The cities of Kalona and Wellman announced their plans for re-opening their respective city halls.

Both cities plan to have their city halls fully staffed on June 1.

“Our plan is that June 1 we go back to the open-door policy at City Hall,” Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh said.

In Wellman, however, there will be no open-door policy. City officials plan to keep the office door locked.

“The plan right now is we’re looking at having everybody back in the office at City Hall on June 1,” Wellman City Administrator Kelly Litwiller said. “We are going to keep the office closed to the public as we have been, because we have been able to do what we need to do.”

Litwiller suggested a way of keeping the city office door locked permanent.

She pointed out that there is a small window off to the side of the main office door.

“We’ve talked about seeing whether we can put a sliding window that will go up and down that will allow us to conduct business and have a shield in front of us,” she said. “It would help the whole security issue we’ve talked about a while back.”

Anyone needing to come inside the office could make an appointment to do so.

“If someone needed to come in and look at maps or something, obviously they would be allowed to come in,” Litwiller said. “The new normal is not going to be what it was in the past.”

Wellman Mayor Ryan Miller approved of the idea.

“Some people when they come in there just lounge around and stand and talk,” Miller said. “I think that’s a good idea. You could really limit the amount of people coming into the office.”

Both cities addressed other services as well.

Schlabaugh proposed a phased opening of restrooms at City Park.

“We would look to open a restroom after Memorial Day – the north restroom – and leave the shower house and the second restroom down there and review that on June 15,” Schlabaugh said. “That will give us time to see how the re-opening and the numbers look with Washington County Public Health and allow us to ease our way into opening those things up in a socially responsible manner and one that we, as staff, can maintain.”

He also discussed whether to open the tennis courts.

“I have had a request to see if the council would allow the tennis courts to be opened for tennis and pickleball,” he said.

“I’m pretty antsy to start playing pickleball again, but I think we should wait until June 1,” Kalona council member Craig Spitzer said.

In Wellman, Litwiller said that city workers would maintain their current protocols.

“I feel like at this point that we use the same protocols that we have where we do have the PPE available if you have to enter somebody’s home,” she said. “We’re only going in if we absolutely have to.”