As much as possible we are holding the debates virtually. Candidates are online from their own locations and we in studio have been following all precautions prescribed by Public Health officials and the university. Because of the pandemic there is no Live Audience in the studio. As we have all learned during the Pandemic Technology can be challenging so i ask for your patience if we experience some glitches. This debate features candidate in the race for delawares governor. Joining me to question them is journalist Sophia Schmidt who covers the states most popular county, newcastle, for the lower public media. We will include questions recorded by students and delaware citizens. The Democratic Party nominee for governor is john carney, the incumbent. The republican candidate is julianne murray. Welcome to both of you. Both candidates have agreed in advance to rules for this debate. I will begin with a question for each of them and they have agreed to hold themselves to time limits. Although there will be no opening statements, you will have a chance to hear closing statements from both candidates later on. We will try to keep our questions short and i will ask the candidates to be concise as well so we can cover more ground tonight. The candidates will answer in the order they selected with a predebate coin toss. First on coronavirus pandemic related questions my first question goes to Governor Carney who will have a minute and 30 seconds to answer. If there is a fresh wave of covid19 cases in the coming weeks what we learned from the past year about when to shutdown businesses and schools and so on and when to reopen . Carney let me thank you and the university of delaware, delaware public media, for the forum tonight. We appreciate the opportunity to exchange views. Covid19, the onset of the pandemic twee 7 months ago in march had a serious impact on communities across the state. Most of the decisions early on were based on Public Health guidance and fear. We didnt know what to do as we shutdown businesses and stayathome orders for individuals, required people to wear a mask, uncertainty around the mask wearing guidance. We did what the cdc and the White House Task force recommended in terms of reopening businesses. As we got through the outbreak, very serious situation in march and april, move towards reopening after memorial day, in a limited basis for bars and restaurants and other retail establishments. Following the guidance of the cdc, we are not completely open but open to a significant extent, the tools that we have are limited with respect to shutting things down once again. We really have to adopt to a new normal which includes social distancing, mask wearing and avoiding large gatherings. Moderator you were not in Public Office but what have you learned in the last year about the timing of shutdowns for businesses and schools and so on . Murray thank you for the question. One of the things, i did write a note, this started with fear and what i have learned is fear is powerful and we need to step back from that fear. For 99. 94 of the delaware population this is not fatal land decisions were made to close our businesses, to ratchet back and be locked down for in my opinion way too long. We need to be focused, if this happens again or what have i learned, we need to absolutely find out what the fatality rate is at be prepared from a hospital standpoint but we have to go on with our lives. In this particular circumstance, i know Governor Carney said we are mostly back to normal but we really arent. Our Small Businesses were shutdown for months and are operating at 60 . Origins are operating at 30 . Our restaurants are struggling. For something that has 99. 94 of the population survived. We need to stop the hysteria and live our lives. Moderator let me follow up with a question based on a Public Opinion survey in the state of delaware that hasnt been publicly released and is being released, we asked people in delaware how often they wear a mask outside their home. 70 of delaware ians who answered the poll said they wear a mask always or very often in the poll also showed 78 of delawareands favor, support the use of a mandatory mask wearing requirement, 78 . I will ask both of you what you make of that kind of data about delawareandss tolerance for what they have endured over the past year. Carney it is consistent with what we have learned over the last 7 months and what the guidance has been with cdc that mask wearing is accepted as the most important thing people can do to prevent the spread of the virus. A lot of people are asymptomatic and shedding the virus and dont know about it. It is important wear a mask not so much to protect yourself but to protect people around you. If you look at the states that were very badly hit, florida, texas, arizona, they took the laissezfaire attitude with respect to reopening and in terms of following guidance around 6 feet social distancing and mask wearing. Moderator the switch to julianne murray, what do you make of this data about delawareands reaction . Murray they are worn down. Mask wearing, things have been mischaracterized. I do not favor mandatory mask wearing. I think voluntary, i understand the civic duty we have, who we need to be concerned about, our vulnerable population is people with preexisting conditions and the elderly. So i frankly shocked the number of 78 , i can tell you on the campaign trail that is not at all what i am being told. Voluntary and many of the people ive come across do not actually believe, or do not favor the mandatory mask weari wearing. For our next question, im