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The Grand Coulee City Council is looking into upgrading their tech with federal coronavirus relief money. 

At their July 21 council meeting held via Zoom, City Clerk Lorna Pearce presented the idea of using some of the city’s qualified amount of $31,650 in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) funds to buy tablets for council members, which they could use for their council meetings now held electronically because of the COVID-19 pandemic, relieving them of having to use their own personal devices to conduct city business. 

The council was in agreement to spend the money on tablets if they are able to. 

Mayor Paul Townsend said that although the tablets would be purchased because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they would be used after the pandemic too.

Additional Wi-Fi equipment for the city, as well as setting up a “cloud” service for the city are additional tech-related expenses Pearce is looking at for the CARES money. Setting up a cloud storage system would cost about $2,500, which could potentially be covered by CARES money, but the system would cost about $2,000 a year afterwards, an expense the city would have to cover itself. 

The council wanted to look into those options further. 

Pearce also said police and ambulance services have needed to buy extra masks and other personal protective equipment because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which are additional expenses that could be covered by CARES money. 

Councilmember Tom Poplawski said that after buying what the city needs because of COVID-19, they could use some of the leftover money to go towards small business grants, something Electric City and Grant County are doing with large portions of their CARES funds.