welcome to northeastern to

celebrate our beloved colleague. and today's guest of honor, governor michael dukakis. my is costas panagopoulos. i am the. of the department of political science here at northeastern.

or, if you will, next to kitty. governor dukakis was last boss. i was honored to serve with mike as my colleague for several years to witness his dedication to our students, to our faculty, and to the broader northeastern community. i first met governor dukakis as a 16 year old in 1988 when i was elected president of the massachusetts association of student councils. i wish i could say have aged as gracefully as you have, mike. there we are on the right. there. at that time, you wrote me a very letter and i've treasured it for 36 years. what impressed most about your letter was not the fact that you sent it, but the fact that it was dated july six, 1988, 12 days before the democratic national convention, just days before what was.

the most high profile event of your political career? you made it a priority to write to high school sophomore in your state to congratulate him on an achievement. i'd like to read an excerpt from that letter. quote, i would like to extend commendations and gratitude for your outstanding contributions of time effort and skills to the people of your community, as well as for your personal and scholastic achievements as vocal, active example to others. you have served to inspire the gowill and practices patient of many others. if i may, i'd like to echo the same words to you today, because they capture perfectly my own sentiments to you on this occasion. it is fitting that we gather today on giving day on campus when the university community comes together to support itself. i can think of no other who has given as much to this

institution for long as governor dukakis has. in fact, only very few come to mind with a record of public service to this common wealth and to this country that says lengthy and distinguished as governor dukakis's service is is at the very core of what michael dukakis is all about. it is who he is. he joined our faculty, distinguished professor of political science in 1991 for 29 years. he helped to educate students and colleagues alike about public policy and leadership, about the value of public service in this great country. and he has been an inspiration, a role model for all of us. we are proud and honored to him and his legacy today on this special giving day at northeastern. is our opportunity to give something back to you. our gratitude and our profound appreciation. governor dukakis has touched and

fought for so many communities all across this country. as a fellow greek-american, i would be remiss if i did not express gratitude to the governor for his special and enduring commitment to his cultural heritage and to the greek american community writ large. his example is an inspiration to so many of us and could not be more proud or more grateful. say if god is still putting mississippi grocery stores, apalachicola in his mark. guess we have almost the security area. y'all say he's got authority. i thank colleagues in the department of political science at the school of public policy and, urban affairs, and its director, maria ivanova. the college of social sciences, humanities and its new dean, kelly sipe. and the office the president for helping to organize such a wonderful tribute today for governor dukakis. so let's begin our master of ceremonies today is a dear friend and another shining example of greek american and service.

ernie and ask those ernie, a popular and celebrated new york emmy award winning television news anchor and, radio talk show host. he's published he's the published author of children's books and a hall of fame broadcaster with over four decades as the top news anchor at abc, cbs and fox in new york, he has won more than 30 emmy awards and nominations, including the academy's prestigious lifetime emmy award. he has all the major news stories in new york anchored from political conventions and interviewed a long list of world leaders and famous celebrities. his signature programs include positively ernie her daily on abc and his own nationally syndicated tv show positively america, now seen on 200 tv stations across the country, new york. ernie, a champion for positive and uplifting news with a commitment to inform educate and inspire his followers. he also happens to be a summa cum laude graduate of

northeastern university, and he's happy to be here today to. pay tribute to his special friend and our distinguished honoree, michael. please welcome our master of ceremonies for today's symposium. new york legend ernie anastos. thank you. a little song and dance here. my, my, my. look at your faces. you know, i have to say one thing at the very get go. having reported news in new york for over four decades and coming on the air in the evening and saying good evening and saying why it wasn't, this is good news. and i love this story and you should applaud and michael dukakis for wonderful day bringing us all together. michael. we love you. you know, i thrive on enthusiasm. and michael and i were talking about that just before we came in here, because here's a guy

who's got a good heart. i'm honored to be here as an alumnus of our beautiful university and to be sharing something that i truly believe in, and that's honoring people, rewarding good behavior. so many times on the news, we reward bad behavior. they become stars and celebrities. but we have to reward the people who are doing good and have done good in life. and that's michael dukakis. he deserves a round of applause just for being a good soul. michael, you know, i've been in new york a long time, but i'm also a new englander, born and raised in nashua, new hampshire, not very far from here. and we share that connection. but in addition to that i also happen to be greek-american and we share that as well. michael we're so proud of you. yes, go ahead. hold on. i'm going to come over there. i like to walk around with a

