By George P. Hassett

State rep. Tim Toomey, D-Somerville, has been in the governor’s office more times in the last five months than he had been in the previous 14 years. State Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, D-Somerville, has had a similar experience and said she has spoken to the governor’s staff more in the last five months than she did in her previous sixteen years as a legislator. And state Senator Jarrett Barrios said he is comfortable leaving his job now that a Democrat with comparable values is sitting in the corner office.

Despite some early missteps, Gov. Deval Patrick is receiving high marks from Somerville delegates, who are praising him for increased accessibility and reversing some of former governor Mitt Romney’s policies. And the legislators are excusing Patrick for his gaffes, such as the infamous Cadillac, the drapes for the office and a controversial bill that Toomey said would take away community input for large development projects.

In the early months of Patrick‚Äôs administration he spent almost $11,000 on drapery for the his state house suite and changed the state’s customary car lease from a Crown Victoria to a Cadillac. He subsequently reimbursed the Commonwealth for the cost of the drapery and furniture purchased for the state house, and the additional monthly difference in his car lease.

State Rep. Denise Provost said the car and the décor were negative symbols for Patrick’s first days in office. “Cadillac’s don’t send a good political message,” she said. In her first days in office, Provost said she climbed up on her window sill and took down the dirty drapes that had been there. She then took them home and cleaned them. However, she said she would not expect the state’s governor to do the same.

“I think the governor should be allowed to have decent drapes. He is after all, the governor,” she said.

Toomey chalked up the moves to Patrick being non-political and naïve.

“He had never held office before and there were new challenges he may not have fully understood. But I think he has the intelligence to realize the missteps,” he said.

State Rep. Carl M. Sciortino and Toomey each said their biggest trouble with the new governor came when he filed a bill which would allow projects in filled, landlocked tidelands to sidestep state environmental protection laws. Patrick’s proposal would strip away power from community groups seeking mitigation from developers, Toomey said. The bill would have impacted the current North Point development on the border between Cambridge and Somerville.

Sciortino said his biggest criticism was that Patrick filed the bill without informing Cambridge or Somerville legislators. “When the administration files a bill impacting our communities we want the chance to talk with the governor,” he said.

Legislators representing Cambridge and Somerville met with the governor and his staff shortly after the bill was filed. Sciortino said he was hopeful the legislature could negotiate with Patrick to find a solution.

Barrios said Patrick’s biggest challenge has been living up to high expectations voters have for the first Democratic governor in the state in 16 years. And the early blunders, he said, may actually have a positive side effect.

“I think they readjusted people’s high expectations to a more reasonable level. He is not invulnerable or all-powerful and it is not the Deval Patrick show, he is going to have to learn to work with the other branches of government,” he said.

Provost said that may be the hardest part of moving from the private sector to electoral politics for Patrick. “He is learning it is important to spend the time it takes to go through the process of dealing with the legislature,” she said.

She said one of Patrick’s biggest achievements was making Massachusetts a member of the regional greenhouse gas agreement initiative, a program designed to reduce carbon emissions that would create incentives for companies to invest in more efficient and non-polluting methods of production. Romney had refused to sign the agreement when he was governor.

“It was going nowhere after Romney backed out but with the stroke of a pen, the governor reversed all that,” she said.

Sciortino said the move was an important one that “got lost in the fray of drapes and Cadillac’s.”
For Barrios, who recently announced he plans on leaving the senate for a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield, having Patrick as governor is comforting.

“I can leave because I know the things I care about will be heard,” he said. “I’m a Deval Patrick Democrat.”