Our discussion touched on the following specific issues:
Jobs. Goldberg pointed to education as critical to the long-term economic competitiveness of Massachusetts. “The key to jobs in Massachusetts is education. I know that we need to increase funding to state higher education. It is taking kids six years to get out of school because they have to hold two or three jobs. We are 47th, 48th or 49th in the country in funding higher ed. There are jobs here but we are not preparing kids for those jobs,” she said.
Lieutenant Governor’s Role. The candidate said the relationship between Mike Dukakis and Tom O’Neill is her role model. “There is so much work to be done to get Massachusetts moving again. It has to be done by a team,” she said. “Business tends to think that government is out to get them. I can be a very good point person for that relationship,” she added.
Social Concerns. “Several public policy issues that concern me a great deal: hunger and homelessness. Also psychiatric illness. But we can’t fund all the programs we want because we haven’t had anyone focusing on broad-based economic development,” she said.
Heath Care. She called for participation by additional groups. “The business community seems to be off the charts on this. There are other people with deeper pockets that no one seems to be talking about, which are the insurers. I think they should be involved in the process. Why can’t all the municipalities get together and possibly join the state plan. That right away reduces costs. But also why hasn’t industry looked at solutions like that. So maybe we do it for them. No one is thinking long term,” she said.
So, I thought we had 2 candidates in the race that were the “local aid” candidates, but reading Deb’s comments makes me think that now we only have one, and that she’s trying to horn in on Silbert’s jobs/economic development message. Deb states that she “can be a very good point person” for “business” that thinks “government is out the get them.” She says education is the key to creating jobs and growth. She says that the business community shouldn’t be the sole target in health care reform.
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I actually tend to agree with her on some of her points, but feel like this is a different message than her “local aid” message she was hammering away on previously.
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Now, I know that no candidate has to limit themselves to single issues this darn early, but I sense that Deb has gotten spooked by Tim Murray’s local aid talk, and thus has ceded that ground somewhat. Granted, she still talks about what she did for Brookline, but it doesn’t seem like she was advocating as strongly for cities and towns like she had been.
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And of course, my impressions could be clouded by the filter that is Bob, since he didn’t post a 45 minute transcript, but rather picked what he thought was important, as is his wont, and I’ll look forward to the others’ impressions as well.
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Also, did she talk fundraising at all, and whether she’s going to put in these phantom millions everyone is talking about?
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Just my 2 cents. This is going to be a humdinger of a race!
What were your city manager and town administrator doing when you were doing all this work for your town?
According to Deb in our conversation last night, Brookline has no town manager – it is unusual in that respect – so as chair of the board of selectmen she really was doing all that work.
Rich Kelliher is (and has been for some time) Brookline’s Town Administrator. While he serves at the pleasure of the Selectmen for a 3-year term, he basically runs the Town. Now, Deb Goldberg may have been an exception to the norm as Chair of the Selectmen because (I believe) she did not have another job at the time. (Nor has she ever, really, but that’s another post…) Other Chairs have worked full time, and served as Selectmen as well. (The current chair, Robert Allen, is a practicing attorney.)
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I commend Deb’s dedication to her Town, and perhaps she was more hands-on than other Chairs, but let’s be clear: Brookline’s “mayor” is Rich Kelliher, just as Robert Healy makes Cambridge work on a daily basis at its City Manager. Brookline could have run without Deb Goldberg as a hands-on Chair, but it could not have run without Rich Kelliher there to steer the ship every day.
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I also don’t doubt her assertion that she made sure the streets were plowed at 4 AM, because if they weren’t, it was her elected booty on the line and not Kelliher’s.
what Deb told us about town administrators. I will have to check my notes. Thanks for the info.
Deb shies away from her talk about cities and towns because Tim is the real advocate for cities and towns. Tim while not a strong mayor has been arguably the most aggressive mayor of Worcester. He sees problems and lookds for ways to fix them. Worcester a city of 175,000 people is seeing economic developement in places not thought possible. In Worcester we have coined the new phrase, Worcester is a city on the move. Unlike Deb Goldberg Mayor Murray doesn’t say he did it all, instead he says it was a collaborative effort with the 11 councilors and city manager along with the community.