microphone. my mother taught in ashland, hampshire yeah. your mom taught in nashua? yeah. maybe she was my teacher. oh, in ashland. oh, i see. oh, very nice. well, you know what? you have such a wonderful family. your children are all here. i to make sure that we mention tara kare. john, please. a round of applause. his family. and your lovely wife, kitty is here. us in spirit. and i know that she loved you and your children and your family so dearly. and she's proud of you right now, because we do believe in something beyond this life. and she sees it. she feels it and she hears it. and we're proud you. this is such a wonderful, diverse people, represented from all parts of the world. i the diversity. and know when i think about that and i think about michael and his greek heritage he's been a role model in many ways for all of america but particularly as you mentioned, costas, for those

of us of greek descent. so we share the common values that were instilled in us, michael, from our our grandparents and our ancestors. and they're very proud of you for what have done. you have been a terrific role model. we're celebrating your legacy today and for always, you know, it's interesting, by the way, when i was out there, we have some baklava. they're serving baklava out there. did you know that? yeah. a little greek pastry. so we're really in the mood here. i want to make sure that you understand that we're having a terrific day. and when i heard the program, i said, this is great. we're going to be hearing so much, so many good things about michael and his administration and his history. it's jam packed, as we say here. a rock star agenda of speakers here to offer their personal reflection. governor dukakis, his legacy. so we're going to get to it right now. our first panel of the day focuses on administration's and can contribute to the commonwealth of massachusetts as

a three term governor, a governor dukakis presided over a period of unprecedented growth and prosperous city for massachusetts, hailed as a national model. and here today a very a number of former members of his administration that helped achieve what was called the massachusetts its miracle. and starting this all off today is our first moderator for our panel and he is northeastern's own ted landmark. ted and i had an opportunity to talk a little bit before. he is a civic planner, as you all know civil rights and equity advocate, higher education administrator, arts and cultural researcher, community engaged social activists in boston and nationally as. well. and i want to walk over here, ted and i'm going to talk to you for just a minute. now you're in charge of the center, dukakis center. tell us a bit about what you're doing and what the headline is today. well, we're in the midst of doing ongoing research on economic development,

transportation policy, gentrification, reparations, we're working on art in communities, open spaces. and there's a strong, resilient and strong focus on resilience and sustainability. this sounds wonderful, and i know the university is in a global environment these days. bring us there. tell us what the headline will be tomorrow and what you're planning doing. well, i can't predict tomorrow's headline. it's hard to know going on at this moment, but it's clear. it's clear that this university, as it become significantly more global, is issues of population, migration, of artificial intelligence, of planning, and how planning helps to improve the lives of people in communities, of community engagement and the ways in which we think people who are

dispossessed the ways in which they can become more directly involved in policy. so i am excited and pleased to be of a policy school that's addressing those kinds of issues within, the context of a global university. wonderful. some exciting things going on, ladies and gentlemen. ted, lance, mark, going to continue right now with our distinguished panel. and we're looking forward to listening to you carefully. okay. thank you, ted. thank so much, so, as some folks know, mike, actually my first boss in boston came to work at a law firm where he oversaw the training of emerging legal professionals and among us were folks named bill weld and deval patrick. i think at the time we were almost certainly the only law

firm in boston that about to produce three governors for the commonwealth. it was extraordinary. and he certainly gave us guidance in terms of how we developed our technical skills. but i think more importantly his contribution to us was to give us a very clear sense of what it to be an ethical legal practitioner, an individual who understood the needs clients, but also understood the needs of the profession and of the responsibility that we all had make important contributions in terms of public service. and so the time that he has spent subsequently within the academy, i think, inspired thousands and thousands of students to think themselves as ethical public servants, as individuals who are committed to

a level and quality service that distinguishes this university, many others. i'm pleased that we have, as panelists, individuals who worked with mike within his administration and can speak to those kinds of ways in which policies are developed ethically responsibly and accountable early in terms of actually producing real outcomes, measurable outcomes. so i want to start with jim stone and maybe you can tell us a little bit about how it is you came to be a part of the administrate nation, what your work was and some of the takeaways are that you can look back on at this. well, i'm jim stone, and i was the insurance commissioner in what we to call one. and if you don't mind, i actually thought that a better

