By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — Some of the time that the Casco Town Hall was closed by Covid-19 were days that the office was going to be closed anyway.  

The week before Christmas, an employee for the Town of Casco tested positive for the Coronavirusand the office was closed down for 14 days, according to Casco Interim Town Manager Don Gerrish.

The incident has resulted in tougher policies. The employees are taking extra steps to avoid exposing one another or themselves or the public to the virus. 

“We have opened up again. We are even more stringent now,” Gerrish said. “Only two people [customers] at a time in the office. Many people are not in the office. Some work from home. We hold staff meetings on Zoom.”

“We take the temperature of all employees” who come into the office to work, he said.

Additionally, the positive test of a town employee created some caution in the Casco selectmen, who decided to cancel Tuesday’s meeting and wait until Jan. 19 to meet again,  Gerrish said.  

It was the week before Christmas that an employee with flu-like symptoms received a positive test results after getting tested for Covid-19.

The timing was such that the two-week closure was broken up by Christmas Day, a holiday when the office was scheduled to be closed.

“We had an employee who tested positive,” Gerrish said. “We found out about on it on Thursday (Dec. 17) after closing the office because of the snowstorm. An employee had not felt well. We asked them to be tested. The test results came back Thursday.” 

“We were closed on that day because of the snowstorm. We closed that Friday and the whole next week,” he said. “We had the offices cleaned thoroughly cleaned.” 

“All the employees were tested to make sure that we knew if anyone else had come down with it. Everyone was tested. Everyone’s test came backnegative,” he said.

During this time period, some residents still had to register vehicles with the Town of Casco. Therefore, the Town of Naples offered to do that service for three days, Dec. 21, 22, and 23 — the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Christmas.  

“What happens is you go through the state, and the state allows another community to do registrations I talked to the town manager in Naples {John Hawley} and he said they could do that,” Gerrish said.  

“For three-and-a-half days, anyone who needed to do a vehicle registration went to the Naples Town Hall,” he said, adding that Naples got to keep the administrative fee, but essentially collected the excise tax for the Town of Casco.

“The excise tax — they collected it and will send us a check,” Gerrish said.