Danbury Mayor On Re-Opening The City + Those Statues On His Desk
Every Tuesday morning, we have the Mayor of Danbury, Mark Boughton, on the show to fill us in on the state of the city during the coronavirus crisis.
This week, as the city gets ready to slowly re-open, Mark talks about the plan and how residents should continue to practice social distancing, plus he reveals why he's always messing with those statues on his desk during his Facebook live segments.
So whats the plan as the city gets ready for re-opening?
"We continue to work with local businesses to try and get them ready to open at the extent that they can. There are a lot of restrictions especially for restaurants with social distancing guidelines, servers wearing masks, and things like that. Each of these restaurants have to have a certification from our health department that they meet the standards that has been set out in the Governor's executive order. It's one step closer for folks who want to go out and enjoy themselves. It's a very dangerous situation out there and people should not let their guard down, people in the city continue to become infected, so we want everyone to be safe and take the guidelines seriously. We really need people to think beyond themselves and take the steps needed to keep everyone safe".
Restaurants will be some of the first businesses to re-open, what criteria will they have to follow in Danbury?
"Right now, any restaurant that will be re-opening will be limited to just venues with outside dinning, but if the Governor decides to go forward with a full restaurant opening in June, it won't be at 100% capacity, he'll say you can put in 25% of the fire marshal's certified capacity of the restaurant. If you could have 100 people, you'll be allowed to put 25 people indoors. A lot however will depend on how the numbers look after phase 1 of the re-opening and if there's any spikes after the next few weeks. People need to understand this is not a big re-opening, it's just a tiny step forward. Once that gets going, what will happen is if there are any infections you'll see them around two weeks out in mid June. By then he'll know, in terms of the numbers, if we can take the next step, or if we'll have to pause and wait a bit for phase 2".
So what's up with those statues on your desk, why are you always moving them around before your Facebook live segments?
Those are Dundie's. I've earned those Dundie's through excellence in the office. I give out those Dundie's myself at our annual office dinner, or during the holiday's. I've got many Dundie's for the nicest hair, best looking sneakers, all kinds of stuff. Micheal Gary Scott always moves his Dundie's during the very beginning of the show 'The Office'. In the opening scene he's always moving his Dundie's around.
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