way to communicate. my sorry go to now one which is on your right. know i got it was an on laugh. yeah. no but it's like a phone right. and i was looking for. yeah. badly i howzat least better. okay. sorry about that. so it seemed to me that rather than talking about the specifics of your indulge, i thought hard about something to put out that my relationship with the governor and in the context as to what what took away about him. so what i tried to do is to come up with a few descriptive words, kind of like a free association test that represent what what i

think of my former boss. and so the and probably the most obvious is integrity. this is probably the thing that most starkly distinguishes him from virtually every other polity. you'd have to have been around before his administration to know that massachusetts deservedly had the reputation of being a corrupt. he changed that and it has stayed. and that's just an enormous contribution for a whole generation. and of all the things that i could mention about insurance, whatever the thing i'm most proud of is being part of an administration that did that. but second a second word that comes to mind, trailblazer when he was serving in the house and in 62. most people just it as a truism that only an irish or italian

middle aged male could be the governor. massachusetts. greek. never. not only did he smash that barrier, but he chose as a lieutenant governor first woman to be in that office. and you don't have to be told how that seat has flowered today, right a bit. we had a black governor. we have a woman governor. i'm a bostonian. we have an asian woman mayor. he deserves lot of credit for that. and that's kind of a second thing. i want to thank him for the third word that comes to mind, intelligence. some once told me, and i've always remembered it, that a students become professors, be students can get rich. but if c students had run the world, well, he's an ace student and anyone served in his cabinet or a commissioner like me knows that no matter what expert you developed in a specific field when you went to talk to him, he already knew more about the

field than you did, and he never stopped learning. he just has a competence in public affairs that almost no one else has. it's just amazing to this day. next, resilience. people get knocked down in life, especially in politics. some bow out. this is the most resilient fighter. you can imagine who never lost an election here. whose history is full of losing races. mean he for attorney general. he ran for lieutenant governor. he ran for renewal as governor. he ran for president. it never changed him and his sense of mission, to be honest, progressive cop and just never flag. and when his political career ended, he applied exactly the same to his teaching career. and he put the same and the same

enthusiasm into teaching and correcting papers, teaming up with kitty to help refuge trees and never to make a penny to to do this. he could have been a high paid lobbyist wasn't in his dna never lost his idealism or his commitment. hard work for causes he believed in. second to last word, frugality, because it would be an incomplete portrait if i didn't paint the man in full michael dukakis is but quirky, but he did have one quirk and maybe just this one. and that is that he is incurably frugal. i remember having lunch with him in his office and he knew the cost of a tuna fish sandwich which from the concession card to the penny and reimbursed me to the penny he knew and complained about the cost. every jersey barrier he passed

as he drove around the state. and one vivid memory i have in my first year working for him is that he asked me for advice on what to do with the vast salary he was now receiving, which might have been $50,000 for his frugality saved and under funded commonwealth a barrel of troubles and kept us out of bankruptcy in those few years. so it's not just a quirk. it turned really well for the commonwealth. so that brings me to my last response and then i'll turn it back to to ted. and that's not a word exactly, but a name and that is cincinnatus. so those who are students of history know that lucius klink dear cincinnatus, who's dead for 2500 years, still conjures up a notion of noble civic duty and humility hardly ever matched. cincinnatus was a roman statesman who was granted

enormous power in a period of crisis and then insisted on returning to the manual and labor on his modest farm. as soon as the crisis was over. well, that's michael. this is a guy who was really, really powerful. but when wasn't in government anymore, he could seen on weekends scrubbing graffiti, the outer walls of schools and, public libraries, no civic task was ever too large, too small for him. like cincinnatus, he always cared more for the public good than for his own glory or comfort. he is, in my mind, a very model of civic virtue, selfless devotion. he has massachusetts own cincinnatus, the ultimate citizen statesman. in. the u.s. because we're not talking about insurance. i really wanted to say that.

