Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Delaware Governors Debat

On behalf of delaware public media and center for political communication, welcome to delaware debates 2020. Delaware debate is supported by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and we appreciate the backing of the university of delawares college of arts and sciences and office of the provost and university president. We appreciate the candidates participation during the coronavirus pandemic this year for the first time to protect , everyone as much as possible, we are holding debate virtually. The candidates are online from their own locations and we, here in the studio, have been following all precautions prescribed by Health Officials and by the university. Because of the pandemic, there is no Live Audience in the studio. As we all have learned in the pandemic, technology can be challenging, so i ask you for your patience if we do experience some glitches. This debate features candidates in the race for delawares governor. Joining me, Sophia Schmidt who covers the states most populous county. We will also include questions recorded by students and delaware citizens. The democratic partys nominee for governor is john carney, the incumbent. The republican candidate is Julianne Murray. Welcome to both of you. Both candidates have agreed to rules for this debate. Ill begin with the question for each of them and they have agreed to hold themselves to time limits. You will have a chance to hear closing statements from both later on. We will keep our questions short and ask candidates to be concise as well so we can cover more ground tonight. The candidates will answer in the order they selected with the predebate coin toss. We will focus on coronavirus pandemic related questions. My first questions goes to the governor who will have a minute and 30 seconds to answer. If there is a fresh wave of covid cases in the coming weeks, what have you learned from the past year about when to shut down businesses and schools and so on and went to reopen them . Gov. Carney i want to thank you for this forum tonight. We appreciate the opportunity to exchange views. Covid19, the onset of the pandemic seven months ago in march, has had a very serious impact on communities across our state. Most decisions early on were based on Public Health guidance and fear. We do know exactly what to do as we shut down businesses, ordered stayathome orders for individuals, requiring people back back then to wear a mask but there was uncertainty around mask wearing guidance, so we did what the cdc and White House Task force recommended in terms of reopening businesses, as we got through the very serious situation in march and april, we moved toward reopening after memorial day, particularly in a limited basis for bars and restaurants and other retail establishments. Again following the guidance of , the cdc. Now, im not completely open, but its open to a significant extent. The tools that we have are limited with respect to shutting things down again. We have to adopt to a new normal which includes mask wearing, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings. Julianne murray, you were not the governor, not in public office, but what have you learned over the past year about the timing of shutdowns for businesses and schools and so on . Ms. Murray thank you for the question and it is interesting, one of the things, i did write a note, this started with fear so what i have learned is that fear is possible powerful and we need to step back from the fear, for 99. 94 of the delaware population, this is not fatal. Decisions were made to close our businesses, to be locked down for, in my opinion, way too long. I think that we need to be focused on, if this happens again or what have i learned . We need to absolutely find out what the fatality rate is and we have to be prepared from a hospital standpoint, but we have to go on with our lives so in this particular circumstance, and i note that the governor said limited, we are mostly back to normal but we really arent. , our Small Businesses were shut down for months and are still operating at 60 , gyms are operating at 30 , restaurants are struggling, and for something that has 99. 94 of the population survives. I think we need to stop the hysteria and live our lives. Let me follow up with both of you with a question based on senate for political communication Public Opinion survey in the state of delaware that hasnt been released yet but now is being released, we asked people in delaware how often they wear a mask outside their home and 70 of delaware who answered the poll said they wear a mask always or very often and the poll also showed 70 of delawarians in support the use of mandatory mask wearing requirement. 78 . Im going to ask what you make of that data about delawares tolerance of the restrictions theyve endured over the last year. Gov. Carney its very consistent with what we have learned over the last seven months and what the guidance has been with the cdc that mask wearing is accepted as the most important thing people can do to prevent the spread of the virus. A lot of people are asymptomatic so they are shutting the virus and dont know about it. Its important to wear a mask not to protect yourself but the people around you. If you look at the state that were badly hit, florida, texas, arizona, they took a laissezfaire attitude with the cdc guidelines in respect to opening and also following the guidance around six feet social distancing and mask wearing. What do you make of the data about delawares support for mask wearing requirements . Ms. Murray that they have been worn down. Mask wearing, things