A town employee tests positive for COVID. Officials say Town Hall is safe for voting.
Bay Harbor Islands closed its Town Hall to the public Thursday after an employee who works there tested positive for COVID-19. But town leaders and Miami-Dade elections officials said the town council chambers inside Town Hall will still be utilized as the town’s lone voting site on Election Day next Tuesday.
Town Hall was deep-cleaned Thursday morning and will be cleaned again Monday, said Mayor Stephanie Bruder. She said the employee who tested positive hadn’t been in the building for about a week, and that she expects Town Hall to remain closed, other than for voting, until around next Wednesday.
“I do want the citizens to know it will be safe to vote,” Bruder said.
Bruder added that town employees haven’t been going inside the council chambers where voters will cast their ballots, and that voters can access the second-floor chambers via an outdoor elevator or a staircase without entering other parts of Town Hall.
Town Manager Maria Lasday told the Miami Herald she hadn’t spoken with anyone at the county’s elections department Thursday because she wasn’t concerned about the safety of Town Hall as a voting site.
Asked for comment, Miami-Dade Deputy Supervisor of Elections Suzy Trutie said elections officials looked into the matter and agreed the site would be safe.
“The facility is closed, and it is going to be deep-cleaned,” Trutie said. “It is safe. Our priority is the safety of all voters at all facilities.”
The town announced the positive COVID test and the closure of Town Hall in an email blast to residents around 12:30 p.m. Thursday. The closure includes the town’s administrative offices, building department and annex building, which are part of the Mayor Joseph J. Gardner Government complex on Bay Harbor Terrace at 96th Street.
In an updated announcement after 6 p.m., town officials said the second-floor council chambers and the police station, which is adjacent and attached to the government complex, “were not affected” by the COVID case.
“Bay Harbor Islands residents from both our precincts may cast their votes on November 3, 2020, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the 2nd Floor Council Chambers,” the announcement said.
As of Thursday afternoon, only one undisclosed Bay Harbor Islands employee had received a positive coronavirus test. Others who spent time at Town Hall had been notified and were getting tested Thursday.
The town and county responses differ from their responses more than seven months ago, when the novel coronavirus was just starting to sweep across South Florida. After a town employee tested positive in mid-March, elections officials chose to relocate Bay Harbor Islands’ two polling places — the Ruth K. Broad K-8 center and Town Hall — for the presidential preference primary on March 17.
At the time, there were just nine reported cases of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade County. As of Thursday, the county has had over 184,000 confirmed cases and 3,634 county residents have died from the virus. Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have increased recently, raising fears of a possible third wave of COVID-19.
But now, said Trutie, it’s much more clear what needs to be done to keep people safe, including at the polls.
“We’ve learned a lot from March through today,” she said. “Having [Town Hall] deep-cleaned will ensure anybody who comes there will be safe.”
Bay Harbor Islands Town Hall will be the town’s only polling place Tuesday, encompassing two of Miami-Dade’s more than 700 precincts. The town has about 6,000 residents who live on two adjacent islands on the bay side north of Miami Beach.
