Patrick is personable

And in this - fuzzy - image, you can see some of our city officials who came out to Amesbury to hear the Governor.

Our mayor (with arms folded and wife Jeannie next to him), Ed Cameron, Donna Holaday, and Brian Derrivan peeking out from behind Amesbury Municipal Councilor Jonathan Sherwood (tall guy with red shirt, next to Donna Holaday). Also on hand were council President James Shanley and Councillor-at-Large Barry Connell - and Youth Services Director Andi Egmont with her cute doggie.

Oh, and the irrepressible Charlie Cullen, president/CEO of The Provident Bank.

State Rep. Mike Costello could not be there (health care being debated in the House), but you can sort of see his press guy, Fred Lucey, behind the mayor and Costello's father, Nick (former Amesbury everything), stood in for him.

State Sen. Stephen Baddour introduced the Governor, who took questions on issues ranging from same-sex marriage to funding for lung cancer research and prevention (the lack thereof).

He acquitted himself pretty well, joked around with the audience (noting to an audience member that the sun was in their eyes and did s/he want him to block it with his body? "I'm a full-service governor!")

He took a little jab at the press, noting that when he called a press conference to unveil the new life sciences initiative, the only question he got was asking him to comment on his new haircut, and that was what the next day's story was about - his haircut.

Read about the meeting tomorrow in the Daily News. Katie Farrell was there, taking copious notes, as was DN editor John Macone (I think it was John Macone - I was going to introduce myself as he was standing near Brian Derrivan, but he moved away when he saw me eyeing him. Wonder why that could be? heh)

I was covering this for the Merrimack Valley Magazine, by the way - but my little report won't come out 'til the Sept. issue.

Oh, yeah, one last thing - the Governor suggested to someone from Amesbury who was talking about the stalled development at the town's Lower Millyard that maybe the town could get help from someone who was helping Newburyport, "like Steve." It took me a few seconds to realize he meant Steve Karp.

Yikes.