* Gov. JB Pritzker spoke to reporters today at the Peoria Civic Center. The questions were off-mic, so they are paraphrased here. I skipped over a couple of them. And, as always, please pardon all transcription errors.
* Emergency special session…
What I’ve said is that if the leaders of the General Assembly call for a special session, I’m right there, I think we should do it.
One thing I do think is we need to make sure we have an agenda to put forward. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to develop that agenda. I can tell you what I think I just did, but it needs to be put into effect in more than what I just said. And so there needs to be work to put an agenda together before we call for a special session or any session.
* Legislation has been introduced to require a special prosecutor for every officer-involved death. Would you sign it if it reached your desk?…
This prospect was just brought to me you know over the last few days as one of the things that we ought to be thinking about that. Honestly, I had not thought about a special prosecutor, I had not seen the bill before. That’s the honest truth. I think there’s a lot to it. I think that making sure that there is a truly independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding a killing, that is something that’s very important. Just saying that police will investigate themselves or letting the leadership, even if a city investigate the police. That by itself isn’t enough.
* You’ve deployed the National Guard. Are there additional measures you could take if violence erupts this weekend?…
Well, I think that, let me compliment the National Guard one more time but let me also bring up the name of the Illinois State Police, because they’ve been working in very close collaboration across the last week to bring down the temperature across the state to support local police departments, and you’ve seen I think over night after night I mean I’ve watched it up close and personal. The looting has come down ,the violence has come down. Last night was the best night over the last seven. […]
We’re not just sending them places. The local communities are asking us for help and we’re responding by posting National Guard and state police in those locations, and where we’ve been called to, where they’ve been called to, they’ve done an amazing job backing up local police departments.
* Why are National Guard troops needed in Peoria?…
In short, we go where we are asked. And there is a discussion that takes place between the National Guard with state police involved, and the local officials both elected officials and the law enforcement very importantly, so that’s all done as partnership.
* Worried about huge cuts to local law enforcement budgets?…
Well, I can’t say it enough that there’s no doubt and I don’t want to put Congressman Bustos on the spot because she voted for it already, but the federal government has to step in. This isn’t just happening in Illinois. This is happening in every state in the United States, even the ones you think of as never having any budget problems.
When I first became governor, I remember sitting down with the governor of California, the new governor of California. And he said, What’s your biggest problem? I said well we got to balance our budget in the state. And I said, How is your budget? He said well we have a $23 billion surplus. So I said, well, I won’t tell you the rest of that conversation, but I will tell you this, they have a $54 billion deficit.
So that just tells you one state. But that’s happening all over the United States. So local county and state governments need help from the federal government, just like all the big businesses big industry, the airlines and all the rest of them got help. We need help and we’re on the frontlines of lifting people up when they’ve lost their jobs and they need medical care, they need to take care of their families. They need childcare and so on.
* With the large protests all over the state, are we still on track to move to Phase 4? Do you anticipate setbacks?…
I wouldn’t say I anticipate delays or setbacks, but I’m concerned, worried that seeing so many people pack so close together in the marches that I’ve seen. And again, I support the expression of their first amendment rights. But so many people were so close together. I’m glad to say so many are wearing masks, that’s half the battle for sure. But I worry.
And you won’t see it show up, it doesn’t show up in the case numbers early. Where it shows up, where you really will see it is two to three weeks hence, so two to three weeks from the beginning, at the beginning of this week, look at the hospitalization numbers. That’s where you’ll start to see either movement or not. And then we can either develop some confidence about the outcome for phase three or some concern.
* No new cases after big Memorial Day party in Lake of the Ozarks. What if there is no spike now?…
Well, that would be fantastic. I mean let’s all celebrate. I said when we built out McCormick Place as an alternative health facility, and people were saying oh my gosh how many people are going to get COVID-19. I said, look, if nobody gets it nobody moves in there, you know, what a great day that’ll be. And that’s exactly what it turned out to be, because so many people followed the rules along the way as to, you know, if no if people end up two to three weeks from now, not having COVID-19. Fantastic. Wonderful. And by the way, about three weeks from now is the beginning of phase four all four regions, being currently on track to go to phase four, but again that’s why we have this period to watch the hospitalization numbers and all the rest.
