Commonwealth Journal; Interview with Gubernatorial Candidate Francis X. Bellotti on Voter Concerns in Massachusetts

This is the award winning Commonwealth Journal a weekly magazine a feature news and information brought to you as a public service. The University of Massachusetts at Boston on WM D at that. This week we feature an informal 1 1/2 hours special program featuring Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Bill Oddie. This is Bill Markby speaking that's coming up next on Commonwealth Journal. One of the candidates for governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is right Bill Oddie and Mr. Bill Oddie has agreed to join us in our studios today for this special edition of Commonwealth Journal. I guess one of the most important questions that people like the street would like to ask of you how do you find that campaign going and what's it really like to gamble for government. It keeps changing. Many years ago it was doing factories and standing at best apps and things of that nature. Now there's nobody in the factories right here there I made it in. You

kind of meet down so you don't. I mean it's not as productive or efficient and media seem to have much greater and greater and greater impact. I have never seen a campaign that has such focus every single day of the campaign. So that you always have to be ready in this great impact and things are very very fluid making changing Plus I think one of the other variables that's very important is that people have great frustrations a great deal of anger a great deal of worry out there about the economy and that factors into it a great deal. You find they verbalize it better today they did fifteen years ago and I find not so much that they variable is it better but that they they feel alienated. When you had personal contact with people they could tell you what was going on. Maybe get out of the systems now more and more people take polls and take public opinion research find out what they think people want and act to cue later. And people don't participate in that process.

And as a result I think you get further and further you know Phillip out of the government when you take a look at it one of the things that I think shocks me more than anything else is the low relatively low turnout for both primary and general elections in the state. You see that turning around this year. I don't think anyone can predict that. I think the anger the frustrations of what's been happening happen Beacon Hill and what they've done the paralysis leadership paralysis may stimulate. Let's all vote and throw the body out. Yeah that may stimulate one of those. What I do doesn't matter in a crazy up there anyway so I'm not going to vote. Which could be a negative effect in its own right. Yeah. So you think you can predict which way that's going to go. We take a look at it one of the most pressing problems obviously that it's on everybody's mind is the fiscal crisis facing the state. There are no simple solutions certainly no simple answers to any of the questions. Give me an overview as to how you see the fiscal situation what would you do to try to change it when you come into office.

Well it's much deeper than a fiscal crisis you know fiscal crises are mathematical and they can be solved. This is a leadership crisis and I think you're going to have anything change a great deal until you have a new governor. You know Speaker things of that nature. We have a couple of lame duck and I know what it means to be a lame duck when I was attorney general for the last four months you really can't do anything. Yes and hire anybody against that project you can't do anything. The same thing with the speaker. The speaker was running for treasurer and everybody knows the lame ducks that affects your ability to lead and to make decisions has nothing to do with individual person it's just the way life is. And I I think that I spent 11 hours on Wall Street in February and their great concern which is now being stated this past week but they expressed it then to me was there the feeling that there was an absence of leadership here and an inability to get the fiscal crisis behind us make the decisions that would be should be made when things change you know for us we had the miracle. You know it was then that changed and you could see that coming.

But when it starts to change you should be able make the decisions that stopgap the problems that didn't happen. We were in paralysis for about a year and a half almost two years. And so finally after all of that time we pass a tax bill. At the eleventh hour when we were there was so much under the gun they had to across the board cuts instead of thoughtfully picking priorities that's the worst way to do this across the board. Just one example of what that is that when you cut across the board you cut programs to save you money. You know for example we have a program that is called Healthy Start where women get prenatal care. Right. The 4 percent cut means $200000 out of that. That means maybe a hundred five women don't get that if just seven of those women had a premature baby and had to pay we had to go to the intensive care unit the hospital just seven of those would pay that $200000 because there's been 35000. So those things don't even begin to make any sense and what they do is they really

exacerbate the problems later on. The other thing is if I were there I would do what I said I would do a year ago. I would begin the restructuring reorganization of government. I would look at every agency every program every regulation see what had to any longer exist than I do consolidation. Reducing the size or even outright elimination of the agency a program shouldn't exist anymore. That hasn't been done and I think that that's one of the frustrations I've heard debates about what kind of tax sales tax and services income tax in taxes gasoline tax debate on systemic reform of that government and let you do that you're going to face the same problem next year that you face now. So I would that's what I would do. My guest is gubernatorial candidate Frank Bill Oddie. We take a look at it. Would these be tangible demonstrably signs that the average voter out on the streets could see that the governor is really taking some positive actions to change some of the things that have to be done. I get the feeling when I walk the streets when I go around on the job that I do that people would like to see some outward