heavily. well, that's a tough act to follow. it's but let me take that springboard from jim and. i was the secretary of environmental affairs and the secretary of economic affairs. and then the kind of government. and so i started thinking about what are the lessons that might be taught all of us about how to work state government. and he brought into when i first started environmental affairs. i saw was he encouraged us to work together and that that came from the legislature because in the legislature you have to work with other legislators to get anything done. and he took that lesson and brought it into state government in a way that was extraordinary and supported all of us as we did it. the one story i'll tell you has to do with fred salvucci as the environmental affairs secretary,

i was reviewing an impact report and environmental impact report to build a huge hotel right across from the public garden. that environmental impact report showed that it would crash, put a shadow on the public garden forever, not just the summer, not just the winter, but year round. and that the wind tunnels at the front of that would be horrific. if. you look at that public garden and look close to it. you will find the transportation building and when you thank anybody for not having shade on the public garden, i think both mike dukakis and fred taguchi, because he was the one who thought about and brought forward the alternative, that hotel. it took lot for mike to say no to the developer a prominent,

prestigious developer. but to go with our solution, because fred had worked so hard to get that to be a good replacement. and to this day, every time i go by the public garden, you know, i just smile. i think of freddy, i think of mike. but it's it's great contribution that comes from working. together with another cabinet secretary and with the commissioners. the other lesson i would tell you is about the mike dukakis who takes on the tough stances, can say no in the late seventies, jimmy carter had just been elected and the oil and the opec oil embargo was hitting us in. the stomach. what we found was that. everybody the pressure on to to in the georges bank.

the pressure was on to find some solutions to the oil shortage that we could contribute to in new england. if you at that impact report done by federal government, what you found was there was really about a five day to a one week supply of natural gas and no oil. the federal had done that analysis. the fishermen and the fisherman's wives were coming in to talk about the importance of the food supply on the georges bank for the world and that the that not just us enjoying the fishing, but also europe. so it fell to me to try and figure out how to have it both ways if we could, because mike said, work it out, make this work if you possibly can. and find the middle ground. find the compromise again, a

lesson from the legislature about don't take the extremes here. find a way to have it all. so we did that and we tried to find the ways in which you could do lateral drilling and all kinds of things. ultimately, the oil industry stopped decent, affordable proposal. we could possibly put forth. and so i went back in to him to say, governor. we've got to sue the federal government. and he says back, me, that's really tough. we'll be suing my faith, my favorite president. and he's calling me his favorite governor. but nonetheless, this man stood up and and pursued this lawsuit and supported it because it was the only way through that that took real courage. it took believing in what we had

done, every single effort we could make. but believing that in the best interests of massachusetts and in the best interests of a quality of life, that that's what we had to do. and we won that lawsuit. so to me, that was the magic, i guess who stands tall when it comes to a matter of principle and decency and commitment to the public interest? there's nobody stronger i've ever seen a ham. and that's that's been all the way through 12 years. i've had the great opportunity to work with him. i admire him. irish spectrum. he is. he's a tough taskmaster. but this man stands tall and strong as any political leader i've ever seen in the country. thank you. all. well, it's hard to follow these wonderful speakers. i mean, i totally agree with everything jim said, and i'm

really proud to have been part of the two administrations and i'm going to say some little lighter things. i think my, as i said, i think he was a wonderful human being. i think we did great. he's done great work. well, i don't like speaking about frugality. i remember i was going go talk to the governor about the fact that the credit card companies were not going to stay in our state if they couldn't raise their rates. and it was going to be hard to tell him that this is pro-consumer and when i went and started speaking with him, he said, well, i don't think people should borrow. and i said, we're a lot of fun. don't borrow money. we stopped the happy hours. i had. that's one memory. and then another was when i

first started in the administration. you said to me i was secretary of consumer affairs and then i wanted to change the name to secretary of consumer affairs and business regulation, because all the regulated industries are in the secretariat. learning what you said to me. i only want to deal with you. i not want to deal with the good commissioners directly. i did that in my first administration. and anyway, so you couldn't pick or at least recommend for all of the agencies in your secretariat people, except for the racing commission and the alcohol beverage commission, because that's where you could find the corruption. and i thought that was very smart, actually. and he picked on both of those commissioners. so anyway, it was always a pleasure to work with him, to learn from him. and i wish you the best.

