Vaccine clinic reaches immigrant community
STAMFORD — The sidewalks of Selleck Street were lined Sunday with individuals eager to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at the Building One Community headquarters, situated in one of the neighborhoods the state has designated for targeted vaccine distribution.
As the state continues to press for an equitable vaccination process, Gov. Ned Lamont and other officials gathered Sunday to put focus on B1C’s clinic that vaccinated lower-income to moderate-income immigrant families.
“Let me tell you, this doesn't work unless trusted advocates who people believe tell you that this is the right thing to do for you, your family and your community,” said Gov. Ned Lamont during a press conference outside of the clinic.
B1C Executive Director Anka Badurina explained that the site had roughly 350 vaccines allocated for the clinic, which ran from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.
“About 97 percent of our appointments today are members of the Latinx community,” Badurina told Hearst Connecticut Media. “One hundred of the appointments were folks from the (32BJ SEIU) union. The other 250 are our own program participants. These are people we know from the community and their families.”
The clinic was held in Stamford’s 06902 Zip code, one of 50 outlined by the state late last month as a priority for vaccine distribution. The Zip codes were selected because each ranks high on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index, which weighs factors including education, access to health care, housing density and availablity of transportation.
Under the guidance of the Department of Public Health, providers were asked to direct 25 percent of all new vaccines to these locations, which happen to be home to nearly a quarter of the state’s population.
Now two weeks into this effort, statistics released last week by the state show that cities are still behind neighboring communities in vaccinating residents. While Hartford and Bridgeport are among the lowest, with about 11 percent of residents vaccinated, state
data shows Stamford has reached nearly 18 percent of its population.
U.S. Rep. Himes, D-4, reiterated that Connecticut is focused on continuing its concerted efforts to allocate vaccines to the areas that need it most.
“Getting people vaccinated, importantly getting people vaccinated in neighborhoods like this one — Communities of color, immigrant-heavy communities — where sadly, all too often, those most vulnerable to COVID-19 are those least likely to get vaccinated,” Himes said.
Though the vast majority of vaccine recipients Sunday were part of the Latinx community, Badurina said the nonprofit also had members from the Haitian and Montenegrin communities attend the clinic.
Since distribution started, the goal of the nonprofit has also been to dispel misinformation over the vaccine in the surrounding community, Badurina said.
“We host town halls to dispel these myths,” she said. “Our work has been to provide information that is real.”
Grace Galarza, a 55-yearold city resident, spent this Sunday, like many other days in the past three years, volunteering her time to aid the nonprofit in helping her community.
She also received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, which she said was an easy process.
“This is a great opportunity to help my community, and help all of the people,” she said, adding that her getting vaccinated would inspire others who had questions to follow suit. “This is the area where people need help.”
Dan Wilson, senior program manager for B1C’s Immigration Legal Services,
said that the nonprofit is in constant communication with immigrant groups in the area. He said that having healthy community relations has helped with the processes of getting community members tested and now vaccinated.
“There have been no hiccups at all,” Wilson said. He thanked the Community Health Center for their involvement in their efforts.
“We reached out and partnered with (B1C) so everyone has access to the vaccine. Not if you can drive somewhere, or if you can navigate VAMS or if you have ready access to a practice where they offer it, but really bringing that vaccine into the community,” said CHC Vice President Amy Taylor. “We will continue to do this until everyone who wants to be vaccinated, which hopefully is everybody, gets the vaccine.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who joined Lamont, Himes and Mayor David Martin Sunday morning, also stressed the importance of equitable vaccine distribution.
“This racial justice movement has to be for all of Stamford and Connecticut,” said Blumenthal. “Everyone, regardless of their ethnicity or race, needs this vaccine whether they are documented or not. We will not be safe until all of us are safe.”
Martin said Sunday that a high capacity vaccination site would be opening on Monday, March 15 on the south end of the city. The capacity, he said, will start at roughly 3,500. He said he hopes to expand that by up to 14,000 additional vaccines when the city receives additional supplies.
“The more vaccines we get in this community, the more we will push it out,” he said.
If you would be comfortable with having Connecticut’s Superior Court reporting to our attorney general or chief state’s attorney, you may be OK with having our utilities regulator report to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, as it does today.
Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA, decides cases where DEEP is a party, but it is also a branch of DEEP. PURA reports to DEEP, which controls PURA’s budget, personnel decisions and organizational structure. Yet PURA is expected to be impartial and unbiased in cases involving DEEP.
Connecticut is unique in the country with this unusual structure. No other state requires its utility regulators to report to an agency that is a party before it for the obvious reason that regulators are to render fair and reasonable decisions based on facts and law and not be influenced by a party appearing before them.
Connecticut’s aberration began with the laudable effort to combine management of environmental and energy issues. It was a good combination, and the ensuing commissioners have been effective energy leaders.
Another necessary goal at the time was to reform the former Department of Public Utilities Control, reducing the number of commissioners to three and reducing its size.
Potentially negative consequences of having our regulators of electricity, natural gas and water report to the agency charged with setting environmental and energy policy have largely been avoided not because of the flawed structure but because of the integrity of the people involved. No system should have to cover a flawed structure by depending on leaders of consistently high ethical standards.
There have been challenges. In one instance DEEP called for delay in PURA rendering a decision, provoking outrage and withdrawal of the instruction. DEEP once sent to PURA explicit language to include in a docket decision. Fortunately, it was ignored. And political leaders have announced their views as to how rate cases should be decided before briefs were filed and hearings held. The political exhortations were not heeded.
Imagine the outrage if a party before a Connecticut court tried to instruct the court to delay a decision, ordered it to include specific language in a finding, or if a public official called for a guilty or not guilty determination before a trial began.
Connecticut has a strong record of regulatory integrity, but in recent years has shown that it is not immune to corruption. Better to correct an indefensible system than to rely on individuals not to abuse it.
The public usually ignores utility issues until service is unavailable or costs increase. Ensuring the safety and reliability of electricity, gas and water is a serious responsibility, its importance underscored by our history of floods, hurricanes and ice storms. Threats to water systems in Texas, Mississippi and Florida and national vulnerability to infrastructure shutdowns from cybercom-promise all underscore the importance of utility reliability.
Utilities are monopolies requiring oversight, and electricity is expensive in Connecticut. Utilities have legal rights to recoup expenses incurred by used and useful provisions necessary to provide services and a constitutional right to earn a reasonable profit. Consumers obviously don’t want utility costs to rise, and elected officials enjoy denouncing requests for rate increases.
Utility commissioners need to understand financial, engineering, legal and public policy issues in deciding a rate case, a proposed merger or an alleged safety violation. They have to have backbone and strength to decide cases in a fair and reasonable manner based on facts and law, even when the outcome is not popular.
Utility commissioners in Connecticut should be able to do their work free from association with the policy preferences of those to whom they report and not face inherent conflict of interest. The General Assembly should repair the structure that exposes Connecticut to the appearance of undue influence in utility regulation and make PURA independent.
Absent legislative resolution, it is easy to imagine judicial branch remedy in the future. A party whose arguments differed from DEEP’s policy preferences could lose a case before PURA. Its attorneys could present the following to a court of law:
1. Is PURA’s duty to consider the facts and law in dockets before it, and to render a fair and reasonable decision devoid of any other considerations? Answer: Yes.
2. Does PURA report to DEEP, which also controls PURA’s structure, budget and personnel decisions? Answer: Yes.
3. Was PURA aware of DEEP’s policy preferences in this case before rendering its decision? Answer: Yes.
4. No further questions, Your Honor.