Carson City supervisors discuss pace of COVID-19 vaccine rollout

The new Carson City Board of Supervisors held its first meeting Thursday focusing on committee appointments and a discussion of the city’s coronavirus vaccine program.

Mayor Lori Bagwell told healthcare staff that citizens are concerned about the pace of the vaccine rollout, which started with police, fire and other emergency responders and is now available to education personnel but not yet the general public.

“We are not hoarding the vaccine and we will not waste it,” said Jeanne Freeman, emergency operations center.

By Saturday, CCHHS will have administered 5,077 vaccines in the Quad County area of Carson City, and Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties.

The vaccine program started with the so-called tier 1 individuals is and is now open to the first level of tier 2, which are educators and child care staff. Carson Tahoe Health staff are being vaccinated by the hospital.

“Tier 2 is massive compared to tier 1. We went through tier 1 quickly,” said Freeman.

She also said the tier system used by the state may be revised in the next couple of weeks and that CCHHS is reaching out to the state pharmacy board and other possible partners about administering vaccines, but there are some hurdles such as requirements for storing the vaccine and the substantial data collection required.

Supervisor Stacey Giomi made it clear that organizations like Sierra Nevada Health Centers, where he is director of facilities security and emergency preparedness, will be administering vaccines when they become available for the wider public.

“Organizations like mine and other agencies are signing up. They’ll be making those outbound calls to their patients. This isn’t all going to be on Carson City Health,” he said.

Between Dec. 20 and Jan. 2, there were 590 positive cases for coronavirus in Carson City, a 64 percent decrease from the previous two-week period, said Nicki Aaker, director, CCHHS.

Aaker said the decrease was due to no new inmate cases in the city’s prisons, which made up a third of previously reported cases.

In other business, the board passed an emergency ordinance to suspend penalty fees until September for late renewals of business licenses.

Hope Sullivan, planning manager, said the city has been struggling with a new online system for business licenses that has delayed the process through no fault of the businesses.

"This will also allow them to make partial payments on their fees so I definitely support this," said Bagwell.

The new board also made their annual appointments to committees and commissions.

Bagwell was reappointed to the Regional Transportation Commission, the Audit Committee, and the Nevada League of Cities.

She and Giomi, the only other returning supervisor, were reappointed to the Western Nevada Legislative Coalition. Giomi was named mayor pro tem. He was also reappointed to the Nevada Association of Counties.

Supervisor Stan Jones was placed on the Airport Authority, the Cultural Commission, and the Debt Management Commission.

Supervisor Maurice White was appointed to NevadaWorks, Northern Nevada Development Authority, and Western Nevada Development District.

Supervisor Lisa Schuette was appointed to the Redevelopment Authority Citizens Committee and joins Giomi on the Carson Water Subconservancy District. She was also appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission and RTC in a separate action after some discussion whether to appoint her or White to those committees.

The board appointed Nathaniel Killgore, nominated by White, and Sena Loyd, nominated by Schuette, to the Planning Commission, and John Terry, retired transportation engineer, to the RTC.