* Would you consider changing anything related to large gatherings if that’s the case?…
You don’t want a politician making decisions like that. What you want is your elected official, your leader listening to the scientists to the epidemiologists which is what I do. And then asking questions, poking and prodding and making sure they’ve got it right. And then a decision gets made. And I’ll take responsibility for the decision, but I’ll also say, I’m not doing it by myself I’m doing it in collaboration with experts.
* What is the strategy for reopening casinos?…
Our public health officials are talking to casino owners and other experts to try to figure out how you could do it. I know other places have opened casinos. We’ve heard a lot about this out of Las Vegas, of course. But, the goal here is to get everybody back to work, but to do it safely. And so when you think about, I don’t know about all of you but when you think about a slot machine, or a blackjack table with six or however many people around it in very close quarters with somebody facing here, you’re all kind of facing each other I mean, those are challenges. I’m not going to make an epidemiological decision about that I don’t fully understand why six feet versus three. I know masks are hugely important.
But the point I’m making is that whatever we do with regard to casinos and with video terminals has got to be done with the thought in mind that the states and the cities that keep their people safest - this is the history of pandemics - the states and the cities that keep their people safest are the ones that do the best economically coming out of it. So we’re doing our best to open our economy, but to do it in a way that keeps everybody safe and healthy.
* Question about summer schools…
When the scientists are giving us information that’s helpful for us toward moving toward opening I’m listening. And so the signals they gave us were that we could move this direction. And of course, it helps us move toward opening schools in the fall, which I’m determined to do, I want to do, and I expect that we will be able to do. But I just want to be clear that these are not arbitrary political decisions that are getting made. They’re decisions that are getting made based upon the development of the research and the science about keeping people safe.
* What’s going on in Scott County?…
Dave’s been reading the Chicago Tribune [the Sun-Times actually published the story]. And all I can say is, I know there are a number of people who aren’t wearing masks in Scott County because they say they haven’t had any cases, and there hasn’t been a recorded case in Scott County. It’s the only one of 102 counties, the only county that doesn’t have a case. And that’s fantastic. I would say to everybody, this pandemic, this virus has no boundaries. And so I’d be extremely careful because people in Scott County don’t just stay in Scott County. They travel they engage with people and they may become sick as a result that but I just want people to be safe and I hope people do enjoy themselves, but wear a mask wash your hands. Be careful.
* More financial assistance from the state to help those who were impacted financially by the pandemic?…
Well yeah, first of all the budget that was just passed, there’s a lot of federal dollars that are in that budget for COVID relief. And so there there are a lot of dollars still yet to come. We announced today grants to small businesses. But I want to reiterate that so far we’ve sent about $30 million to small businesses across the state to support them and they’re reopening, and they’re surviving and making sure that their employees get paid and so on. We’re trying to help people through this period, there’s more money to come that came from this budget, but one program that we announced today, we put about $1.4 million, out of about $20 million, just in that one loan program but there’s much more to come.
* What would you do differently to prepare for the pandemic?…
That’s such a hard question to answer. And the reason is, if you don’t know all the facts about the virus, you know how it affects people, how it transmits how fast it would move. You don’t know and that’s, so that’s what was happening every day of this crisis. We’ve been reacting to new information, things that we’ve learned what the CDC tells us as they learn things as we watched other countries like Italy, China, Spain, France and so on.
So it’s hard to second guess when you’re in a dynamic environment. I think all of you remember that it was a very quick progression of decisions that needed to be made. I limited gatherings, you remember, I remember having a meeting in my office about closing down St Patrick’s Day. I mean that’s not something you do lightly anywhere in this state. That’s a lot of business for small businesses, that’s a lot of people enjoying themselves, nobody wants to do that. But it became clear that that was something we needed to do. What about just even before that, closing down visitors at nursing homes. I mean, these are very difficult decisions. I don’t know how to second guess what we did. It may be easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback and look back and say well gee, if I had known this I would have done that.
So the answer is, we’re making the best decisions we can with the science and the data. And I’m sure that people wil,l six months or a year or two years from now, look back and say we should have done X Y or Z. But if they weren’t in the room with the information at that moment then I don’t think they have a leg to stand on.
