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City hall reopens service counter, permits, inspections today

Some Victoria City Hall services are available today now that the municipality’s environmental consultant has given the green light. City hall’s service counter, development services and permits and inspections opened at 8 a.m.
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City hall is shown closed in Victoria, Wednesday, May 8, 2019. More than two days after flames tore through a vacant hotel in downtown Victoria, smoke still lingers over the downtown core and city hall, which is barely a block away, remains closed. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dirk Meissner

Some Victoria City Hall services are available today now that the municipality’s environmental consultant has given the green light.

City hall’s service counter, development services and permits and inspections opened at 8 a.m. to the public, as promised Wednesday by Bill Eisenhauer, city spokesman.

Transactions such as property taxes, parking tickets, permits, utility payments and dog licences will be provided.

Thursday’s committee of the whole and council meetings have been relocated to the sixth floor of the Capital Regional District building at 625 Fisgard St.

About 250 city employees were displaced from work because of Monday’s fire at the nearby Plaza Hotel building. City hall was closed through Wednesday.

Staff have spread out to get work done. “Some staff have been working from home and others from temporary locations in other city buildings outside of the affected area,” Eisenhauer said.

“In many cases, staff have laptops; however, our IT [information technology] team has also been able to provide temporary workstations to assist with business continuity.”

Janitorial staff are in the process of cleaning space in city hall, he said. Additional air scrubbers are being used, in addition to the existing systems, to remove particulates.

Staff will work remotely until their work areas are cleaned.