i'm sorry i missed your glasses. northeastern. yeah. well, all these folks that provide a tough act to follow, i would say that, you know, very inspiring comments and relating really just i'm a governor dukakis was inspirational and in so many ways. and jim, those those words, all of which applied to the governor and, you know, in spades to speak atlantic talking about his, you know, willingness to take on the tough fights and and we were still fighting about georges bank when i became secretary of environmental affairs. but fighting it with the federal government. but i wanted to just say a few

things about some of the issues popped up during my tenure. and, uh, all the governor's supported me and uh, by the way say into my life as secretary salvatore and you know, historically there were pinch points between me, environmental secretary ed and the transportation secretary because, you know, he was overseeing building, building things in the environmental community, was not necessarily supportive of some of those some of those efforts. so we need. and one of the things that governor dukakis did is establish a development cabinet and a fellow named alain, who, you know helped us sort of sort out. if will these issues out before they get real public. but do want to say. like uh the department chair

that i can go way back to as a student. well, inspiration from governor dukakis. i, i had a work study job with a, um, agency nonprofit called the citizens housing and planning association and the governor early sixties was leading the charge to try to get a bill passed for affordable housing here in massachusetts. and actually was a kind of just a member of the task force with assistance, housing and planning to try to come up with that. and that was an inspiration to me. i was a. fresh air law student and, you know, and i it gave me some feel. first of all, how legislation as mayor is made. and, you know, the dedication

and and commitment. but also the hard work that's required to pull something out of the hat, so to speak, particularly in a a tough, always tough legislature, which wasn't necessarily excited about the notion of, uh, federal housing at the time. but so anyway, that's, yeah, that was inspiration me a feeling that, you know public policy is the thing you can make a contribution and governor i have to thank thank for that and that sort of went off and finished school and so forth and and then i had another, uh, involvement with the governor, not, not even before. excuse me, before environmental affairs. i worked for four years at massport and one of the things that governor did was to get massport on the right track, if you will, after kind of a haven

for. four patriotism, a paycheck by patronage agencies, and a haven for, well, really, what got that job. and it's not a gubernatorial appointment, but in line with the idea that important agencies like that ought to to be under an umbrella of policy that made sense. and so as a matter of fact i'll always remember this when i first heard about the job, they told to go talk to fred salvucci. well, wait a minute. dave davis is the head of massport. when i why do i need to talk to and i didn't really know fred jacobs, as a matter of fact, was a person i mean, who was assistant or fred and but anyway, i guess fred passed as approval and he sent me over to dave and certainly dave was the person that hired me and we had

a wonderful a wonderful time there. and until ed king came. back in 78 and i was on a leave of absence from arthur the little i never forget it my my boss there called me up when he saw the globe. the after the governor's my governor's defeat and. he said, jeremy, don't you think you better come back from you leave that good talking head said, quote, in the globe, i'm going to get rid those you know, those guys massport. so anyway that that was an experience and then of course the crowning opportunity that i had is when the governor appointed me secretary of environmental affairs. and i just one story in relation to that and it shows his incredible insight we were launching, you know, midway through my tenure, the massachusetts water resources authority, which was a difficult

thing. at the outset. and an 11 member board people tended to think that the governor controlled the board because the secretary was chair. but the didn't control the board. there were three members appointed by the communities surrounding boston, three members appointed by the city of boston and. two other members who are nominated by watershed groups. because we were concerned at the time about the water from being diverted. but anyway, it's quite. so we went out with a you. national search to find a executive director and came back and and the a couple of my colleagues on the board said we've got to have an engineer.

i mean, no, none of this, you know, policy wonk stuff, none of this, you know, any of that we've got we've to have an engineer and and hey, you know, the magi, the is saying that and so we went down and we we had to to got a guy that we ended up hiring and a guy who and took his resume to the governor let him know this is the mwi. he's glad he took one look. he said jamie, this guy gets slotted in that legislature. it's got to be know be able to deal with people up in the massachusetts and he can't he's not going to be. he said i don't know him but i'm looking at his resume. i had nothing because he had been chief engineer so well the colleagues on the board who had, you know, insisted they were going to resign if, you know, if we got somebody from the you know, that the governor had

recommended and. well, within six months, a delegation from board members came up to my office on cambridge street. jamie got to fire that guy. you've got to hire a guy. he's a disaster. well, my point is that governor dukakis saw right away that this was not because he didn't want to in fact, he did not. one of the director did not want to talk to the legislature. he wanted some governor, governmental affairs person him, go out there and talk a lot of us. mcgill somebody and but i mean, he's just a guy who just took, you know, like 5 minutes to flip versus, oh, my goodness, you'll get eaten alive. so i'm glad we got back on because one of my big i feel on honors and an important achievements of the administration but there is a

establishing the anwr right. and one other thing i'll say others to get a couple, you know, we had to determine that we knew that the water and sewer rates were to go skyrocketing if we build a secondary treatment plant. so we kept hammering away that this is the dirtiest harbor. we've got to clean it up. it's the dirtiest harbor in america. well, i'm sad to say, they turn that and 1988 turned it against the governor and the presidential, saying he presided over the call in my speeches that it was the dirtiest operator in america. but. that and they you know and i know i don't know that people were happy with water and sewer rates after that but anyway, we did get a cleaned up and i think it's a tremendous to achievement of getting the mwi ray in place. governor dukakis and i think that's should be part of it. the many things that you are leaving as a as a legacy.

