Stewart Closes City Hall to Public After Ayalon Article

Republican Mayor Erin Stewart announced that City Hall will be closed to the public on the same day that Ald. Aram Ayalon (D-3) took the mayor to task in a statewide newspaper over keeping City Hall open.

The closing of New Britain’s City Hall to the public is set to begin tomorrow, April 7, 2020 and continue for two weeks. Though City Hall will be closed to the public, the announcement from the mayor also says that, “all offices remain open and can be accessed via phone or email.”

Pointing out other city mayors have closed their cities’ public buildings to protect against spead of COVID-19, Ayalon, in an opinion article published in the CTMirror today, April 6, 2020, said that, “While taking some measures to prevent the public for entering all parts of the city hall building, all city employees, regardless of risk, are required to physically show up to city hall.”

Ayalon, who represents the city’s Third Ward on the City Council, said that,

The democratic side of the city council has attempted to persuade the mayor to allow city employees to work from home but to no avail. A resolution encouraging the mayor to allow city employees to work from home and to work out any impediments is currently being blocked by the Republican majority on New Britain city council.

“The mayor argues that the city would lose control over its employees if they are allowed to work from home,” Ayalon said, “and the union contracts forbid employees from working away from city hall.” But Ayalon said that, “Mayor Justin Elicker of New Haven indicated that his administration was able to work with the union to overcome such obstacles.”

Stewart’s comment on Facebook about the closure simply said,

City Hall will close to the public on Tuesday, April 7 and remain closed to the public for two weeks. Staff will remain here to assist you for all of your needs. For assistance, call 860-826-3300 or visit newbritainct.gov.

In a press release, Stewart also said,

We are doing everything we can to protect the public and our staff during these unprecedented times. The City has and will continue to remain open for business—we are essential–but I know that we need to take our precautions one step further to prepare for the peak of this epidemic in our state. For the safety of everyone, I am making the decision to temporarily close City Hall to the public for two weeks– with the goal of re-opening as soon as we deem it safe to do so.

Yesterday, April 5, 2020, the former Council Majority Leader, former Ald. Carlo Carlozzi, Jr. asked members of the public to encourage Stewart to close City Hall.

Carlozzi said that,

the Mayor’s requirement that employees show up to work at city hall or that they need to use their personal time runs counter to everything that she is preaching….”Stay home, stay safe, think beyond yourself”. Why must the employees of City Hall be forced to work in City Hall and not be allowed to work from home?? Other cities are doing it and they worked it all out with the labor unions. Why can’t the City of New Britain do the same?

“The hypocrisy of what the Mayor is doing was evident at the last meeting of the Common Council on March 25th,” Carlozzi said. “Half of the members were in the Council Chambers with more than 6 feet between any one member and the other members did a virtual meeting and were not in the Chambers.”

“The employees in finance, parks department, tax collectors office, town clerk’s office and a number of other offices do not have the luxury of being 6′ from each other’s work stations,” Carlozzi added.

“I would hate to think that it will take a city employee testing positive before the Mayor decides to react,” Carlozzi said. “The time is now, the time was 3 weeks ago.”

The city has published a document listing, “New Britain City Hall COVID Altered Operations,” with contact information for various city agencies and how access certain city services during the closing of City Hall to the public.

Editor’s Note (4/8/2020): The article was updated with a quote from a Stewart press release.