City Manager's Messages

March 20, 2020 — As we close out our first week of public facility closure, I want to take a moment to thank you all for the outstanding professionalism in the face of adversity that you have shown during this pandemic crisis. While not surprising to me, I assure you that your continued commitment to excellent service has been much appreciated by the City Council, your senior leadership team, me and —
most importantly — the community.

I understand that these times are anxiety-filled. No one can definitively answer all of the questions we all naturally ask in times like this. However, we were very fortunate to have Dr. Steve Julian, our local health district director, spend about a half hour answering questions on Facebook Live. For those of you who have not yet had a chance to review this discussion, I strongly urge you to find time to review the replay of that meeting, which is found on our Hampton government Facebook page and on the city's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIOHfsYciU.

As we look forward to next week, we plan to continue the public facility closure with employees continuing to work either at home, in the office in socially distanced environments or in the field. Our overriding goals remain ensuring that all our employees are first safe, and second can remain employed with regular pay checks following as work continues. To be clear — since I had several questions about my email earlier this week — our practices in this pandemic apply to all employees, whether full-time, part-time or WAE. Department heads have been instructed to find meaningful work for all categories of employees, even if that is in support of other departments that have higher workloads during this pandemic. 

Our national, state and local pandemic responses are going to be more running a marathon than a sprint, so we need to make sure we are taking care of ourselves and our families. Please know that your leadership team will continue to do all we reasonably can to support you through this difficult time. If you have any specific questions or concerns, please let us know.

Thanks again,  
— Mary