During his forty-five minute transition meeting last Wednesday with Governor-elect Charlie Baker, his former 2010 rival, Governor Deval Patrick says he gave his successor a “shortlist of key issues” delivered with a couple bits of “friendly advice.” On Boston Public Radio with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, Patrick shed some light on the counsel and concerns he will be passing on to the next administration in January.
Earmarking Key Issues For The Next Administration
The narrow repeal of gas tax indexing on Election Day will reportedly cost the state $1 billion dollars in projected revenue for infrastructure and transportation improvements over the next ten years. That’s a troublesome outlook, Patrick warned, for a sector he believes is vastly underfunded.
“I’m worried about it,” he said. “Frankly, had there been no change, I would continue to worry about it.”
Patrick criticized Baker’s campaign pledge to levy no new taxes and no new fees, saying it was unrealistic in light of the repeal and the infrastructure problems facing the commonwealth. “What the governor elect will find is...a critically important need has been made more difficult by virtue of the repeal and by virtue of some of the comments made during the campaign,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t make the need go away.”
Patrick cited the closure of the Long Island Bridge as one of the most pressing infrastructure issues in the state. The closure of the bridge displaced 700 homeless men and women around the city of Boston by rendering the shelter on Long Island inaccessible.
“The problem with the bridge and its structural integrity has been around a long time,” Patrick said. “This is the kind of thing I’m talking about when I say, we’ve got to be serious about the routine investment in our infrastructure.”
“When you get to crisis point, you don’t have many options, and there are all kinds of consequences like these in people’s lives,” he said.
From One Governor To The Next: Some “Friendly Advice”
Patrick also offered Baker some advice: to govern as inclusively as he campaigned.
“There’s a truth about governing here, and it may be true in other places, that there are a handful of people that have all the resources and connections and influence to look after themselves in Beacon Hill. They don’t care who the governor is,” he said.
“Everyone else’s interests depend on whether the governor actually sees them, and is reaching out to them. The test will be, having campaigned in an open way, the Governor-elect continues to connect people who are not as connected,” Patrick said.
A Peaceful Transition
Patrick adamantly denied the speculation that the transition between his administration and the next would be contentious.
“We had our contest four years ago. This contest wasn’t about him and me,” Patrick said. “This whole business—you see a lot of it in Washington—of perpetual campaigns, that you have to hate the other person because they’re not the party. I don’t think you have to hate Republicans to be a good Democrat.
”The campaign is finished,“ he said. ”It is important that the new administration succeeds.“
To hear more from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, tune in to the full ”Ask the Gov“ segment with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan above.