so. fred, we're running a bit behind schedule, so i'm going to pose a question to you. we're here is part of a present action put on by a policy school? and we've all been practitioners? i wonder what your takeaways might be for emerge urging public servants who come through a policy school and what is it that you think we one could have learned within the context of the dukakis administration as a public administrator later? and what is it that you would pass on to students who are going through a policy school today? okay, thanks. that limiting amount of time i

speak will require a hook. so feel free to delegate to jamie. tell me to shut up. but let me pick and illuminate some of the points that jim and evelyn follow. jamie have made of the first and foremost is integrity. the first word that jim talked about the day that we were sworn in, in a 1975 cabinet governor dukakis swore us in in the governor's council, which became the cabinet room after the swearing in ceremony. he brought us back into the governor's and he said, look, somehow i managed myself to get myself elected governor. i'm a politician. it's my job to get elected. it's my job to get elected again. you've been hired to give the people of massachusetts the best government they've ever had, and that's your only mission. you are not to go anywhere near political fundraising.

if i hear that you've been involved in political fundraising, you will be fired immediately. and i don't care if you hear from the chief of staff i don't care if you hear from kitty. hearing from me. you are hearing from me. you are to stick to. given the people of massachusetts the best they could possibly have and not get into the fundraising business. it was incredible. i felt like i didn't know to expect the secretary was a big jump up. i been in a policy position and it was like lifting a thousand tons off of your back to be told by the top guy, this is what i want. total integrity. i will forever be grateful for, for the privilege of serving with you. but that that, that's one and advice to students pick someone

honest to work for working for a crook. there's no way you can come. okay pick somebody honest to work for. it's a big country. there are other jobs but choose who you work for. is the second thing. the reference like cleaning graffiti and picking up pieces of paper on his way to the the world is made of thousands of little things and so-called people and. when mike had those many carmelo lunches where every and state government was asked to nominate eight some some worker who had done a great job a public works like the people who just died in that tragedy and involved him or someone who was picking up trash on the highway and a couple of

them died while i was secretary, recognized people who are doing the job day and they were recognized. i forget how frequently those many carmelo lunches it was named in memory of many who have been a great human service secretary and then a colleague was the governor at the at the kennedy. but recognizing that it's not all policy it's it's the person on the street picking the trash, making things work every day. third piece reflective of that. just about it. back at you, ted. ted, lance. mike was the first person that mike dukakis appointed to the mta after bob kiley back in the 75 period. now, those you almost as old me may remember the mta of that period, the only question who got jobs at the t was which

parish in south boston or dorchester did you come from? if you were italian, you better have blue eyes and be blond to be able to fake it. i had a face. i have a brother in law named marisa. they call themselves morrissey. that's how he got the job. and with. with you on the. and claire barrett. congress is so and with bob kiley in the leadership of the governor we set up the lottery for the hiring of bus drivers and the entry level at the t within ten years. you walk onto a bus, you see spanish people, females, blacks, it walk on onto the t today you had nothing against them. best friend there is jack corrigan. nothing against irish people. but there's a lot of us. and your role as mike's appointee was instrument rental and taking a place was, you know, quintessentially one

dimensional in terms of the people who work there and sharing those job opportunities on the frugality. i have have my grandmother used to make bread, made this terrific bread, always used king got the flour. i learned how to make it from her. she passed on so i make it every two or three weeks. occasionally bring some to the governor. he'd like it. he's a g. this is good. i think i'll do it. so he buys himself a bread machine. it didn't make it the way he buys himself so bad machine. he's in the globe being interviewed about how wonderful the bread machine is. the guys he's running for president of the united states, and he's talking about his wonderful bread machine. i get a call a couple of years ago, he says, fred, have you been to the supermarket? do you know what they're charging. for five pounds on king. you have flour. it's outrageous. do you still buy flour?

