Detroit Free Press. Jan. 28, 2021.
Editorial: Whitmer ignores GOP provocations, stays the course in third State of the State address
It has been a long year, and a hard one, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acknowledged at the start of her third State of the State address, delivered Wednesday night to a state yet facing twin crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, and the damage the virus has wreaked on Michigan’s economy.
Throughout this year, unlike any we’ve ever seen, Whitmer has remained disciplined, focused and on message, despite organized protests of her COVID-19 emergency orders, a murder plot engineered by domestic terrorists and a recalcitrant Legislature.
And in the last statewide poll, taken in December, she continued to score unusually high approval ratings. However many protesters thronged to the state Capitol, a majority of Whitmer’s constituents has been willing to believe that she is on the right track.
Michigan continues to log daily deaths, but the state’s COVID metrics are finally trending in the right direction, after a winter surge that set Michigan back. But we’re just rounding the curve, and the road ahead isn’t particularly smooth.
Michigan’s vaccine rollout has been slow, something Whitmer acknowledged Wednesday night. “This process is like a locomotive,” she said. “It will be cumbersome and slow in the beginning, but it will get faster and smoother as we go.”
That’s a reasonable analogy. But Michiganders struggling to find a vaccine appointment for an elderly relative might have appreciated that sort of candor on the front end. Whitmer pledged Wednesday that when supply is available, the has a plan to administer 50,000 shots a day. Our math suggests that’s optimistic, when Michigan might be better served by realism.
Whitmer’s COVID-19 recovery plan, released last week, combines federal and state funds for vaccine administration, school districts, and job training. It asks the Legislature to approve more federal funds more money to improve the vaccine rollout, property tax relief and business tax incentives.
But for that plan to become reality, Whitmer will have to work with Republican legislative majority that has spent much of the last year clamoring for a larger role in the coronavirus response while failing to deliver any meaningful plan of its own.
We’d like to share Whitmer’s optimism that new leadership in the state House will lead to a more felicitous relationship between the two branches of government, but we do pay attention to current events. On Wednesday, the Legislature took two swipes at Whitmer, blocking 13 uncontroversial appointments and threatening to withhold federal education dollars unless Whitmer relinquishes some executive power.
Whitmer didn’t acknowledge either jab in her address, but repeated her belief that she and legislative Republicans can find common ground.
It’s a disciplined and measured approach that’s a pleasant contrast to the strutting showmanship of Republican legislative leaders who seem more interested in humbling the governor than in providing meaningful remedies for the public health and economic crises their constituents face.
The governor who ran on a promise to fix the damn roads said Wednesday night that Michigan’s state government needs to focus on the damn road ahead, find common ground, and work in Michiganders’ best interests. It’s a tortured motif, but a laudable goal. And it’s sobering that, like her Republican predecessor, Whitmer has identified partisanship and incivility as two of the most formidable obstacles to her state’s progress.
Whitmer pledged money for road repair and business growth and infrastructure repair, which remain reasonable and critical long-term goals. But mastering the virus remains Whitmer’s - and Michigan’s - chief challenge.
Like nearly all Michiganders, we’re tired: Tired of the life-saving but irksome constraints on our movements. Tired of not knowing when our children will return to their classrooms. Tired of waiting to learn if we’ll be vaccinated by June, or September, or next Thanksgiving.
And we’re especially tired of legislators who think this pandemic is just another game of political hardball, and that all that matters in the end is which team come out on top.
The truth is that fewer and fewer Michiganders are even keeping score. All most of us are rooting for anymore is spring, and any grown-up elected leaders who will help us get there.
___
Detroit News. Jan. 26, 2021.
Editorial: Despite some relief, restaurants still in peril
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has granted restaurants the option to operate with limited indoor dining starting Tuesday, after months of having to survive on takeout and outdoor seating during a Michigan winter. Yet the damage thousands of restaurants have endured is likely to be lasting.
The state restaurant association estimates 3,000 restaurants have closed and contends that the industry employs 200,000 fewer people than it did last year as Whitmer’s “pause” on indoor dining meant establishments couldn’t take in holiday revenue.
Michigan has also been an outlier for these blanket restrictions - only Washington state has a similar statewide ban on indoor dining - which has encouraged Michigan residents who live close enough to the border to flock to neighboring states that have more relaxed restrictions.
The latest epidemic order may not really help restaurants that much, either. They must limit operations to 25% capacity with a maximum of 100 people and close by 10 p.m.
It also brings up logistical problems for restaurants, and may force them to stay closed until they can seat more guests, says Justin Winslow, president and CEO of the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association.
“What we’re experiencing anecdotally is that many of our members are choosing not to open,” Winslow says. “We’re not sure how widespread the reopening will be.”
Winslow notes the overhead of starting to seat patrons again might not be worth the risk because of the reduced capacity. And restaurant owners may be reluctant to invest in a reopening that could be short-lived, should case rates spike again.
“To get back open, you’re going to have to spend a considerable amount of time to re-sanitize everything and money to restock without a clear sense of demand,” he says.
Restaurateurs and bar owners are certainly questioning why the governor instated the 10 p.m. curfew for indoor dining as they are looking to serve patrons whenever possible to make up for lost revenue due to lower capacity restrictions.
Restaurants watched as mall and hospital cafeterias could reopen for indoor dining and other indoor leisure activities like bowling, theaters and stadium events started welcoming customers, with restrictions.
Michigan should consider putting restaurant workers into the vaccine schedule after the highest-need groups have received their two doses. It would be a way to give the public confidence to go out to eat and keep workers from contracting the virus and spreading it around.
Business owners who have taken extra safety measures to comply with the “MI COVID-19 Safer Dining Program” should be able to seat more people than 25% capacity.
Given the rocky past year for the industry combined with the continued restrictions, the latest “reopening” next month may not be much of an opening at all.
___
Traverse City Record-Eagle. Jan. 2, 2021.
Editorial: Editorial: This day off school is an important milestone
Calling it an “act of God” sounds about right.
There probably is no better way to describe a day off from school to allow teachers and staff to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
It’s a worthy repurpose of a snow day.
Parents and teachers across the Grand Traverse region have had an especially rocky road since March, as they worked to guide children in northern Michigan through a period of constant upheaval.
Thousands of students were sent home from schools with little notice as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread into Michigan. That exodus from classrooms was the end of anything that felt “normal” for children, their families and teachers.
The journey since has been along a rocky road to say the least. Teachers and school administrators scrambled to adapt and ensure students didn’t flounder through a lost year. Parents were confronted with intensive remote learning schedules to ensure their children succeed. And despite their best efforts, the fall and early winter brought a constant yo-yo from classroom to home and back as infections crept into schools.
The reactions of public health officials and administrators to cope with constant exposures and corresponding fluctuations in staffing resulted in the most disjointed school year in any of our memory.
That’s why the “act of God” day many local school administrators called for today and another a few weeks from now are a welcome.
Yes, they are two more days in a long line our children won’t spend in classrooms. But the purpose for these days is a promise of future stability.
Teachers and staff from multiple local school districts are set to receive the COVID-19 vaccine today, and will return in a few weeks for their second dose.
Those vaccinations - in some districts more than 70 percent of employees - will help ensure our children have the opportunity to attend school in-person. It is a step toward ensuring children in our region don’t slip through cracks in the system.
It is a step toward stability for our children.
A step toward normal.
END
Please read our comment policy before commenting.