Susan Bysiewicz can’t wait to bust out of the house, so she can pardon Ruth the Turkey in time for Thanksgiving.
Bysiewicz, Connecticut’s lieutenant governor, has been in quarantine along with the governor and top aides after a couple of staffers came down in Covid-19.
From her home, she dished remotely Thursday with host Babz Rawls-Ivy on WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program about her plans once quarantine ends.
They include helping to boost local small businesses as the holiday shopping season begins.
One of Bysiewicz’s first stops will be Ekonk Hill Farm, she said. That’s where she’ll perform her annual official duty of pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving.
She gets to name the turkey whose life she saves. Last year she named the spared fowl after one of her heroes, late Gov. Ella Grasso. This year she plans to name the bird in question after another the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
From there, Bysiewicz plans to hit local businesses for the holiday season. On “LoveBabz,” she urged listeners to do the same. She and Rawls-Ivy bonded over their love of local haunts like Claire’s Corner Copia and Neville Wisdom gallery. Bysiewicz spoke of the triple ribbon-cutting she recently attended for the opening of three downtown food businesses.
“Think about all of those restaurants that are in your neighborhoods, all of those small businesses. Therea are so many cool shops and boutiques” in New Haven, Bysiewicz reflected. “That’s what makes New Haven such a great place, right?” “If you support a small business, almost all of what you spend stays right here in the community.”
If we don’t patronize them during the pandemic, she said, “we may lose them.”
She and Rawls-Ivy also spoke of local restaurants offering special to-go Thanksgiving dinners. They range from Claire’s to Broadway’s Sherkaan to Ninth Square Market Too Caribbean Market (which is offering this vegan special).
Also on the program, Bysiewicz urged small businesses that missed out on earlier rounds of federal and state pandemic relief to prepare for the next round by calling into a hotline for help with documentation and other tips. The number is 860 – 500-2333.
Click on the video at the top of this story to watch the full interview with Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz on WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk.”
Bysiewicz, Lamont, Murphy and Blumenthal are politicians in every sense of the word. I don't take seriously anything they say about New Haven. We'll know they are serious about New Haven when they decide to move here and live among us.