Category — Posts

S: 3.28.20 JB ALERT  – Judges, Employees and Public Defenders – COVID 19 OCCA Message

Dear Judges, Judicial Branch employees, and Public Defender Staff

In light of the need for us to do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19, I am issuing the following directives immediately:

1. DO NOT COME TO WORK IF YOU ARE SICK OR HAVE ANY COVID-19 SYMPTOMS.

2. Do not come to work if anyone in your household is under quarantine, is sick or has COVID-19 symptoms.

3. If you are healthy and come to work, please remain in your confined, limited workspace only.  

4. Complete your work in a way that will limit physical and interpersonal interaction with others in the courthouse, as much as possible.  For instance: deliver reports, evaluations and risk assessments by email or telephone report.

5. MAINTAIN A DAILY LOG TO IDENTIFY EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL WITH WHOM YOU HAVE HAD CONTACT FOR A PERIOD OF GREATER THAN 15 MINUTES AND AT A DISTANCE OF LESS THAN 6 FEET.

6. MAINTAIN APPROPRIATE SOCIAL DISTANCING (REMAIN 6 FEET APART FROM PEOPLE) TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE

7. WASH YOUR HANDS OFTEN AND FOR AT LEAST 20 SECONDS

8. MAINTAIN AWARENESS OF THE HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS NATURE OF COVID-19

In the interest of your own health and safety, it is critically important that every Judge and every Judicial Branch employee who is reporting to work maintain a daily log to identify every single individual with whom you have contact for a period of greater than 15 minutes and at a distance of less than 6 feet.  Please have access to this log at all times, so that you will be able to report this information, if necessary. (Emphasis added.)

Please note that judicial marshals will be receiving additional, separate, guidance on Monday.

Thank you for the incredible work that you do, even during this unprecedented health crisis. We will continue to keep you posted.

Judge Patrick L. Carroll III

Mark Scheinberg did not hesitate. When Goodwin University’s founder and president knew that the school’s medical programs would be closed for the rest of the semester, he donated the school’s supplies to two local hospitals.

Goodwin has sent to St. Francis 498 boxes of gloves, 2100 masks, 36 boxes of wipes, 100 pairs of booties, 64 towns, 18 pairs of safety glasses, and a respirator. The school has also made donations of critical medical supplies to Eastern Connecticut Health Network.

Goodwin has moved its mobile manufacturing lab to St. Francis to convert for testing. The school is offering its excess student housing to area nurses who are concerned about exposing their families to the virus if they return home from work.

“It was amazing to watch our many programs come together like that,” said Paula Dowd, Goodwin’s Dean of the School of Nursing and Heath Professions. “Nursing, respiratory care, the science labs, histology, dental hygiene — even manufacturing — everyone wanted to contribute supplies.”

In a message to the Goodwin University community last week, Scheinberg looked to Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky for the way forward. “Every hand that we don’t shake, must become a phone call that we place. Every embrace that we avoid, must become a verbal expression of warmth and concern. Every inch and every foot that we physically place between ourselves and another, must become a thought as to how we might be of help to that other, should the need arise.” 

Scheinberg is donating half his salary to the student emergency fund at Goodwin.

State Senator Marilyn Moore wants a chunk of your stimulus check for her re-election campaign. The Bridgeport Democrat is using the pandemic crisis to plant fundraising seeds as she faces an August primary challenge. Moore’s request, above, has a high cringe factor as thousands of Connecticut workers have lost their jobs in the past two weeks.

Moore narrowly lost the Democratic primary for mayor of Bridgeport last September. Her strong showing was squandered by her campaigns failure to collect enough signatures to advance to the fall contest on the Working Families Party ballot line.

Not very neighborly. Officials on the summer getaway island of North Haven, Maine, have told tony homeowners to stay away. And that includes Governor Ned Lamont. The remote island, long a Lamont retreat, does not have medical services to cope with visitors or residents who might be struck by the deadly coronavirus.

Lamont has been leading Connecticut’s response to the pathogen and is unlikely to get a break soon.

Politico has the story.

Ongoing financial troubles have caused the Business Council of Fairfield County to be no more. The organization cited the recent coronavirus as one obstacle too many. Its finances have been perilous for some time.

“For decades, The Business Council has played an important role in both Fairfield County and the State of Connecticut,” said James Fitzgerald, Business Council Chair of the Board of Directors, according to Westfaironline.com, “The significant changes in our local economy, the changing business landscape and the financial and operational issues recently caused by the COVID-19 virus have dramatically impacted our long-term financial sustainability.

The Council was an enthusiastic supporter of imposing tolls on Connecticut’s working people. The organization had a long history of supporting tax increases. One might chart the decline of Connecticut’s economy by the public policies the Council and its predecessor supported.

There are a lot of moving parts to the fight against a pandemic. Truth can often become a casualty with serious consequence for an anxious public. Governor Ned Lamont gave Connecticut’s Online rumor control center some unwelcome business this week.

Lamont startled listeners when he declared on New York’s popular WCBS-880 news radio station that the state’s public schools will not open again until September. Rumor Control swung into action to correct the voluble Lamont’s spontaneous announcement.

Governor Ned Lamont clipped the wings of municipal leaders Friday. The governor’s Executive Order 7H prohibits municipal chief executives from issuing orders that conflicts with any order issued by Lamont.

The sweeping limitation serves sharp notice to Hartford’s mayor, Luke Bronin, that there is room for only one Greenwich Democrat to set policy in this urgent hour and it is the governor, not the attention-seeking mayor whose 2018 campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor fell flat. The tone of a Bronin-initiated call with other mayors early this week caused alarm among some participants and was quickly shared with Lamont’s office. The governor’s rebuke today reminds the relentlessly ambitious that pandemic is not a campaign planning event for a 2022 campaign.

This is important. If you or someone you know does not have health insurance, you can take advantage of the emergency enrollment period that began on Thursday, March 19th and concludes on Thursday, April 2nd.

You must call Access Health CT to enroll. It has been unable to accommodate this crucial change on its website. Call 1-855-909-2428 to enroll. You will be able to access any plan on the exchange, which are offered by Anthem and ConnectiCare.

This opportunity has received little attention in this fraught time. Legislators and others should use all available means to share this vital information with the public.

House of Representative leaders have infuriated members, staffers, lobbyists and others with their an announcement that a state representative has tested positive for COVID-19. The late Thursday afternoon message stated an unidentified member—belIeved to be a Democrat from northern Connecticut—became sick on Sunday and tested positive today, “which according to public health officials is outside the window of which we should be concerned….”

People who have been around the Legislative Office Building would like to rely on their own healthcare professionals, not a message extending hearts, prayers and good wishes and signed “Best, Joe, Matt, Themis.”

This is not transparency by any definition.

The Connecticut Food Association is asking towns to increase local police presence in their members’ grocery stores. Citing “altercations in store parking lots and unruly behavior in a handful of our stores” the association requests that municipal police chiefs “encourage police officers to come into stores and meet with local local owners and store managers who are on the front lines of seeing Connecticut” fed in these unsettling times.

Police in store parking lots would also help, according to the association. Or people could be polite in and out of grocery stores. We must not descend into a state of nature over pasta, ground beef, and toilet paper.