have been mischaracterized. I do not favor mandatory mask wearing. I think voluntary, i understand the civic duty we have to protect, but who we need to be concerned about here is our vulnerable population, people with preexisting conditions and the elderly, so i frankly am shocked that the number is 78 . I can tell you on the campaign trail, that is not at all when i am being told. People feel mask wearing should be voluntary and many of the people ive come across do not actually believe, or do not favor the mandatory mask wearing. For our next question, im going to ask my colleague, sophia. Delawares black and latino populations have suffered significantly higher rates of infection during the pandemic. Especially in Sussex County and the Food Processing industry. Should the state have foreseen this . What will you do to protect the population . Ms. Murray i thought we were always going to go with the order that the governor would go first. I think the testing in the Latino Community was delayed, and it should have been foreseeable. Very closed conditions and we have several or many poultry Processing Plants in Sussex County. Give me the other half of the question. What was the other part of the question . What will you do to protect the population . Ms. Murray educate. We need to be talking about social distancing, we been talking about mask wearing, all of these things but we also need to talk about that it is not fatal. Again, i cant liken it to chickenpox. It is less deadly than the flu in many circumstances. I think we have to get people to understand that they dont want to get it but if they do get it, it is not going to be fatal, so its education. We are a lot smarter now than we were in march when the shutdown started. There is a tremendous amount of fear and we have too much fear at this point, but i think we can get people to understand and be proactive about keeping everybody informed so they can go on. Thank you. Governor, same question to you. Gov. Carney we did anticipate the problem in the poultry possible the poultry Processing Plants and when i first saw the first positive case in milford, i knew we had a challenge because ive seen how closely the workers Work Together, so i contacted the processing folks, got them together on a conference call. Weekend,ght us in that came out with a proclamation and the white house came out with a proclamation the next week that said no governor could close a meatpacking plant across the country, so it set us back at least a week, week and a half in respect to testing, but we tested thousands of the poultry Processing Plant workers, thousands of their families and neighbors in georgetown, hillsborough, and as we look back on our response to covid19, i believe our response to the outbreak in the Processing Plants will be one of the high points. We were engaged with local Community Organizations to do hospitals came up big, and the Processing Companies themselves ultimately came around and realized testing their employees and protecting those employees was better for them because more people would come to work, so that will be a high point, is my prediction. Followup, is there nothing you would have done differently about addressing these impacts . Gov. Carney if we had the opportunity, i would have tested, we did ultimately in the first week instead of being sent back by the white house as we the president when he did his Emergency Declaration that nobody could shutdown the plants, but i think we would have had an organization, we shifted a group of Community Organizers and advocates working on the homeless problem in the 3 counties and moved them to work on the poultry Processing Plant workers and their families in the small towns. Thank you. Would you like to respond to that . Ms. Murray i would. I remember because i am situated in Sussex County and i remember it was a pretty significant delay and from the Sussex County perspective, this started in march and we were well into the beginning of may, is my recollection. Im sure the governor will tell me if i am wrong that, but the issue here is that with the poultry plants, lots of testing, positive test results, again, no fatalities. Yes, testing needed to happen, but from the Sussex County perspective, people were looking and thinking the testing was being done to inflate the crisis. Thank you. The next question will come from ralph. Im going to ask the governor to respond to the no fatalities point. Gov. Carney it is just not true. One of the things that really concerned me with the first weekend we had the outbreak, i called the police chief in georgetown and he informed me of the death of a young 44yearold hispanic man in georgetown. That was frightening and it did get us organized quickly. We heard the same thing from other hospitals, the acuity of the people came, it turns out thank god, we didnt have a great number of fatalities among the hispanic communities and others who worked in those plants. But that first weekend we had a , fatality in georgetown, it got us energized to respond to what we were seeing on the ground. I am going to move on. Delaware, like a lot of other states around the country, has lost millions of dollars in tax revenue when the economy crashed during the coronavirus pandemic. Im going to ask each of you with about one minute to respond, what is your plan to replace the lost state revenue . Government goes first on this question. Gov. Carney fortunately, the former state treasurer, with members of the economic and Financial Advisory committee, came up with an approach to put money away instead of appropriating in the operating budget into a reserve so we started this pandemic in