Governor Deval Patrick spoke to the Watertown Democratic Town Committee tonight. He gave brief opening remarks where he explained why he was running for reelection even though it is a “tough time to be governor” right now; he stated that he is asking supporters to “believe in our values, and not him.”

He then took questions from the crowd; the first one was from yours truly and asked him to handicap the chances the school reform bill passing before the deadline the Jan 19 deadline to receive 250 million dollars worth of federal Race To The Top funds. He stated that the chance for school reform to pass was very good, but he was less certain in getting passage before Jan 19. He then went on to discuss the bill is not just about Charter Schools, but makes it easier for innovation and changes to occur at any school when necessary. The next question was more of a comment from a recently unemployed man who thanked Deval for many of the state services that unemployed people get in Massachusetts. Deval asked him what industry he was in (Higher Education Administration) and other questions about his current situation and then told the main to “hang in there.”

                Some more controversial issues where also discussed. One was the idea to allow children of undocumented immigrants to receive in state tuition at public universities. He pointed out that there are many misconceptions about the issue; for example, children of undocumented immigrants are already allowed to attend state university under the law, that the student has to attend a Massachusetts High School for at least 3 years which would prevent people moving into the state to try to take advantage of the in state tuition at the last minute. He went on to discuss the issues as a fairness issues stating a (I am paraphrasing here) “student who went to Mass schools for 10 years who are the children of undocumented immigrants should have the same opportunity to have in state tuition costs there fellow students sitting next to them.

                The problems with the state’s transportation infrastructure where discussed by Governor Patrick. After hearing the question about Transportation, Patrick jokingly said, “oh my times up.” He then went on to say that these problems are many years in the making and is going take a while to get out of them. He pointed out that regular maintenance does occur on the T, but they do need more of it. He went on talking about how we need coherence in transportation strategy and that is why he meshed all the agencies together into Mass DOT recently.  While discussing transportation, he brought up the gas tax which supported which would have gone exclusively to the transportation budget and that the sales tax which was eventually passed instead has a portion of it that is dedicated to transportation and that he and the public both need to hold the legislature accountable to make sure discipline is used and those funds stay under the realm of transportation.

                A question was also asked about the stimulus funds that went to build a foot bridge over route 1. Patrick explained how he believed the bridge would make it easier for people working on each side of route 1 to go over on their lunch breaks and after dinner to patronize various businesses and hopefully attract more businesses and by extension jobs.

                The last question the night was by a man frustrated that Deval Patrick had not gone to visit the Watertown Family Network and by the fact that the man’s email’s to Deval’s staff had not been returned. Deval apologized for not having the email’s returned, but pointed out he gets 600 or so similar request a month and he is “not just sitting around eating bon bons.” He then offered to quickly meet with the main after the meeting give him his number . After Deval spoke, representatives from all the senate campaigns except for Martha Coakley spoke advocating for their candidate.
Here are a couple of pictures from the event: