Gov. Patrick adds funding to project, speaks on re-election, race relations and regional issues

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GORDON DANIELS

Gov. Deval Patrick describes new steps being taken to advance a broadband access project, in an appearance Tuesday at noon at the MassHighway office on North King Street in Northampton.

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GORDON DANIELS

Gov. Deval Patrick describes new steps being taken to advance a broadband access project, in an appearance Tuesday at noon at the MassHighway office on North King Street in Northampton. Behind him is Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins.

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GORDON DANIELS

Gov. Deval Patrick speaks Tuesday during a meeting with Gazette reporters and editors.

NORTHAMPTON - Despite sagging poll numbers, Gov. Deval Patrick said he looks forward to a conversation about the state's future with voters and his challengers as he campaigns for re-election.

"People are hurting right now, and it's one of the things that happen in these jobs, that people blame, rightly or wrongly, the leader for that hurt," Patrick said during a nearly hourlong editorial board meeting with the Gazette.

The governor said he doesn't think the looming gubernatorial campaign should focus on what his administration has accomplished. Rather, "It ought to be about where we're going," he said.

Patrick was making one of his occasional trips to western Massachusetts to announce a $4.3 million broadband project along Interstate 91. The initiative involves a partnership with the Massachusetts Broadband Institute and state transportation department and is designed to help expand high-speed communications to underserved towns in the region.

Standing behind three oversized spools of conduit outside MassHighway's District 2 office in Northampton, Patrick joined state transportation officials and broadband advocates in touting the state's latest investment in telecommunications infrastructure, calling it "a long time coming."

"It is absolutely integral to our effort to expand broadband access to every corner in the commonwealth," Patrick said. "Today we announce, 'We get it done.'"

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Sharon Gillett, president of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, said the project along I-91 is expected to be completed by year's end and that private companies could begin expanding broadband access to unserved and underserved communities from one of 33 interconnection points as early as January.

The $4.3 million is part of a larger $40 million state bond bill and will specifically extend conduits up an additional 4.5 miles to the Vermont border. The expansion will enable collaboration across state borders in areas like public safety, education and the electronic sharing of health records.

The project is one component of a much larger fiber-optic cable or broadband ring slated for western Massachusetts, and it dovetails with ongoing development of an Intelligent Traffic System along I-91. In addition, the broadband expansion is expected to help better position the state for broadband grants from the federal stimulus.

At the MassHighway office, Patrick gave a nod to U.S. Rep. John W. Olver, D-Amherst, saying Olver had the foresight to help lay the foundation for broadband infrastructure in the region, thus helping ensure that such initiatives would receive funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Governor's viewpoints

In an interview at the Gazette later, Patrick fielded questions on a wide range of issues, from his views on the sales tax hike and education reform to his campaign for re-election and efforts to address the needs of western Massachusetts.

"I'm here, a lot. On purpose," Patrick said, about his travels west of Worcester.

Patrick said the state has not shown a discipline for regional equity. He rattled off a list of initiatives he says demonstrate a commitment to serving the western part of the state, not least of which is finding a way to keep his Springfield office open, the funding for which was axed in the recent state budget.

The governor cited projects like the planned $76 million state data center in Springfield and more ambitious $100 million high-tech computing center in Holyoke as examples of his efforts to invest in and reinvigorate the region's "creative economy."

He said he supports bringing high-speed rail from Connecticut to the north and approved one of the biggest higher education bond bills in the past 30 years, money that directly impacts the health of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and area's community colleges.

Patrick touched on the federal stimulus and its impact on the state's economy. He said some capital projects, like money for a new police station in Northampton, are unlikely to be funded with the federal stimulus.

"We'd like to find a way to solve that issue, but it's not clear to me that way is going to be through the Recovery Act," Patrick said.

Earlier this year, Patrick set up a Web site (www.mass.gov/recovery) to bring transparency to the state's federal stimulus-funded projects. Asked whether information about the number of jobs created and retained from this money could be more forthcoming, the governor said he would ensure such data will be available.

"If it's not on the Web site, I will ensure that it is, and it ought to be," Patrick said. "These are very welcome dollars, and you better believe they are retaining and creating jobs."

On the dispute involving the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, the governor did not offer any suggestion for resolving the matter. But he said if the two men find common ground when they meet Thursday at the White House, then something good will have been accomplished.

But, he added, "Whether it includes a more constructive conversation about race in the commonwealth, I think the jury is still out on that."

Patrick said raising the state sales tax by 25 percent - effective Saturday - was not his first choice for raising revenues. He would have preferred a gas sales tax hike because such money could not be diverted for uses other than transportation improvements, which the state has failed to consistently fund.

Patrick would not support a sales tax hike unless the Legislature approved a series of ethics, pension and transportation reforms - which it did. He said such changes should continue and indicated that making tough decisions about systemic abuses can be unpopular.

"We have to stay on this path to changing the way we do business, consistently," he said.

As for critics who say he is spending and investing too much money in bad economic times, Patrick defended his decisions, saying he doesn't believe jobs can be created or youths educated "in a bunker."

"The question I keep trying to ask, and I always ask myself, is ¿What is the public good, and how do we fund the public good?'" Patrick said.

Asked whether the state of the country's economy would give governors an out when it comes to being held accountable for their states' fiscal crises, Patrick said it shouldn't. If anything, he said, the economic crisis has made the conversation about what government should be doing more immediate.

"We should be held accountable - what's the matter with that?" Patrick asked.