visible signs of the things that a governor would come in take a positive leadership role and so forth that somebody could really say to a neighbor across a garden fence a guy is in there and he's really doing something now to change some of the things that we have been languishing about. Yes not going to happen to have an election and then you're going to have to do it I think dramatically make some dramatic changes in a lot of things and hurt. Yes. We're going to hear you make some and if you change the way we do business the way we educate our children we train our workers the way we approach the delivery of services picking priorities and you know everybody has a sacred cow in their budgets. We can't for those anymore CLTV petition selfie petition. If you I don't know what the polls show but if you voted right now I think I would pass out of frustration and legitimate frustration. I think it's bad. I think it's a disaster. And I even talked to thinking reasonable people and they understand that but what they say

is we're going to send a message. They just want someone to pay attention to them. And even though this is a drastic thing to do I don't believe in. Fiscal government by referendum and a silty petition just would give us maybe a 2 billion dollar deficit if people understood what it would bring. You'd still decimate local aid. You'll be laying firefighters police offices and teachers that kind of thing services in the town. Those things will just really go to the point where people have no understanding at the moment of what will happen. Plus the fact that a bond rating will be just terrible going to when I was down there in February they were worried about the SEAL team petition besides the leadership problem because they bought the bonds on the basis of certain contractual assumptions one of which was that the authorities would raise their fees and have controlled them under the CLP petition that goes back to approved by the legislature which means you'd be taking money of the surplus associate backing up the bonds and you know the ability to really back up the bonds the way they

did when they bought them. So I think you have a lot of I think you have real turmoil if this thing passes. Alternative solution would be there for what I believe from what you're saying is this systematic approach therefore to going back and analyze show people that you're attempting to do that they don't have any feeling if that's thinking about you know about restoration level again. Absolutely. Three major talent you feel you're bringing to the corner office first. I know how to do the job better than anyone I have the experience in government. I did it as attorney general you know and I did the things that people said could not be done. I made everybody work full time. People used to work part time. I got there. I moved the office out of the state house insulated from politics which I'm the only one that ever did that the only constitutional officer and I reduced the size of the office by 20 percent which is what you had going to have to do it made it to 20 percent but you got to really reduce the size. That requires making some very had decisions which I can make because I'm not wearing what we're anything anything else after being

governor. They can make those decisions that have to be made and they do have to be me. And I understand how that government works and I can bring together the strong personalities in government and make these things happen if I look up no we would not have dragged on this long. I would put everybody in a room and made that happen. Plus I understand the organization of government and how to systematize it better than it is now and cut through all the foolishness and get at the fat in the waist and a great deal of the you know projected delivery of some of the services for it. Did you have it. And I think that basically the ability to exercise that kind of leadership to understand the new systems to understand how to communicate in a media world but still not lose the personal kind of leadership which I think is very very important. Frustration that I hear to more than anything else is they and I always love that they are up there and we are down here. When you take a look at it what he does say to we of us down here for them who are up there in trying to make the bonds

of government work more fully and being involved with the job. Well I think the first thing you do is communicate with people. You tell them the truth. If I were Governor I would be beginning to look at all the agencies of the programs all the regulations and each week I would tell people what I was doing and I would listen to them. I mean right now and I've had two town meetings I'm going out to the western part of state this week to invite maybe two or three hundred people in answer questions for an hour and find out what they're thinking about. You may not have all the answers but at least people know that you want to be there and you care about their problems and I think that's really important. People don't feeling you know if your government is capable of solving the problems anymore. For those who do not know your stand on the abortion question please. It's very difficult for people to understand this I've said it so many times over the past year I would add here to Roe versus Wade that woman has a right to make that choice for the first six months after viability after that the state has an interest. And there's

