Mayor Fulop & City Council to Approve $2 million at next City Council Meeting Towards Setting up City-Administered Vaccination Sites
JERSEY CITY - Mayor Steven M. Fulop and the Jersey City Health and Human Services Department (HHS) announce an emergency resolution establishing six vaccination sites to proactively prepare for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and the subsequent rollout of the immunization program in order to efficiently provide immediate access for residents and essential employees, thus protecting the health, welfare, and safety of the public at large. The 6 Point of Distribution (POD) sites will be located across the city to ensure residents have easy access to the vaccines.
With little funding and limited guidance being provided at this time for establishing vaccination locations, the City of Jersey City is moving forward on a $2 million allocation to establish the POD sites at the next council meeting so that, in the case the state doesn’t provide resources, our city residents will still have resources.
“We need to have a contingency plan in place to avoid any delays in making these critical vaccines available in the case that the state or federal government doesn’t provide resources. We feel that it is important to take the same approach as we did with testing, that we will use city dollars to get a program running and then fight to get the reimbursement later,” said Mayor Fulop. “As we saw when we took the initiative and became the first to offer city-run testing, we are finding ourselves in a similar situation with the vaccine rollout.”
An emergency resolution will go before the City Council during tonight’s regularly scheduled meeting to award a contract to Fixtech Medical USA, Inc. to build out the POD sites.
“We’ve been anticipating the arrival of a vaccine for several months, and now that it is almost here, we want to be sure our operations can start immediately, while remaining efficient and organized so that we can maximize distribution of immunizations and boosters accordingly,” said Stacey Flanagan, Director of HHS. “Originally, testing was the most effective deterrent we had to work with, and we were aggressive in establishing and expanding testing citywide. We will follow similarly with the vaccines.”
Since day one of the pandemic, the Fulop Administration has remained at the forefront of implementing and expanding testing, safety protocols, among other efforts while providing critical assistance to small businesses, residents, and all who call Jersey City home. Some examples include:
- Over 1 million free masks distributed by the city to the public.
- Millions in private donations raised by the Mayor’s COVID-19 Relief Distribution Fund to directly support community-based nonprofits, youth and arts programming, as well as services and grant support to low-income residents impacted by the pandemic.
- Overcoming a historic $70 million shortfall to produce a balanced budget with NO tax increases in order to alleviate taxpayer hardships.
- Increasing HHS services, including a 300% increase in Meals on Wheels.
- Expanding mental health services and resources.
- Rent relief programs.
- Expanding testing to include mobile sites, direct access to senior and public housing, rapid results, targeting hotspots based on city data, and partnerships with community organizations for greater outreach.
- Public campaign “Mask Up JC” delivers free masks to all 120,000 Jersey City households and signage to businesses reinforcing compliance.
- Allocating $7 million in CARES Act stimulus funds to directly benefit over 600 small businesses.
- Installing Slow Streets and Pedestrian Plazas to allow businesses to expand capacity amid indoor restrictions.
Tonight’s City Council meeting will be held virtually through Microsoft Teams. To view the proceedings live, please visit www.jerseycitynj.gov/vcm.
All media inquiries should be directed to Kimberly Scalcione at [email protected].