Craig joins panel of mayors on local reactions to COVID-19

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Mayor Craig and a panel of mayors on May 19, 2020. Screenshot/Health Care Voter

MANCHESTER, N.H. – On Tuesday, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig joined a Facebook Live panel of mayors discussing challenges faced at the local level during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following an introduction by former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg, CBS News Contributor Jamal Simmons hosted the panel, which included Kansas City, MO Mayor Quinton Lucas and Miami Beach, FL Mayor Dan Gelber.

The three mayors took questions from Simmons and audience members, focusing on an array of topics ranging the role of cities on dealing with the impact of COVID-19 to uniting disparate opinions on how to react to the pandemic’s spread.

All three mayors shared a view that the safety of their respective communities should be the top priority, but each one told different views on struggles their communities face.

For Craig, one of the biggest issues has been juggling public safety and the city’s economy within the framework of statewide guidance.

It’s this difficult situation where we have strong recommendations to stop the spread of COVID-19 while we are still seeing an increase but we are re-opening things,” she said. “So there’s this push and pull and kind of contradiction between statewide recommendations and what we’re doing locally. We’re grappling with this and doing the best that we can and making decisions that are based on the safety of the people in our city first and foremost.”

“We are a thriving community because we all work together. We can’t just focus on just one group; we need to focus on the entire city and help all of us succeed,” she added.

Craig also touched about the city’s efforts with preventing outbreaks among the city’s senior citizen population as well as outdoor social distancing support to the city’s homeless population, stating that the city is now seeking to move homeless residents back into hotels and shelters where possible.

In a question on what each of the mayors would say to President Donald Trump regarding actions that need to be taken regarding the pandemic, she said that more direct relief was needed to help cities.

Although $2.5 million in CARES Act money has come from the state to help the city with reimbursements directly related to COVID-19 losses, that funding cannot be used to makeup for revenue shortfalls indirectly caused by the pandemic.

The panel was hosted by a group called Health Care Voter as part of their series, “Our Lives on the Line: The Hardest Hit.” The event was co-sponsored by the African American Mayors Association, Indivisible, Town Hall Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Health Care Voices, and Little Lobbyists.


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Previous editions in the series and Tuesday’s panel can be seen here.

About this Author

Andrew Sylvia

Assistant EditorManchester Ink Link

Born and raised in the Granite State, Andrew Sylvia has written approximately 10,000 pieces over his career for outlets across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. On top of that, he's a licensed notary and licensed to sell property, casualty and life insurance, he's been a USSF trained youth soccer and futsal referee for the past six years and he can name over 60 national flags in under 60 seconds according to that flag game app he has on his phone, which makes sense because he also has a bachelor's degree in geography (like Michael Jordan). He can also type over 100 words a minute on a good day.