the fiscal year with an additional 125 million reserve which was very important as we buffered the challenges that we had in this budget. As we move forward, its a lot of uncertainty about the revenues will see next year. The committee that estimates the revenue is looking at the economy, what the rebound will look like. Its going to be tough but having a 125 million in additional reserves will help us us. You have a minute to respond to that question on the economy. Ms. Murray i have heard the governor speak about the 125 thison several times at but here is the issue, and he point, alluded to it when he said theres uncertainty. We cant even quantify what our revenue is because we were shut down for an entire quarter and for another quarter, weve been operating at reduced capacity, so our revenue is going to be down tremendously. We have this 125 million out here, but the reality is what carney is a tax and spend person. Our taxes have gone up. We have the highest transfer tax in the country, so i am incredibly concerned, if he is governor, what the response will be because i have every reason to believe taxes will go up when we have the deficit that we know is coming. We have an economic related question from a delaware citizen sue harris in dover. ,please listen carefully. Delaware is experiencing an increasing population of homeless, as is the entire country. What are your plans for increasing Affordable Housing, not just shelter beds, but whats needed to provided opportunity for everyone to have a safe place to live . Your response. Ms. Murray i think the homelessness is an issue, i wrote down here we have to increase Affordable Housing and one of the things for me that i think is going to be critical as we fix the budget is we are going to have to look at where money is being obligated and we will have to shift things. I have proposed we have a commission that will look at the viability of spending, so i think we are going to have to increase spending or the because,n for housing because. We have to make it affordable. I am going to wrap you up and ask the governor to respond. Gov. Carney first of all, one of the high points of aberrant high to covid19 points of our response to covid19 was the Homeless Outreach done by our Lieutenant Governor Community Organizers with state agencies as we put out in the community and through the homeless and directed them into hotels so they could be safe. The most important thing we have to do prevent other people from losing apartments, rental apartments, and their homes by mortgage and rental systems, so we have set aside 50 million of cares act funding to do that. Weve got to support the homeless on our streets and weve done that through covid19. We have to provide resources to prevent more people from coming homeless as a result of the pandemic, so we have programs, particularly Strong Neighborhoods Program that has leveraged millions of dollars across our state for Affordable Housing in every community. Let me stop you there and in the next segment, we are going to turn to education related questions. Public School Achievement here in delaware remains a challenge for many delaware students despite more than a decade of discussion and commissions and other study groups. We are going to talk in a moment about the newly announced Court Settlement but first, i want to ask each of you, is it time to do something for the children of wilmington especially . Should the city of wilmington have its own School District . How should this take place . Get the firstou answer on this question. Urray, you get the first answer on this question. Ms. Murray i am delighted you are asking about wilmington because i think wilmington is, weve not had a new school in wilmington in figures. Whether they should have their own School District, we have entirely too many School Districts as it is, so if we redistricting, i would seek to reduce School Districts because id be trying to bring administrative costs down, costs have climbed to 350 and we need to push into the classroom, so i think wilmington has to be a priority and they have been failed at this point. We are looking at a catastrophe when two thirds of eighthgraders are not proficient in reading and math and that number is even worse in wilmington, so we need Vocational Training and infuse money into wilmington. Governor carney, should wilmington have their own School District . How would you set it up . Gov. Carney first of all, education and improving schools is a number one priority, our goals are to make sure every child in the state has the opportunity to be successful, to read proficiently so they can go on to high school and graduate ready to go into the workforce and on to higher education. That is not happening for all of the children in our state particularly those with , disadvantaged backgrounds and those learning english. Thats why we create Opportunity Funding in my budget three years ago to target additional revenue just for those children and get the children where they need to be so they can be successful in life. There is a task force looking right now, set up by a senator, called the ready commission looking at the question of the districts that serve the city of wilmington and we should wait for the work to be done, with respect to Opportunity Funding and improving the education for these children. Continuing with the education thing, sophia. Yesterday, the state reached a Court Settlement was civil Rights Groups trying to force delawares Education Funding system to better serve disadvantaged students. Governor, you promised to push funding increases through the state legislature including permanent funding for english lan