Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Patrick to Pay Premium for Passenger Vehicle

By

This just in from the Governor’s Office:

Statement of Governor Deval Patrick

BOSTON-Tuesday, February 20, 2007- Governor Deval Patrick announced today that he will personally reimburse the Commonwealth for the difference between the vehicle that was recently leased for his official use and the cost of the vehicle leased by the prior administration. In the same spirit, the Governor will personally pay for office furnishings purchased for the Governor’s Office to replace those owned by Governor Romney and removed by him when he left office.

“All weekend long, I have been struggling with the budget constraints we are facing in the Commonwealth. There are tough choices to make. I realize I cannot in good conscience ask the agencies to make those choices without being willing to make them myself.”

Accordingly, the Governor will pay the Commonwealth $543 per month towards the lease of the official vehicle. He will also pay the Commonwealth $27,387 for the furnishings in the Governor’s office.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. ….these big, blue velvet Scarlett-O’Hara-dress looking drapes.

    <

    p>
    The furniture is gorgeous.  But really, Bill Weld had great stuff, too, so I am puzzled.  Isn’t it time to bring back Curley’s desk, that Dapper O’Neill found in a Dorchester garage a few years ago?

  2. …Did John Ashcroft, the Crisco oil anointed one, reimburse the federal government for the US$8000 that it cost to clothe the various statues in the foyer of the Justice Department building, just so that he wasn’t televised with metal boobs shown over his shoulder?

    <

    p>
    No, he didn’t.

    <

    p>
    I mean, give me a break.

    <

    p>
    If this is what the Massachusetts state government is coming down to, it’s time to leave.

  4. Dumb to spend it.  Dumb to reimburse it.  Dumb to say “how can I ask the agency heads to make tough choices when I didn’t: — as if an agency head can just throw in $6M of personal funds to cover the difference between what he wanted and what he had in the budget, as Deval Patrick seemed to do.

    <

    p>
    What I don’t understand is this: he didn’t get the money from thin air… it came from a budget, no?  Why didn’t he just say: the legislature gives me a budget to manage my office, and I’m within my budget.  Any extras spent here will result in a reduction of spending there, all within my governor’s operations budget?

    • This whole situation has been handled so poorly.  A few of the lines you mentioned on the first day this story broke could have diffused the whole story. 

      <

      p>
      Even the way he finally responded to this is none done very good.

      <

      p>

      “All weekend long, I have been struggling with the budget constraints we are facing in the Commonwealth. There are tough choices to make. I realize I cannot in good conscience ask the agencies to make those choices without being willing to make them myself.”

      <

      p>
      As you already pointed out, an agency head can’t forego salary or put in some of their personal money to make up for budget cuts.  Also, I can see the following attacks from Republicans:

      <

      p>
      -The right choice should have been not to get the car in the first place, not pay for the difference after the public has been alerted to the situation.

      <

      p>
      -So if the state had a budget surplus it would be ok for you to get this luxury car at the tax payers expense.

      <

      p>
      -Should you then also pay the $72K salary for your wife’s administrative assistant that no other governor’s wife has had?

      <

      p>
      Deval does not seem to be playing the political game with much skill; he may need some coaching from his buddy Bill.

      • The right choice should have been not to get the car in the first place, not pay for the difference after the public has been alerted to the situation.

        <

        p>
        Why would this have been the right choice? This story is clearly manufactured, if he had picked the cheaper car the story would have been “Patrick buys new car during fiscal crisis”. The stories all compared the cost of the Cadillac to the cost of a Crown Victoria, but Romney was seen driving a more expensive SUV to public functions in both 2003 and 2005.

        <

        p>
        Jane Swift, when she was Lt. Governor, drove a Chevy Tahoe, as reported in the Globe on July 23, 1999, and a Ford Expedition, as reported in the Globe on April 6, 2001. She caught some flack for it, by the way, but not nearly the nattering that this one has brought.

