Patrick: 'We screwed up' on spending

Governor Deval Patrick for the first time publicly expressed regret yesterday for spending thousands of dollars on new office decor and a luxury car lease , but stood behind his wife's need for a $72,000 aide and the effort to make his corner office suitable for visitors.

"Oh, yeah, we screwed up," Patrick told a horde of reporters, a day after promising to repay the state for office furnishings and a portion of the lease for his official car. "I am so sorry that we all have spent the kind of time we have on what we have spent time on, and I am sorry to have been responsible for that."

The new governor's public mea culpa came after a week of spiraling reports about his spending of taxpayer money, including $1,166 each month on a Cadillac DTS and $12,306 on new draperies in his office.

But in apologizing, he also chided the reporters who have hounded him about the spending since the first reports surfaced.

"I think it's very important to me that you in the media help me get the message out about what it is we are concentrating on," Patrick said. "That is what the public needs to know about and what it is we are working on, and unless I get this off your screen, then I don't think we're going to be able to get that done."

On Tuesday, Patrick announced he would contribute $543 per month toward the lease of the $46,000 Cadillac, bringing the state cost in line with the monthly payment on the more modest Ford Crown Victoria used by his predecessor, Mitt Romney.

Patrick also said he would repay taxpayers for $27,387 in furniture he purchased for his corner office. An interior designer helped Patrick select two wing chairs priced at $3,870, two couches at $4,470, damask draperies for $12,306, and other furnishings from a variety of antiques and furniture stores, including the high-end Baker Knapp & Tubbs.

Aides said the state did not pay for the designer's services. They said they did not know whether Patrick paid the designer, who is a personal friend.

Patrick said yesterday that the office needed a makeover.

"I receive heads of companies, heads of labor. I receive community groups, members of the Legislature, and members of the diplomatic corps," he told reporters after a State House event. "I think the governor's office should look nice, and I'm prepared to be a 'BYO' governor, bring your own furniture."

Patrick said he had replaced items that Romney personally owned and took with him when he left office. According to Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney left behind draperies, a desk, a desk chair, a hutch, a conference table, and chairs. He took a sofa and two armchairs that he had personally purchased, said Fehrnstrom.

Patrick also insisted yesterday that the appointment of a chief of staff for his wife, Diane, a partner at Ropes and Gray, was appropriate.

"Every governor has had staff that helps support the work of the office, including the work of the first lady," he said.

In several previous administrations, however, another member of the governor's staff helped the governor's spouse with scheduling, rather than a specifically designated chief of staff.

Patrick suggested that it is only the media, not the public, that are questioning his personal spending.

"I will tell you -- in the grocery store, at the cleaners, running errands on the weekend, I get a very different kind of feedback than I get in this gathering," he said.

But in Internet chat rooms and websites, a nascent disillusionment has emerged, even among supporters.

It isn't the first time Patrick has accused the news media of missing his message and the significance of his broad-based victory. "Whether it was skepticism, distraction, or the cynicism so many of us try to pass off as sophistication, some of your reporters missed it," he told a meeting of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association in late November.

". . . Don't trivialize optimism and hope,'. . ' he warned then . "It built this country. It built my life."

On Friday, when news first broke about his use of the Cadillac, Patrick adamantly defended his choice.

He initially said that Ford Crown Victoria sedans were no longer available, but his aides later corrected that answer, explaining that the new Crown Victoria models did not meet State Police security standards.

By Tuesday, after four days of relentless coverage, Patrick had changed his mind.

In a statement, he said he could not "in good conscience" ask his agency heads to make tough spending decisions about how to close the state's $1 billion budget deficit without making some tough choices himself.

The about-face followed meetings with advisers about how to deal with a rising tide of criticism that threatened to obscure other portions of his agenda.

Patrick, who was swept into office on a wave of grass-roots popularity, at first seemed tuned into the significance of symbols, removing a red velvet rope that had kept the public away from the governor's office and reopening an elevator that had been reserved for the governor.

But his initial rejection of criticism over the Cadillac lease led critics to ask whether he recognized how decisions like the choice of an automobile could reshape the public's view of him.