another life that you have to consider. But up until six months what the law is right now is what I would support and I would veto any legislation that would change that. We'll take a look at the current condition of the environment in the Commonwealth. I'm talking about clean air and clean water clean streams Boston Harbor cleanup the pollution problem Merrimack Valley we go up to the Springfield area and so forth. Are we since you were attorney general and came into office and have been around the state are we any further along are we worse are we standing pat. I think we may be further along as far as attitude is concerned. When I came in one of the Christians I did in 1906 was close to Boston incinerated at that time it was very difficult I remember things like that and I closed landfills and I took an awful lot of heat for doing it. Now we're at the point where we know what's happening with Langfield Langfield landfills their premium water supplies and things of that nature. I think we're we're beginning to realize that it's almost a matter of survival. Clean and clean like you can help the economy doesn't mean you don't have clean air and clear water. I sued the

federal government to enforce the law. It quality regulations I said Secretary of the Interior what. When they had the tall stack south western part of the country and Midwest with acid rain that type of thing would come east. I did the same thing with water quality I prosecuted people dumped in Boston have it but in those days no one. It was a matter of great concern because people weren't aware of it. Now they are becoming aware people understand that we have to save open spaces we have to buy land and have buffer zones around the Quabbin Reservoir on the ware river because if we don't in a preventative sense and this is the most important thing we do a prevention instead of waiting to do cleanup it's much more expensive. If we don't have buffer zones around the reservoir nowhere wherever it affects our water supply they're going to build filtration plants at hundreds of millions of dollars be much more expensive that way. So that would I think the real educational problem is to teach people prevention conservation prevention as opposed to much more expensive

cleanup you know recycling is something people have to understand that we're going to have to have. My guest is gubernatorial candidate Frank Bill Oddie. We're discussing a few of the issues and candidate questions of the time. We go back to the environment again if you will. The thing that I think more than anything else I see today is among young children that are starting to really get the message as to what the environment really means. When you take a look at it I I get around the state and I get the feeling that the children and the younger people really want to participate more than I think we're led to believe in what's going on in government. And I get a feeling from you that you're sort of feeling the same thing as you see that maybe there is some encouragement here there is some idea that the message finally is starting to sink in. That's an education thing and water Yes you know that's because you state educating kids in school right. I think if you do that and the environment you do it on health care if you do in drugs things of that nature you stand very very early. For example in health care 60 percent of the deaths in this country are premature to due to smoking.

Substance abuse put diet lack of exercise and we enter at the back end as we do in the environment in least to the most expensive kind of medical care up front educating people to live just a little bit differently. Sure would make a tremendous difference you stack that nearly great. And those are the things that I think. It's communication skills reading writing things of that nature that we should be teaching school. I think it worries me too I think in a comment if you are kind enough to do so. I have and I'm devastated by the fact that we have such a high infant mortality rate for a so-called advanced civilized nation. 16:17 worst record compared to so-called third world countries we're always willing to point the finger at and say they should be doing better. It seems that we're not doing better it seems again dealing with the mother who is carrying that child to term having the problems of getting adequate care and protection and knowing what to do. We have probably the most expensive health care system in the world and when they surveyed maybe 10 or 11 of

that wealthiest countries in the. People who are most satisfied with their health care as candidate people who at least satisfy the United States and Canada does the as they say. Then they take care of everybody from the data blindly dated back. If you lived here three months and two thirds of what it cost us here the infant mortality rate up there is 8 out of a thousand down here it's 11 out of a thousand. So we're not doing a thing for the night kill Asians prenatal care prevention that we should be doing. That's what's causing us the problems. It's a disgrace that we have such a high infant mortality rate into an area now that you are sad to relate very well experienced with and that's the drug and crime situation. I wish we could do just one program alone in dealing with that issue and I get the feeling also there is a tremendous frustration level. Talk to me however if you will as to how you see this burgeoning drug situation and what deliberate steps must be taken if we're going to try to

win. There is a battle I I'm sort upset with this idea of battle lines all the time being drawn because I don't view it as a battle. I view it as survival so it's a constant effort. Tell me where you are. Well there are two. Aspects of it One is supply and want to demand. You have to try to cut down the supply which is very very difficult was a big coastline that it's very difficult to protect it's very difficult to protect it from coming in but we do the effort we should and we have to exercise some national leadership to have a coalition of countries. You know if we're going to import from Colombia coffee beans and we should make sure that they're careful about how they produce drugs over there. But I think just as important is the educational process so that you get away from the demand in you have to give people hope in a lot of the urban areas we have a dropout rate of almost 40 percent because kids have no hope and they don't have a hope for jobs no relation to the education they get they don't see any hope for a job at the end. They drop out and start getting into drugs to make money. So I think we have to have

