Lamont’s reopening: An impossible task made even harder
On the day Gov. Ned Lamont announced sleepaway camps would remain closed for the summer, complaints flooded in from all directions.
Two days later he said he’d reconsider, ushering in a new set of complaints. That was Thursday. As of Tuesday afternoon, Lamont still had not made a final call.
Something similar happened with hair salons. After he heeded stylists who wanted to open, he listened to others who were worried about reopening
And for the past week he’s struggled with the state’s tribal casinos, which are slated to reopen June 1 — despite his insistence they should wait.
To top it off, Ray and Barbara Dalio pulled out of an unprecedented state partnership — although they maintained their $100 million commitment — on the day the organization’s laptops arrived for underprivileged high school students who need to be connected during the shutdown. Lamont, stuck between legislators and the billionaires, again tried to appease all sides.
It’s a given that reopening the economy is harder than closing it. And Lamont has boasted an “open-door policy” since his election, which makes governing that much harder. He’s willing to listen and — as evidenced by recent policy reversals — he’s inclined to reconsider decisions even after he’s publicly announced them and in spite of any negative response that might come his way.
That trait — an unusual one for a politician by many accounts — and Lamont’s effort to please the greatest number of people, can make governing more difficult than it needs to be under normal circumstances.
But in the midst of a pandemic, and given the unprecedented task of reopening a shuttered economy, it’s nearly impossible.
“At the very beginning of this pandemic it was a lot easier to shut things off and close things down. As you open things up, there is input, there is science, there is impact. But the governor’s approach to picking up his phone hasn’t changed. That’s something we know is going to lead to pushback in spots,” said Lamont spokesman Max Reiss.
“But that’s who the governor is,” Reiss added, noting that the administration is navigating “uncharted waters” in balancing public health with reopening the state’s economy.
“You’re not going to make everyone happy with every single decision. But the governor is not going to change his approach to being the collaborator in chief ... It’s not easy to make decisions during this. It’s just not. We are hoping that we are right on this stuff, with an understanding that we probably have not been 100 percent right. There is no playbook for the politics of a pandemic.”
Lamont has repeatedly emphasized that he tries to frame every decision — and every decision to reverse a decision — around public-health ramifications, with no consideration for the political fallout. Still, even Lamont notes, politics has found a way into the conversation.
“It’s really important to me that people unite and row in the same direction,” Lamont said during a webinar last week with Hearst Connecticut Media. “We’ve been really good as a state, but you can see the politics creeping in from the left and the right now.”
Making it harder
Lamont has made the reopening harder than necessary for a few reasons, said Rep. Vin Candelora, R-North Brandford.
First, he suggested the state establish standards for distancing and other measures, and not try to determine which businesses fit those standards. For example, he said, “what’s the definition of a restaurant?”
“We’ve overcomplicated this
and government is good at that,” said Candelora, who will likely be the next House minority leader.
Second, Candelora said, “if they had involved more people at the grassroots level, some of these problems could have been addressed…But we’re surrounded by a lot of people that are at the 30,000 foot level.” By that he meant the nationally prominent health experts and business executives on Lamont’s reopening task force. “They’re not talking to the experts on any of these things and I think there is a level of elitism.”
And finally, Candelora said, Lamont is too willing to change his mind. “He’s got to stick to a decision good bad or ugly.”
But even those most directly impacted by Lamont’s willingness to change policies at a moment’s notice understand the challenge Lamont faces. Rabbi James Greene, the executive director at Camp Laurelwood in Madison, said that while canceling summer camp after months of preparation wasn’t ideal, he feels Lamont is acting with public health and safety as the guiding factor for all decisions, and that’s most important.
“That clarity is really hard to find at a time when we’re dealing with a novel virus that is really hard to predict,” Greene said. “I think the governor and our health professionals are trying to give guidance to balance the needs of families with the health and safety of the larger community. I think the governor and really everyone
is trying the best they can to manage a very new and very complicated situation.”
“A stop-and-start process”
At the same time Lamont’s team has opened direct conversations with groups they’ve never before interacted with — like the barbershop lobby — some legislators have said the communication and collaboration has been scant.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides said Lamont’s willingness to change his mind has caused a “lack of clarity and transparency,” and, as a result, a lack of trust.
“In the past couple of weeks, this has been very much of a stopand-start process,” Klarides said. “The governor said he was making the best decision at the time. First, foremost is people’s health, economy and livelihood. The governor has been constantly changing, but no health information has changed ... No additional health information has come to us in the last three weeks. You can’t make blanket statements without backing it up.”
Klarides gave the example of the $2 million contract with Boston Consulting Group, for which the governor has been criticized since news of the contract first broke. The criticism, for the most part, hasn’t been over whether or not the state needs the help of the firm — which is assisting several other New England state reopen as well. Instead, criticism has focused on the lack of a public announcement about the contract when it was reached in April.
“We have weekly leader meetings. He never once brought up,” Klarides said. “I understand he’s the governor. This is supposed to be a collaborative effort, but it isn’t so collaborative when he lets you know an hour before the press conference and does it anyway. That’s not collaboration.”
State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, who has advocated for the state to suspend liquor licenses for the tribal casinos if they don’t comply with the governor’s requests, said he believes the governor is walking “the appropriate middle ground.”
“He is trying to walk a middle ground between those who think we should open everything immediately and those who believe it’s too soon,” Stafstrom said. I think he’s trying to loosen the gasket to allow additional interactions and be able to allow the economy to reopen and still balance public health ... Any decision he makes right now is necessarily going to be criticized by someone. He is in the unenviable position of trying to time things when that’s an inexact science. There are going to be some ebbs and flows and maybe some false starts because we are in territory that is completely uncharted.”