        <

        p>
        I found another article that stated that many town officials drive expensive SUVs. Once you get past the manufactured knee-jerk outrage, shouldn’t the governor of the state get the same accommodations as the prior governor, Lt. governor, and even town managers?

        <

        p>
        If the Globe reports that Patrick spent $X on his office, and does so in a way that merely implies that this is wasteful, then it has the obligation to put the number into context  because the general public doesn’t have access to such information. If the office needed new drapes, $8k isn’t an awful lot to spend on them for presumably large windows, yet $8k is a small enough sum of money that people can comprehend it as being large enough to covet (when the state spends $150m on upgrading signs on Route 91, that number is too large to comprehend).

        <

        p>
        Without context it’s just a hit piece. Deval Patrick should not have to justify his car if it is similar to other governors, and if no other governors have had to in the past.

        • How did this story make it into the paper?

          <

          p>
          Did the Globe assign reporters to dig up dirt? What was their brief? Were they told to manufacture a scandal?

          <

          p>
          Did the papers get a tip? From whom? And what is their agenda?

          <

          p>
          I think that would be the really interesting story.

          • Is easy to figure out — they probably just noticed him being driven around in it.  The office furniture and drapes; my guess it was a legislative source — someone who’d been in the governor’s office when Romney was there and since DP took office.  Just a quess.  The legislature has the most to gain by keeping him down…

            <

            p>
            Of course that conspiracy theory could be all wrong.  Maybe he had reporters into his office recently and they noticed the changes in fact I think there was a picture in today’s Globe where they reference the drapes…

            <

            p>

            <

            p>
            So much for political intrigue. Just observant reporters.  Damn!

            • the price tag on the drapes in the photo.

              <

              p>
              I guess that if curtains are so worthy of such thorough investigation, I’m less inclined to wave away serious questions about the press with benign assumptions.

              • As I understand it, the Globe asked about the new furnishings and the Governor’s press office responded by releasing a statement — to all of the media — that DP was going to pick up the cost of the furnishings.  I believe they itemized the costs in the statement…

      • …about not riding in Mitt’s old car.

        <

        p>
        “It’s got EIGHTY THOUSAND miles on it and the heater doesn’t work!”

        <

        p>
        Gee, MY car has 143,000 + miles – but the heater is fine.

        <

        p>
        Has Mitt really been riding around frugally, shivering in a car with a broken heater?  How Yankee of him!  (He DOES serve peppermints and ice water at state committee meetings instead of dinners as in days of yore…)

        <

        p>
        BTW – Tim Duncan is doing just fine in Kerry Healey’s Crown Vic.  Smart man.

  5. I hate to say this, but I think DP has to bring in a more experienced hand to deal with the media.  This is getting a little out of hand…. and this has gone from what I thought was pretty much a non-story (helicopter use) to something that could hurt the first governor I’ve cared about in 16 years.

    <

    p>
    I totally hear people who think this whole story line is a diversion and classic MSM scandal mongering.  But the beast (MSM) smells blood on this, and in order for DP to achieve his larger goals he needs to give the beast what it wants.  Clearly part of what it wants is to be stroked and to work with someone who respects its role.

    <

    p>
    This is distraction, but it’s early and it’s something that the Governor and his team can correct quickly.

    <

    p>
    What’s that line about not fighting with someone who buys ink by the barrel?

  6. Cadillac or Crown Vic

    <

    p>
    Crown Vic or Cadillac

    <

    p>
    Red Drapes or Blue

    <

    p>
    Toile or Velvet

    <

    p>
    Velvet or Toile

    <

    p>
    ROFLMAO

  7. LOL funny paragraph in today’s Globe story on this —

    <

    p>
    “Aides declined to permit a Globe photographer to photograph the new furniture or the draperies, hung at the enormous windows overlooking Boston Common.”

    <

    p>
    A photo op is being arranged, however, for the governor’s new Crown Vic.

Archives