a real drug education program we talk about a bit I think largely symbolic. It's in maybe a lot of the schools throughout the state but the average is about 17 hours a year. That's not. I mean we should be proud of the education every single day and use that to cut down on that. We when I was attorney general I worked out a pro career criminal program. We discovered that maybe 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of the crimes so we identified those people put them on a fast track and brought to time for trial for three hundred sixty six days down to sixty three point five days and you get those people off the street. But you have to do the supply prosecute those people selling drugs and let me tell you that is very very difficult we don't have enough prosecutors to do that in police offices and the demand has to be a coordinated thing you have to do. I think change is sound and we have foreign policy and you can do that as governor you can work with other governments to effect it. Senators a congressman to effect international policy and drugs I don't see I see

talk about a national policy I don't really see what the legalization of drugs. That's not something that's going to happen. People debate it and they talk about it but I don't see it happening. When you take a look at it getting into the core of the communities how do you get into these kids how are we going to get to them how are we going to do this educational process I'm intrigued with the fact there are schools I go and talk to and so forth. Raul wrapped up in study halls and so forth as opposed to providing some sort of a program. Yeah I mean some of the study hall type when it's the same thing you're talking about on the environment. Kids a sense of the environment because we talk about it we teach them about it. Same thing with drugs you have to keep doing it so you think 17 hours a year is enough to educate kids into a better man. They learn that their day on the street. My guest today is gubernatorial candidate Frank Bill Oddie and we're trying to discuss some of the issues of the day and get an idea as to how he views those issues and how it would address those as governor one of the things that I think we find morning also dealing again with his frustration level I keep going back to that not to make a federal case out of it

but I hear it all over the street as well the government's lost contact with it is already out there that understands me when I go into Human Services I've got a problem when I go and apply for my license and get it renewed it's $45 $55 whatever. Nobody's listening you address the issue early on when you talk about a better communicator of process on a weekly basis. Staff members people on the street those who come in contact every day with the average citizen what would you say to them how would you would you get them involved as well with the people who voted Well I think it's it's has to do with attitude to begin with when I had the attorney general's office my people what had They're very happy to be they had a very proud of their jobs and they're very good people and they called and I consume protection division an 800 line and we probably had 13000 complaints. Both if you had a complaint a week and we answer them we try to and we made people feel as though there was a place to go and that's what you don't have people look at that bureaucracy they make a call to one agency to shift it to another when they should not and they feel like heaven doesn't belong to them it

must belong to somebody else and that has a great deal to do. I think that attitude has to do with morale among state employees morale is very low among state employees. You can change those things. I did it in the General's Office. It's much bigger in the state government but still attitude permeates time and understanding that you know public service is a very important thing but people get bashed all the time you listen these radio programs and they bash public employees all day long when I know a lot of people who work 60 70 hours a week sometimes 80 hours a week for not a lot of money they get being just because they have to be state employees I think this is an attitudinal thing effects. It goes right down to people in the street. Take a look at it one of the questions it comes down to Dick Armey and I'm thinking about our listeners on the western part of the state. There is again this attitude of them and the said comment is often made Boston and Massachusetts stopped at Worcester and doesn't go beyond the valley you know the western part of the state for all the listeners who are out in that

part of the I'm talking about Springfield the Ludlow oleo Greenfield all that region I see it's even more than that people wish to fill a staff that went 20 I'm just going to say and the people out west think the staffs of fun anyway. You know you drive you get out of here you get out there when I was attorney general in an office in Springfield service the western part of the state. And that let me tell you from the day I started. You get that feeling as you go out to Pittsfield and until they had cable you'd be watching television becoming from Albany New York. And there was not the orientation to what was happening in Boston and people in Boston where the bulk of the bulk of the population maybe only 10 percent of the four western counties so 90 percent of East of those you know Franklin Hampshire Hamden and Berkshire so that a lot of the decisions are made on the basis of what's happening in the densely populated areas that's where the most representatives and senators and so a lot of the decisions exclude people in the US and you have to make a separate effort and you have to do things that

