{"id":2457241,"date":"2020-04-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=324432"},"modified":"2020-04-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T06:00:00","slug":"an-army-of-people-cdale-creates-covid-19-task-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/an-army-of-people-cdale-creates-covid-19-task-force\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An army of people\u2019: C\u2019dale creates COVID-19 task force"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/corona.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/corona.jpg 960w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/corona-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/corona-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\"><figcaption><strong>A Centers for Disease Control illustration of the COVID-19 coronavirus.<\/strong><br \/><em><\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">Carbondale officially ratified the emergency task force organized to coordinate relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Board of Trustees also voted to allocate $10,000 to LIFT-UP, which has been providing meals to Carbondale residents two days per week, and another $10,000 to the Aspen Community Foundation for Carbondale relief efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Carbondale Emergency Task Force started in March, led by Mayor Dan Richardson. The group includes representatives from Carbondale Chamber and Carbondale Tourism, Carbondale Arts, Carbondale Police Department, and other community volunteers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to authorize the task force, which will push several key initiatives during the pandemic including, but not limited to:<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/at-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">Advocating for greater availability of testing for the novel coronavirus<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">Advocating for more protective equipment for health workers<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">Encouraging landlords to refrain from rent increases, evictions, foreclosures and service fee hikes<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">Advocating for a moratorium on eviction proceedings and relaxation of mortgage deadlines<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">Encouraging residents and businesses to abide by social distancing guidelines<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The task force also is coordinating many volunteer relief programs, and in the past few weeks has grown substantially.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThis has turned into a really large effort,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThe task force has probably over 100 volunteers working for it right now. We have over 50 partners, and I think we have around 20 neighborhood heroes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The neighborhood heroes are assigned a specific part of town (which is divided into about 100 districts for this purpose) and act as coordinators for relief, Richardson said, making sure everyone in their area is aware of resources and connecting them with services if needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Many volunteers are runners, bringing meals or other necessary supplies to people throughout town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">There are other smaller initiatives that the task force is involved in, as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThere\u2019s a masks group for our valley where people are sewing and making masks for the general public and for our health care workers,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Others are working to try and source local food to LIFT-UP in case the charity has difficulty with food supply chains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThere\u2019s just an army of people making all this happen,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">One major focus of the task force is creating a system to understand the extent of the crisis, Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe\u2019re building a dashboard so we understand how many beds are available, how many people are sick, how many are out of work,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThat\u2019s been a little bit more work than we anticipated, so the dashboard is still in development phase. But the idea is, we\u2019ll build a dashboard and then we\u2019ll offer the support that the dashboard indicates is necessary,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The town didn\u2019t have any official requests for grants, but Richardson suggested that the town put some money toward relief efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">How much to give is a difficult decision, and the trustees agreed that caution was important in the uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Carbondale\u2019s revenues were in good shape at the beginning of the year, Town Manager Jay Harrington said, but what sales tax will be like the rest of the year is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\"> \u201cIt\u2019s obviously going to be a significant reduction, (but) whether it\u2019s 15, 20 or 40 percent is a really a moving target based on who\u2019s modeling you\u2019re looking at for local municipalities,\u201d Harrington said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">LIFT-UP and the Aspen Community Foundation were selected as recipients of the first round of funding in part because the town has close relationships with those groups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Aspen Community Foundation can deliver grants to other nonprofits in the Carbondale area that need funding for COVID-19 relief programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Emergency funding, which comes from the town reserves, will be revisited in several weeks at the next town board meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThis is a time when we should be using our reserves. This is what we save them for,\u201d Trustee Marty Silverstein said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\"><span class=\"Body Copy Italic\"><a href=\"mailto:tphippen@postindependent.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/an-army-of-people-cdale-creates-covid-19-task-force\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Centers for Disease Control illustration of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Carbondale officially ratified the emergency task force organized to coordinate relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Board of Trustees also voted to allocate $10,000 to LIFT-UP, which has been providing meals to Carbondale residents two days per week, and another $10,000 to the Aspen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 03:41:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}