http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...trick_reiterates_pledge_to_add_1000_officers/
And he still thinks he can help municipalities reduce property taxes!
Patrick reiterates pledge to add 1,000 officers
By Steve Leblanc, Associated Press Writer | December 14, 2006
MANSFIELD, Mass. --In an address Thursday to a statewide police chiefs association, Gov.-elect Deval Patrick renewed his pledge to hire 1,000 new police officers statewide, but acknowledged some communities might not be able to immediately pay for the new officers.
"There are issues of how fast you can absorb that many new officers," Patrick said after speaking to the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association on Thursday. "There are questions about who needs what kind of deployment."
Patrick also said Thursday he is considering a former top lawyer for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority as his new transportation secretary.
James Aloisi was an undersecretary of transportation in the mid-1980s and later served as general counsel for the Turnpike Authority, which oversaw construction of the Big Dig. Aloisi, a lawyer at the Boston law firm of Goulston & Storrs, later wrote a book about the massive construction project.
He also helped advise former Turnpike Chairman Matthew Amorello in the wake of last July's fatal accident in one of the Big Dig tunnels, helping convince Amorello his legal options were running out in the face of efforts by Gov. Mitt Romney to oust him. Amorello eventually resigned.
"He is a very strong and well-respected expert in transportation and I think anybody would be crazy not to think about him and I am thinking about him," said Patrick, but declined to say whether he had made a final decision.
Aloisi did not immediately return a phone call Thursday.
During the campaign for governor, Patrick criticized management of the Big Dig, blaming the fatal accident on what he called the Big Dig culture on Beacon Hill, "which is one of neglect and inaction, where politics is more important than governing."
"Deval Patrick must have ignored the rhetoric of his own campaign. Jim Aloisi has been a part of the 'Big Dig culture' from day one," said Brian Dodge, executive director of the state Republican Party.
On the firm's Web site, Aloisi is credited as "the principal author of landmark legislation to establish the statutory framework for the operation, maintenance and financing" of the Big Dig. He was also a lead negotiator in the creation of a public/private partnership to run the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a 30-acre park built where the former elevated Central Artery once stood.
The promise of 1,000 new officers was a key part of Patrick's public safety platform as a candidate for governor. Under the plan, the state would initially pay for the officers and gradually turn those costs over to cities and towns.
Patrick said he'll do whatever he can to ensure the proposal has "an ongoing commitment" of state funding. Patrick said he hopes the new officers can help cities and towns control guns and gang violence.
Plainville police chief Ned Merrick, who attended Thursday's event, said he believes his fellow chiefs support Patrick's plan. He said when the federal government tried a similar program under President Clinton, local communities understood that they would eventually have to pick up the cost of the new officers.
"It was never proposed that the federal government ... was going to pay 100 percent of a cops' salary forever," he said. "It was designed to be a partnership."
During the news conference after his speech, Patrick again defended his plans for his inauguration, include soliciting donations up to $50,000 from corporations for the event.
Patrick said the companies' donations will defray the costs for people who want to attend one of the dozen planned events. Most of the tickets for the events will cost $20 to $50. He said any corporate donors shouldn't expect any special access to the administration.
"There are a whole lot of companies who have ponied up who have access, anyway," Patrick said. "What we're taking about is making access to the inaugural for those who wouldn't normally have it, who don't spend $1,000 to come to some elegant evening."
Patrick also said he's looking forward to receiving the reports Friday of 15 working groups that have held more than 60 community meetings across the state to ask for the public's policy ideas on everything from education to economic development.
He said he would make the reports public and try to turn the best of the ideas into reality as he plans his term as the state's first Democratic governor in 16 years.
"Overwhelmingly the ideas that have been brought forward have been practical and thoughtful and serious," he said. "It hasn't been what in the 60's we used to say in school was the standard list of nonnegotiable demands."
And he still thinks he can help municipalities reduce property taxes!
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