for example but stimulate the economy in Berkshire County. Adams not the Adams which is whole separate industrial commercial employment problems very high unemployment rate. We talk about depressing the Adoree have a channel which I think is one at which I think is very important but if you don't have a gas tax of 10 cents to allocate two cents for that but then you add hate 8 cents of that 10 cents to the infrastructure throughout the rest of the state so that your roads are being built. County Hampton Hampshire Franklin County so that they feel they participate. Let me tell you they really don't feel that way at the moment and they haven't from the day I started here back in 1982 have always felt the same way and I think with good reason because it's separate and I'm very nervous I'm going to ask that question of everyone so it's not just directed to you because I I feel the frustration too and I see it out there when I get to talk to them about their life for that very reason. Talk to me for a moment in the time that we have remaining. What about this idea of the negative attitude of Massachusetts

on the national scene. We were chastised for the fact where the dollar is the junk capital of the world and so forth. What would you do to raise that level how do we get people to stop thinking so negatively and turn it around. Well I think it's going to be difficult but one of the things you have to do is start exercising some political leadership and start making the decisions maybe decisions that people might not like but you're going to have to make them and once you see once they see. That is political leadership capable of making decisions that are affected by the economy social problems things like that then you start to come back to what we were you know when I was attorney general I remember that we had great prestige throughout the country. People looked at Massachusetts as well the example of what government should be and what history should be and what politics should be. That's all changed and changed dramatically in the last two years. You can get it back but it's not quite as easy as it was before.

Personal comment in the few moments we have remaining How is frightful already and how is frightful Lodhi come January and how does Wright Bill Oddie view of the future as to his role and what he sees. Well that depends whether I want to lose if I lose I'll go back and practice law if I win. You take on a whole set of problems I think. Fiscal problems leadership problems problems of the economy which is what I happen to think this is all about this election is about the economy and jobs and the ability of people to do business here and I think that's that for me is the major issue of the 90s because the economy is tied to education and without an educated skilled labor force we're not going to have the economy we're losing jobs all the time because we don't have that lay before us we have to change the way we educate our children the way we train our workers. We're going to allocate money to education but it's not just money it's changing how we do it and paying teachers more money and having less administration more teaches faculty getting in the

first 12 grades tying that to industry so there's some relation. You have business look ahead and see what business is we're going to have like biotechnology medical research things like that. So there's some relation between what you learn in school and what you get. So the economy bringing businesses into it and the educational infrastructure which is really important are the priorities because that affect the slow systems as well. Yeah 50 plus years as well. Oh absolutely. You can't do those things if you have a revitalized economy. You can't do it just with by raising taxes you really revitalize your country can do things for the elderly. You do things for every segment of society you do things through education but you have to make sure that businesses feel this is a good place to do business and stay here. They don't have that feeling right now. As you go on we wish you well we thank you for taking time out from a horrendous schedule. I salute how you do it. I don't know how any of you do it but I know that it's something that you're very intimately involved and very dedicated to and I can't thank you enough for your time and wish you well and thank you very much for

talking to me. Thank you sir. Today's guest is Ben Frank Bill Oddie the former attorney general and president Democratic gubernatorial candidate for governor in the September primary. It was nice to visit with him today. The views and opinions expressed by the gubernatorial candidates on these special editions of Commonwealth Journal are their own. I do not necessarily reflect the views of radio station WM BFM the University of Massachusetts supporting groups or stations of Commonwealth Journal Democratic candidate John Silber through his staff has failed to respond to numerous requests to also appear in this gubernatorial series featuring one on one conversations with each of the other candidates. Listening to the award winning Commonwealth Journal a weekly magazine feature news and information brought to you as a public service. All of the University of

Massachusetts at Boston and the WM BFM. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Executive producer Tom Callahan producer Kevin Your letters are important to us. Write us at Commonwealth Journal. The radio the University of Massachusetts Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 2 5 3 3 9 3. Thank you for joining us. This is Bill McVeigh speaking. This week on the award winning Commonwealth Journal we invite you to join us for an

informal one half hour special program featuring Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Bill Oddie. All that coming up on this week's Commonwealth Journal. This is Bill McCabe speaking inviting him to join us on this station.