In this week’s episode, we look at plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Covid-19 relief and recovery, including an excerpt from Governor Chris Sununu’s recent news conference and an interview with Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky. We also spoke with Victoria Adewumi, a public health specialist who serves on the board of the NH Fiscal Policy Institute.
Last Friday, Governor Sununu outlined plans to spend $595 million, roughly half of the state’s share of the federal CARES Act appropriation. Under the governor’s plan, most of the funds would go out in grants to private businesses according to criteria that have not yet been developed.
Councilor Volinsky said the governor has cut the Executive Council out of decisions on how to spend the money, despite the Council’s constitutionally defined role as a check on the governor’s authority. Moreover, Volinsky said the governor has offered only the thinnest of details on his plans. Volinsky objected to plans to spend public funds on religious education and commented on the governor’s refusal to conclude a collective bargaining process with unions representing state workers.
Volinsky, who as a private attorney spent 30-years representing a man on death row in Georgia and finally won commutation for Jimmy Meaders in January, said the police reaction to the recent killing of Ahmaud Arbery is disturbingly typical of Glyn County.
Victoria Adewumi described a recent report from NH FPI showing the coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on people of color in New Hampshire, just as it is in other states. The report says, “Economic factors such as poverty and lower incomes, and the related implications for housing options, access to health care services, and available alternatives for avoiding the virus related to distancing, work, and providing care are likely contributing to these disparities.” That points to underlying injustices, she said, which existed long before the pandemic hit and for which solutions have likewise been well understood by public health experts for some time.
Arnie brought a recording device to yesterday’s “Never Again Means Now” rally outside the Strafford County Jail in Dover. Today’s show will give you a bit of the flavor of the action, with the voices of Tess George, Mary Provencal-Fogarty, Isaac Grimm, and Sebastian Fuentes, followed by commentary from Maggie on the current status of efforts to free civilly detained immigrants from detention in a hazardous environment.
With so much change in the air, we had to play a selection from David Bowie.
