Staff at the Comox Community Centre are temporarily off the job.
The centre closed on March 16th as part of the response to the COVID–19 crisis.
The closure and financial impact of the crisis prompted the decision to temporarily lay off some permanent employees.
The layoff will be until such time as it safe to reopen the centre for public use.
Since the closure, the permanent employees have been doing maintenance, deep cleaning and processing registration cancellations and changes.
Mayor Russ Arnott said he was “saddened that this decision was necessary.”
He believes the community centre workers have “always served our citizens diligently and professionally,” and is confident they will continue to do so again “when we can all get back to work and play.”
In making this decision, the town intends to fully comply with all the requirements of its Collective Agreement with employees.
As well, it has agreed to continue to pay the full cost of employee health benefits to ensure all employees maintain coverage during this period.
The Town has also attempted to mitigate the impact of this layoff on employees by offering to reassign certain staff to other departments where possible and where social distancing rules permit.