going to ask my colleague, sylvia. Delawares black and latino populations have suffered significantly higher rates of infection during the pandemic. Especially Sussex County in the Food Processing industry. Should the state have foresee and especially in Food Processing industry. Should the state have foreseen this and what would you do to protect this population . Start with julianne murray. Murray i thought were always going to go with the order that Governor Carney would go first. I think the testing and the Latino Community was delayed and it should not shouldve been foreseeable. Very close conditions. We had several or many poultry Processing Plants here in Sussex County. Give me the other half of the question. Ii understood we have foreseen what was the otherst part of the question . What would you do to protect this population . Murray educate them. We need to be d talking about, weve been talked by the social distancing. Weve been talking about the mask wearing. Weve been talking about all of these things but i think we also need to be talking about that it is not sustainable fatal. Again, i cant liken it to the chickenpox but its less deadly than the flu in many circumstances. I think that we have to get people to understand that they dont want to get it, but if they do get it, it is not going to be fatal. Its an education. I think were a lot smarter now than we were back in march when this shutdown started. There was a tremendous amount of fear and to think when too much fear at this point but i think that webu can get people to understand and be proactive about keeping everybody informed so that they can kind of go on. Same question to your. We did anticipate the problem and when i first saw the first positive case in milford, i knew we had a challenge because ive seen how the workers Work Together so i contacted the processing folks getting together on the conference will. They bought in the white house and they came out with a proclamation that said no governor could close a meatpacking plant across the country so it set us back at least a week, week and a half in respect to testing but we tested thousands of the Processing Plant workers, thousands of their families and neighbors in georgetown, hillsborough and as we look back on our response to covid19, i believe our response to the outbreak the Processing Plants will be one of the high points. We were engaged with local community organizations, hospitals came up big and the companies themselves ultimately came around and realized testing employees and protecting them was better for them because more people would come to work so that will be the hi part of that is my prediction. Followup, is there nothing he would have done differently about adjusting these impacts . If we have the opportunity, i would have tested, we did ultimately in the first week instead of being sent back by the white house as we worked on the president did his Emergency Declaration that nobody could shutdown the plants but i think we would have had an organization, we shifted a group of Community Organizers and advocates working on the homeless problem in the three counties and removed them to work on the poultry Processing Plant workers and their families in the small towns. Thank you. I remember because i am situated in Sussex County and i remember is a significant delay and the Sussex County perspective, this started in march and we were well into the beginning of may, is my recollection. Im sure the governor will tell me if i am wrong but the issue here is that with the poultry plants, lots of testing, positive test results again, no fatalities. This was what needed to happen but from the Sussex County perspective, people were looking and thinking the testing was being done to inflate and across his. Thank you. Next question from ralph. Good ask you to respond to the no fatalities, she made. Its not true. One of the things that really concerned me with the first weekend we had the outbreak, i called the police chief in georgetown and he informed me of a young 44yearold had died in georgetown and it was frightening and it did get us organized quickly. We heard the same thing from other hospitals, i was hoping the people came and that we can, it turns out thank god, we didnt have a great number of fatalities among the hispanic communities and others who worked in those plants that first weekend. We had a fatality in georgetown, it also got us energized to respond to what we were seeing on the ground. Going to move on, delaware like a lot of other states around the country has lost millions of dollars in tax revenue when the economy crashed during the coronavirus pandemic. Im going to ask each of you with about one minute to respo respond, what is your plan to replace the lost state revenue . Government go first on this one. Fortunately, the former state treasurer, with members of the economic and final Advisory Committee came up with an approach to put money away instead of appropriating in the operating budget into a reserve so we started this pandemic in the fiscal year with an additional 125 million reserve which was very important with the challenges he had in this budget. As we move forward, its a lot of uncertainty about the revenues will see. The committee that estimates the revenue is looking at the economy, the rebound will affect, its going to be tough but having a 125 million in additional reserves will help us. One minute to respond. Ive heard him speak about the 125 million several times but here is the issue, and he alluded to it when he said theres uncertainty. We cant even quantify what our revenue is