Tonight. the Watertown Democratic Town Committee had the privilege of having both State Senator Stephan Tolman and Representative Rachael Kaprielian at its monthly (now bi-monthly) meeting. Before Tolman and Kaprielian entered, there was a quick discussion about Watertown State Democratic Caucus, scheduled for Saturday, February 3, 10 am in the Lower Hearing Room. It was mentioned that in past off year Democrat State Convention the WDTC did not fill all the possible delegate slots. Thus, if anyone reading this is a registered democrat in Watertown and wants to be a delegate this year, they can show up on February 3^rd and they have a good shot at becoming a delegate. I would attempt to become one myself, but alas my first Saturday Class of the semester at UMass Boston is on Feb 3^rd and I won’t be able to make the caucus.

            Now lets move on to Tolman and Kaprielian. Representative Kaprielian was the first to show up and she talked about a “spirit of corporation and openness at the State House since the new administration took over.” Senator Tolman came a few minutes after and said that “The past Republican administration had not invested in the infrastructure of the state.” He went further stating “now is our (The Democrats) time to deliver and we should be held accountable.”

            The issue of slot machines and casinos as a way to raise revenue was brought as a topic of discussion. Senator Tolman remarked there are “plenty of stumbling blocks in the way of gambling.” Tolman went on to say that he “personally was not crazy about using gambling as a way to drive the economic engine, but recognized we lose money to other states.”

            Representative Kaprielian later in the night proclaimed that “health care is the biggest issue we face.” Both Kaprielian and Tolman went on to state that there is no easy solution about the health care issue and that more preventative treatment was needed in order to save long term costs. Tolman discussed the advantages of a single payer system such as England or Canada as something that should be looked into and pointed out that Blue Cross Blue Shield employs more people then the entire Health Care System in Canada. Kaprielian believes a ultimate solution must come at the federal level.

            While discussing health care, Tolman brought up one of his pet issues the abuse of OxyContin/Heroin.  Representative Kaprielian remarked that “this is in issue that Tolman works hard on but does not drive him a lot of votes.” Tolman called OxyContin and Heroin Weapons of Mass Destruction (hmm maybe there is some OxyContin we can find in Iraq) and health care plans got some of Tolman’s rancor for the problem because “from 1991 to 2001 there had been a 1.1% reduction in commitment to substance abuse treatment each year. “

            Other issues were discussed at less length. Though Deval Patrick supports it, there appears to be no current legislation on the table regarding Cape Wind which surprised me. Public Transportation in the Watertown area and the general crummyness of it was brought up via plenty of amusing anecdotes from people in the crowd. (I think many reading this can relate to the story of seeing a bunch of 73 buses go by before a 71 bus shows up at Harvard Station.) Tolman talked about the $$$ problems that prevented a lot of improvements, but said he would look into the issues regarding public transit that people addressed.

Other Notes:

• Tolman mentioned that the ubiquitous “spare change guy” in down town Boston was actually from Watertown and attended WHS with Tolman. Tolman went on to discuss the ways he has tried to help him many times. If you don’t know who I mean when I refer to the “spare change guy” he is the first guy in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryBEftqKT9c
• Bloggers Steve Owens of http://point08.blogspot.com/ and Lisa Williams of http://h2otown.info/ were also in attendance at the meeting; check out there sites for news and notes from the meeting as well. In addition, right before and during the WDTC meeting, there was a meeting at the Watertown Library regarding the bike path projects in the area. I was unable to attended that meeting, but you can read about it at the aforementioned http://h2otown.info/node/2392