Harding says there are 'multiple reasons' for city pandemic surge

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD -- State Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) says there are “multiple reasons” for the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Danbury, which has led to the city shutting down fall youth sports and the school district turning to strictly remote learning until at least October.

On August 24, Danbury Republican Mayor Mark Boughton and Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) held a joint news conference to address the increase in cases.

Harding said in an interview that the number of infections “hadn’t been seen since the early stages of the pandemic.”

The state representative - whose district includes a northern slice of Danbury, along with the Stony Hill section of Bethel and all of Brookfield – said that according to information from health professionals the surge was primarily due to “people coming from trips throughout the country” and people without electricity after the tropical storm “congregating in homes that did have power.”

Harding, whose wife is a teacher, acknowledged that it is going to be “a challenge” for schools to maintain adequate social distancing.

He said he has “so much admiration” for teachers “trying to educate our students at such a difficult time.”

Harding said Lamont made the best decision in allowing “municipalities the ability to decide what is best for their students.” Brookfield, where he lives, for example, is having a rotation where certain grades are in the school building two days a week and remote learning will be done on the other days.

He lamented that “we are about half a year into this [pandemic] with no concrete deadline in sight.”

“This has had a huge impact on our entertainment and restaurant industries,” he said.

Harding reiterated comments from earlier this year that additional federal stimulus will be needed.

“Some people desperately need it,” he said.

He applauded residents in his district for making generous donations to local emergency funds and food banks.

Dunn has criticized Congress for taking a month-long district work period after it didn’t address the unemployment benefits, which expired near the end of July for many workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

The U.S. House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, approved the $3 trillion Heroes Act on May 15, but the U.S. Senate, controlled by the Republicans, never took action on that.

Congressional and White House negotiators have been at an impasse for months.

Harding said the bipartisan $2.2 trillion Cares Act, which Republican President Donald Trump signed on March 27 “was helpful for our economy.” The national unemployment rate, which was 3.5 percent in February, soared to 14.7 percent in April and was at 10.2 percent in July. The July figure is about equal to the worst point during the Great Recession that began in 2008.

Regarding Trump’s executive order for a payroll tax suspension, Harding said, “I think any action to address and reduce taxes is beneficial.”

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Janet Yellen, who earned her doctorate degree at Yale, and former vice presidential economic advisor Jared Bernstein, a Ridgefield High School graduate, recently wrote in The New York Times that the Federal Reserve Board has done a better job than Congress of addressing the economic downturn both during the Great Recession and now during the pandemic.

“They have done their part,” Harding said of the Federal Reserve Board.

“They’ve addressed interest rates and put more cash into the economy,” he added. “Low interest rates are keeping the economy going.”

In Connecticut, Harding applauded Lamont for instructing his department heads to try to slash their budgets by at least 10 percent in each of the next two fiscal years.

He called it “prudent fiscal policy.”

CT Mirror has reported that there is $3.1 billion in the state’s rainy day fund.

Harding said he supports using some portion of that money to address the economic impact from the pandemic but would oppose taking all of it.

On another topic, he was critical of Eversource’s response to the utility lines that were inoperable following the tropical storm. Company officials said during a recent legislative hearing that the company acted promptly and the criticism from elected officials was largely unwarranted.

Remarked Harding, “We didn’t see any trucks for three or four days after the storm hit.”

He said he agreed with Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn that part of the reason for the inadequate response is that Eversource is a monopoly. He said he hopes the General Assembly to make the utility more responsive.

On a separate topic, management consultant Saqib Qureshi wrote in his recent book, “The Broken Contract,” (Lion Crest Publishing, 239 pages), that governments should establish performance metrics and remove the lowest two percent of their employees annually and promote and/or provide rewards to the top five percent.

Harding said that would be a “workable philosophy in private industry” but that he believes “it would be impossible” for Connecticut’s state government to implement that procedure.

“The collective bargaining units would never agree to that,” he said.

On another subject, during the 2018 election campaign, candidates ranging from gubernatorial hopefuls Mark Boughton Bob Stefanowski, David Stemerman and Oz Griebel to former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin, a former Brookfield resident, to state Sen. Alex Kasser to Harding said that during 2019 the state government would have to address an employee pension system that is only 29 percent funded, according to the 2018 report from the state Commission on Fiscal Stability & Economic Competitiveness.

Said Harding, “We haven’t done much unfortunately to address our long-term obligations.”

He noted that the state did refinance some of the obligations by stretching them out over a longer time period, but, “That’s not addressing the substantive aspect of the pensions.”

Did Lamont’s focus during 2019 and early 2020 on erecting toll gantries to pay for transportation improvements interfere in achieving that goal?

“It’s hard to say,” Harding related. “The toll issue took up a lot of the governor’s time but you can’t say conclusively that that was the reason.”

On a separate subject, Harding said he agrees with state House Republican Leader Themis Klarides ‘decision to call on state GOP Chairman J.R. Romano to resign following his lack of action on an alleged domestic violence case.

CT Mirror has reported that in May before the nominating convention in the Second Congressional District, Justin Anderson, who would finish second in the balloting, told Romano that he had a video of the eventual convention nominee Tom Gilmer being involved in a 2017 domestic violence incident.

Romano has said he urged Anderson or the alleged victim to contact the police.

Anderson has said that Romano declined to watch the video.

Gilmer was arrested right before the August primary by Wethersfield Police and charged with first degree unlawful restraint and second-degree strangulation.

The Republican State Central Committee has taken no formal action against Romano, who has been chairman for five years.

Harding declared, “The way that J.R. handled this was wrong. Domestic violence has no place in our party.”