because we were shutdown for an entire quarter and for another quarter, weve been operating at reduced capacity so our revenue is going to be down tremendously. We have this 125 million out here but the reality is what governor is, the General Assembly, our taxes have gone up. We have the highest transfer tax in the country so i am incredibly concerned, if he is governor, what the response will be because i have every reason to believe taxes will go up when we have the deficit that we know is coming. We have an economic related question, delaware citizen from sue harris in dover. Listen carefully. Delaware is experiencing an increasing population of homeless as is the entire country. What are your plans for increasing Affordable Housing, not just shelter but the whats needed to provided opportunity for everyone to have a safe place to live. Your response. I think the homeless is an issue, i wrote down here we have to increase Affordable Housing and one of the things for me that i think is going to be will as we face the budget, we are going to have to look at where the money is being obligated and we will have to shift. I have proposed we have a commission that will look at the viability of spending so i think we are going to have to increase spending or the allegation housing because because. We have to make it affordable. Going to wrap you up and asked governor to respond. First of all, one of the responses to covid19 was the Homeless Outreach done by our Lieutenant GovernorCommunity Organizers with state agencies as we put out in the community and through the homeless and directed them into hotels so they could be there. The most important thing we have to do prevent other people from losing apartments, rental apartments and their homes by mortgage and rental systems so we have set aside 50 million of cares act funding to do that. We got to support the homeless on our streets and weve done that to covid19 we have to provide resources to prevent more people from coming homeless as a result of the pandemic so we have programs, particularly Strong Neighborhoods Program is leveraged millions of dollars across our state for Affordable Housing in every community. Let me stop you there and in the next segment, going to turn to education related questions. Public School Achievement here in delaware remains a challenge for many delaware students despite more than a decade of discussion and commissions and other study groups. We are going to talk in a moment about this quick settlement but first, i want to ask you, is it time to do something for the children the silly city of wilmington have its own School District . How should this take place . I am delighted you are asking about wilmington because i think wilmington is weve not had a new school in wilmington in figures. Whether they should have their own School District, we have entirely too many School Districts as it is so if we redistricting i would seek to reduce School District because id be trying to bring administrative costs down, 350 and we need to push into the classroom so i think wilmington has to be a priority and they have been failed are looking at a catastrophe when two thirds of eighthgraders are not proficient in reading and math and that number is even worse in wilmington so we need Vocational Training and infuse money into wilmington. Should they have their own School District . How would you set it up . First of all, education and improving schools is a number one priority our goals are to make sure every child in the state has the opportunity to be successful to read proficiently so they can go on to high school and graduate ready to go into the workforce and onto higher education. That is not happening in our state, particularly those with disadvantaged backgrounds and social learning english. Thats why we create Opportunity Funding in my budget three years ago to target additional revenue just for those children and get the children where they need to be so they can be successful in life. Right now, it is set up by senator called the ready commission looking at the question of the districts that serve the city of wilmington and for the work to be done the Opportunity Funding and improving education for these children. Continuing with the education thing, sophia. Yesterday the state reached a Court Settlement was civil Rights Groups trying to force delawares Education Funding system to better serve disadvantaged goodness. Governor, you promised to push funding to the state legislature including permanent funding for english language learners and low income students. Do you think lawmakers particularly hogans will go along with this . I do republicans and democrats across the spectrum in the house and senate have supported opportunity to stop every School District in the state from the south to the north. The districts where most of the republican legislatures are have probably more English Learners in every distance so these Additional Resources will enable us to make sure those children have every opportunity in life that they can read at grade level, at grade three to move on to high school and graduate ready to go so if we are going to be competitive as a state, we are going to be successful in our children to be successful, we need to make sure these children are getting the education they deserve and thats why we decided to make our commitment to these programs to help the children as opposed to having a judge decide spending money on lawyers and court. Would you have signed on on this settlement . Will you abide by it . If elected . Its unfortunate it took a lawsuit for this to