Last week’s oversight hearing on the Washington Bridge closure has generated a lot of reaction in Rhode Island. Some lawmakers still have questions about the circumstances that led to the closure, while others are wondering whether Peter Alviti should retain his position as director of the state Department of Transportation.
Ocean State Media political reporter Ian Donnis sat down with David Tikoian, Democratic Whip in the Rhode Island Senate, to discuss these topics and more.
Interview highlights
On the need for the Department of Transportation to have in-house supervision of bridge inspections
David Tikoian: Somewhere around, like, 2016, there was a shift where a lot of that work was done in-house at DOT, and then they relied on many contractors and vendors to perform that work. Now the question is, who’s watching the contractors?
…There must be some type of hybrid system. Some of the work can be contracted out with vendors and inspectors, but somebody needs to be watching the contractors, right?
I don’t want to oversimplify it, but just think of plowing operations, right? There are plow trucks on the road, plowing. They have inspectors watching. [With] a simple operation as plowing, there’s inspectors to make sure that the vendors are being held accountable. So if we’re doing it on that small level, it would only make sense to do it on a larger level.
On voting against the state’s ban on new sales of guns defined as assault weapons
Tikoian: It’s what my district asked me to do. They believe in the Constitution, the Second Amendment. I don’t own one of those weapons. I have no reason to have one, but I voted the way that my district and my constituents wanted me to vote.
On how to improve healthcare in Rhode Island
Tikoian: Look what happened with Pawtucket Memorial Hospital, right? It closed. What a burden that put on the rest of the health care system in Rhode Island. We can’t afford to have Fatima and Roger Williams close, and the Attorney General’s got a plan to keep it open for the next two months. I’m confident that we’ll get there to keep those.
The 340B program that we got passed in the Senate didn’t quite make it over the line into the House, but that was to provide lower-cost prescription drugs to folks. We funded about $500,000 to train primary care physicians in Rhode Island. So there’s a lot more work to be done in that area. We have a good sick care system in Rhode Island, but in terms of health care, we need to get people healthier.
On his support for a new medical school at the University of Rhode Island
Tikoian: If we put the shovel in the ground today, you have to build the facility, then the students have to go in there and get educated. That’s four or five, six years away for them to put doctors, let’s say, in the community on the street.
…The hospitals in Massachusetts look at Rhode Island as a training ground. They come down here to recruit our doctors. Certainly, I’m in full support of a medical school at URI, and that’s just one spoke in the wheel, so to speak. Even if we were to start building that today, that’s a number of years away.
