Vaccine scheduling ‘cumbersome and challenging,’ Carson City supervisors told

Carson City Health and Human Services is working on a deploying a new appointment system for its coronavirus vaccination program after experiencing problems with the current application.

“The system is cumbersome and challenging,” Jeanne Freeman with the emergency operations center told the Board of Supervisors Thursday.

The existing system indicates there are no more appointments until May when the week’s calendar gets booked up, but Freeman said that is incorrect.

“We open up appointments every week. It’s the fault of the system and we’re working on solutions,” she said.

Allocations to Carson City is another issue. The city receives varying amounts of vaccine doses each week and CCHHS cannot open the appointment schedule until it knows, usually on Thursday, how many doses it will receive. This coming week, for example, the city allocation is dropping.

“The doses are reduced significantly this coming week,” said Freeman.

Mayor Lori Bagwell said she had spoken to residents who believed the city had had to throw away some vaccines.

“We have wasted zero vaccines,” said Freeman.

The new appointment system CCHHS is looking into would still be online, but would provide clients with the documentation they need at their appointment and would send text reminders.

From Jan. 3-16, Carson City reported 418 positive cases, a 27 percent reduction from the previous two-week period.

“It is the direction we absolutely want to be headed,” said Freeman, who also said people must not waver in their precautions to wear masks, wash hands, and social distance, until as much as 80 percent of the population has been vaccinated.

The board also accepted a $112,013.37 grant from Nevada Department of Wildlife to continue improvements at the Carson Rifle and Pistol Range.

The improvements will include design of a baffle system for the long range, utility installation for a kiosk, shade structure treatment, tables for shooting bays, shooting benches, and trash receptacles.

Jennifer Budge, director, Parks, Recreation and Open Space, said 328 annual passes for the range have been sold since first offered in July, already covering 52 percent of the range’s costs.

The supervisors also augmented the city budget by $93.8 million.

“This is the biggest augmentation I’ve ever seen,” said Sheri Russell, chief financial officer.

Russell said the augmentation was due mostly to rollover of grant funds from the previous fiscal year, including funds for the $20 million South Carson Street project. The board had also held off on including capital improvement projects and supplemental requests in the budget passed earlier this year due to uncertainty around COVID-19, which were included in the augmentation, too, after sales tax revenue continued to perform well despite the public health crisis.

Bagwell said $300,000 will be used to add flashers in some school zones. The specific zones will be determined soon by the Regional Transportation Commission.

The board also made appointments to several committees. Donna Iverson was reappointed and Susan Martinovich and Mark Kimbrough appointed to the Open Space Advisory Committee.

On the Redevelopment Authority Citizens Committee, Court Cardinal and Gina Lopez were reappointed and Andi Fant was appointed. And Jed Block, Pamela Leonard Ray, and James Wells were appointed to the Board of Equalization.