Cromwell mayor stands by reopening declaration

CROMWELL — Mayor Enzo Faienza says he hopes the declaration adopted by the Town Council on Tuesday will encourage Gov. Ned Lamont to speed up the reopening of small and medium-sized businesses in the state.

The Republican-controlled council voted 5-1 to approve a declaration authored by Town Attorney Kari Olson that challenges the governor’s power to regulate which stores can remain open and those that have to remain closed.

Faienza said he hoped the declaration gives the governor “something to think about” as he prepares to move to the second phase of reopening the state on Monday.

Throughout the month, Faienza has expanded his efforts to have the governor reopen small businesses.

In doing so, he has raised his profile, and has “had other towns reach out to me,” including, he said,

Killingly, Wallingford and Southington.

On Tuesday, Faienza said businesses in town are, in the main, “ready, willing and able to reopen,” while complying with the guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They should be given a chance to compete with large big-box stores, which have been allowed to remain open for the past two months if they have an in-store grocery store, he said.

Allowing some stores to remain open while others had to close is “fundamentally unfair and discriminatory,” Faienza argued.

That said, however, Faienza insisted the town would not attempt to defy the governor’s executive orders and unilaterally reopen.

Lamont’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The vote on the Olson declaration took place in the council chambers at Town Hall with all the participants wearing masks.

Councilor Allan Waters did not attend the meeting because of a prior commitment, Faienza said.

But Faienza said he had spoken with him earlier in the day and Waters, currently the longest serving councilman, “wholeheartedly supports this declaration.”

James Demetriades, the only other Democrat on the council, cast the lone “no” vote.

The heart of Olson’s argument was drawn from a paragraph contained in a May 13 ruling by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

That court, which is elected, ruled by a 4-3 vote that the commissioner of the Wisconsin Department of Public Health exceeded her authority by extending a stay-at-home order.

The suit was brought by the GOP-controlled state legislature, which has sought to limit the power of Democrat Tony Evers, who was elected governor in 2018.

The court was asked to determine if Commissioner Andrea Palm had promulgated an “order” or a “rule,” which would require the involvement of the legislature.

The decision has left the 72 counties in Wisconsin to determine which rules to enforce — or not.

In drafting the declaration, Olson quoted from a U.S. Department of Justice argument in an unrelated case that was brought in the Northern District of Mississippi, Temple Baptist Church v. City of Greenville.

In that case, the justice department argued, “There is no pandemic exception . . . to the fundamental liberties the Constitution indeed, ‘individual rights secured by the Constitution safeguards.

“Indeed, individual rights secured by the Constitution do not disappear during a public health crisis. These individual rights, including the protections in the Bill of Rights made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, are always in force and restrain government action.”

In light of that assertion Faienza said, “There is no justification for keeping our small businesses from opening.”

He called upon Lamont to give the local retailers the go-ahead to do so.

“Our small businesses are entitled to have the chance to compete,” he said.

Demetriades, who is also an attorney, said the Olson declaration is not “in the best interest of the town nor the best interest of the health and safety of our residents.”

The discussion and debate that led to the creation of the declaration has put the council “at the center of a media circus that is sowing more division and taking the attention away from generating solutions,” he said.

The tone of the Olson declaration “does not appear to be drafted to engender a discussion of how to safely reopen the Cromwell economy,” Demetriades said.

He also questioned what relevance a court decision in a civil matter in Wisconsin had for Connecticut.

The council had also asked Olson to determine if a way could be found to hold a high school graduation.

Olson said Tuesday she had backed off from that effort pending discussions between the council and the Board of Education.

Faienza