COVID-19 committee hears from LARA Director in Thursday hearing

State Rep. Jack O’Malley, a member of the Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, today said Michigan residents deserve more answers about decisions to reopen parts of the state’s economy while others sectors remained closed.

The bipartisan committee today heard testimony from Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Director Orlene Hawks. O’Malley said he was discouraged by some of the answers he heard regarding communication with the governor during the administration’s response to the public health crisis.

“I appreciate Director Hawks coming to speak with us, but it was more of the same – repeating the company line that they have been in constant communication with the governor and that there’s a lot that goes into the decision-making with no details to back up how those decisions are made,” said O’Malley, of Lake Ann. “The people of Michigan, including thousands of laid-off workers and small business owners, have made their confusion and frustrations with the governor’s executive orders quite clear. What hasn’t been clear is the timeline for the decisions, the data or background to support them, and the level of input that departments are providing when the governor is weighing decisions. The legislators on our committee have been consistent in telling the departments what we’ve been hearing from people and these departments have been consistently too vague.”

O’Malley specifically pointed to the construction industry, mentioning people he’s spoken with in his northwest Michigan House district felt they could resume operations safely and sensibly.

“This is an industry LARA oversees, so it would make sense for them to have a role in deciding why they can or can’t open,” O’Malley said. “We had federal guidelines in place with recommendations from experts on what could open safely, and many other states have been using them to get people safely back to work and get their economies going again. But the input from our state departments and the data being used to make decisions has obviously been different here.

“People are wondering why that’s the case. They’re looking for answers – and they’re just not getting them.”

The hearing came on the heels of testimony last week from small business owners throughout Michigan who have been impacted by the governor’s unilateral decisions in response to COVID-19. The shutdowns created a surge in unemployment claims – with roughly 2.2 million reported since mid-March. Michigan had the nation’s second-highest unemployment rate in April as more people continued to be forced out of work than in other states.

O’Malley is encouraging people across northern Michigan to share their stories as they deal with the pandemic and the governor’s unilateral decisions in response. A recently created website provides an accessible resource for concerned residents across the state and will operate in conjunction with the work of the select committee.

###