’s true that you just can’t walk in as we’re not allowing that type of access, but we have people in here every day.
“Our city employees are working. Some are working a couple of days in and a couple of days at home, but we are open for business.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].