50 pounds at a time. from the brazilian baker next door? yeah, sure. could you get me? should say. so i periodically buy 50 pounds of flour, split it up. 25 for the governor, 25. but the frugality is very real. i one of the things to go back to everyone comment about the park plaza project as it was called at the time, which i think is an interesting story i saw 50 innocent here she was a major actor in that mort zuckerman name who's now associated with places far from boston with a was a developer who convinced kevin white that the only way to get development going in the when the federal government stopped sending money to cities was to give away outrageous amounts of density so

they'd be enough profit that a developer to come do something. the developer being mort. so he convinces kevin that this the right thing to do this outrageously high density plan with shadows on the common and all kinds of bad attributes. but that's what happens when you have a silo government you actually economic development person what do you want oh give me more density the that process didn't anticipate the backlash from from henry lee the friends of the public garden 50 all the people in the back bay who organized against it and and i just blanked on his name. the fellow that was the head of the back bay association, dan ahern, was a good friend of the governor and he he he said to the governor, look, this density thing is a real problem. but it's not just up to bill

flynn, who had the jurisdiction over approving urban renewal plans and evelyn murphy secretary of the environmental affairs tulsa salvatore to fund. the streets with state and federal money in that will take make the numbers work better so the governor appointed a little committee of the three of us to work and do shuttle with steve forbes, who was at the the vra was the point person at the time. and out of that process emerged, the we didn't give away density. we imposed very strict height limits on the garden and the common and there had been a couple of fires of suspicious origin. and i said, oh, this is the racket. they're going to burn a couple of buildings in a come going to come in and claim hardship and what i put in a strict height limit until the -- have taken burn it down, but they can't build any more than what's there

now. and in the urban renewal plan, we put in those height limits and the the plan worked what the transportation building which the supported another piece to that but what was the parking lot for the what was then the playboy club is now where the forces this hotel is respecting the height limit that was established in that environmental process the interact of different interests which the governor required. he's like an urban mechanic on balance, not allowing silos. as jamie said, on having us meet once a week without rain and development cabinet. so that issues and and development issues, environmental issues, transportation issues go god that tries to sort it out. and the added thing that he did and that worked breaking the

silos and the only governor is smart enough to do a version of that i'm sorry. i'm saying bad things about some other governors was romney who put doug ford in charge of a sort of similar multi-agency structure. but i would say this great invention of government of dukakis the development cabinet kind of disappeared people don't remember it was a brilliant way to organize the government. the other piece that is pure dukakis was that every six weeks to two months, something like that, the development cabinet would have to go out to outside of boston. i mean, for whom newton is the far west. we've got to go to worcester. oh, my god. he'd us go out and present and interact with people from the local labor council, with the local chamber of commerce, not

one on one, but in front of each other, with the local officials to to get another cross-section of. it's not just making silos integrate in boston. it's looking at what these policies on the ground in adams how is it going to matter to people. it was a brilliant way to structure the government and the governor did all of that. and it's the reason it was sure the massachusetts miracle part of these things is luck in you know to tell them the time was right and things went well but part of it was extremely governance structured to work structure to not gridlock with what fights now one one last anecdote on the on the transportation building which was the key to putting 2000 workers in the area would provide the purchasing power to make the rest of the development work.

so i went to the governor. i tried the idea on steve forbes from the bay area. he said if you put that in, if you the governor said the governor hasn't heard about this yet. i don't know if i can deliver, but if the governor would support this, does that give you what you need to bring these heights down into a breach of the height limits that we want along the public garden? forbes said, you do that. that's the trick. went to the governor. the governor said, okay, the legislation, our friend tommy mcgee doesn't like mike like me, doesn't we have going to do that. -- them. and it stuck by coincidence sometimes luck by coincidence renzo the head of the local brooklyn, is old friend of my father's, had was retiring from the boston business job in getting promoted to vice president in guy is done in

washington so. there was a going away party for aldi renzo with every building tradesman in the city attending it, the governor gives a speech, says there's a that's going to be a zillion jobs and it's stuck up in the state house get there tomorrow morning room just went right to everybody who thinks he he didn't know how to play that political from all those years ago he do that that's what really made it made it happen both that integration of different aspects that he brilliantly put together he didn't micromanage every detail these things he he insisted the process partly breaking the sale silos partly the periodic look at each metropolitan from their point of view and now rain it's a guy who did all of that to break down the silos and pile it up in each metro area that we had toto