To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Kristin Read, Assistant Town Manager
Title
Discussion/Direction: Face Covering Communications and Potential Giveaway
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Executive Summary
At its special meeting regarding face coverings in Castle Rock on July 14, Council directed staff to pursue education surrounding face coverings, as well as to explore a program for giving away face coverings. The purpose of this agenda item is to follow up on that direction.
Public education plan
Following Council’s direction, Community Relations staff developed a high-level communication plan to educate the community about face coverings. This draft is in Attachment A.
Given opinions within the community are split on the topic, and that numerous other efforts are in place providing similar information, the team recommends a relatively short campaign, beginning immediately upon Council’s approval and lasting about two weeks. Proposed tactics include social media posts, a video and a feature in the August Your Town Talk newsletter, which goes out with Castle Rock Water bills.
The messaging is proposed to stress that when not mandated by State orders and variances, or by private businesses, wearing a face covering is a choice - and that the choices made in this regard should be respected within the community. The only anticipated expenditures related to this plan would be for stock images and video production, and these could be accommodated within existing appropriations and would be eligible for reimbursement under the CARES Act.
Staff welcomes Council’s feedback on the plan.
Face covering giveaway
Also per Council direction, staff began exploring options to give away face coverings. Two considerations initially explored were cost and need.
In terms of cost, staff has been obtaining Town of Castle Rock branded cloth face masks from a local vendor, which in a large quantity would be available for $3.95 each. The same masks are available absent any branding imprints for $2.95 each. Disposable masks, meanwhile, are readily available through the Town’s custodial supply vendor at $1,050 per 2,000, or about 52 cents each.
Looking then to need, staff developed a short form to obtain feedback from local businesses about mask needs (Attachment B). Staff requested information back by 1 p.m. July 21 and will report out what it learned through that information-collection effort at the Council meeting.
Information collected should help determine the quantity of masks that may be needed. For reference, in May, Castle Pines gave out about 8,000 disposable masks at a giveaway event for its just over 10,000 residents. If applying a similar ratio, the Town might look to giveaway as many as 50,000 masks to its more than 70,000 residents. At that quantity, the total cost of reusable masks would range from $147,000 to $197,500, assuming that level of supply is available.
Staff’s initial view was that reusable masks may be a better investment than disposable ones. If the information collected indicates disposable masks would be more useful, staff would recommend that option. It would cost $26,250 to purchase 50,000 disposable masks. Any mask purchases made would be reimbursable under the CARES Act.
Staff will share the information collected from local businesses at the Council meeting and will seek further Council direction on this item. If Council desires continued pursuit of a mask giveaway initiative, next steps would include determining timing and location for the giveaway event(s), as well as logistics involving maintaining proper gathering sizes and social distancing while conducting the giveaway. The reusable masks have a two-week lead time, so the earliest a giveaway event for those could be held would be in early August.
Attachment
Attachment A: Proposed Face Covering Communication Plan
Attachment B: Face Covering Feedback Form for Businesses