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Connecticut dropped 1,300 jobs in March, even as the national job picture continued to be robust. The loss will frustrate state policymakers as they continue to wrestle with shaping a balanced budget for the next two fiscal years. The Hartford Business Journal has more.

The state has lost 3,400 jobs in the first three months of this year.

There may be some tensions in the Shipman & Goodwin lunchroom. Former DCF commissioner Joette Katz joined the firm several months ago after leaving state government. Perry Zinn Rowthorn served as former Attorney General George Jepsen’s deputy before they both left office in January and joined Shipman & Goodwin.

Katz was unsparing and vulgar in her criticism of Rowthorn in text messages to former Office of Policy and Management deputy secretary Natalie Wagner. Katz and Rowthorn clashed when the attorney general’s office raised objections to a settlement of the Juan F. DCF consent agreement. The deal negotiated by Katz and outside counsel would have required the legislature to guarantee a minimum level of funding for DCF, taking away much of its budgetary discretion.

The frantic search for legacies within the Malloy administration raised the temperature on discussion of the proposed lifting of the consent agreement. Katz had been hoping it would be hers.

Wagner was one of the OPM officials assigned to DCF matters. She and Katz exchanged many messages on a wide variety of topics and personalities.

Katz’s messages are shaded in the selection above.

Former Office of Policy and Management (OPM) official Natalie Wagner and Joette Katz, the former commissioner of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) carried on an intense, opinionated text message exchange in 2017 and 2018 that came to the attention of Lamont administration officials early this year. The two expressed demeaning opinions of state Representative Toni Walker (D-New Haven) and state Senator Len Fasano (R-North Haven) over the legislators’ opposition to a controversial and expensive proposal to end the Juan F. consent agreement that has kept a federal monitor in place at DCF for decades.

Wagner and Katz speculated on a sexual relationship between the two legislators in their malicious messages. After Katz reviewed Walker and Fasano at a hearing, she texted Wagner, “Just watched Len and tony (sic) from yesterday. Why don’t they just get a room” Wagner replied, “Maybe they have”.

Two weeks later, Wagner texted Katz, “Len was channeling DTrump (sic) with his excessive alternative facts. And I think Toni’s remarks were some kind of code about where they should meet up for an afternoon delight.” The sexual innuendo between a man and a woman working together on an issue is the sort of anti-feminist trope that women have had to overcome for decades. Some would be surprised to see it coming from Wagner and Katz. Others would not.

The messages between Katz and Wagner came to light when lawyers for a litigant with a matter against DCF sought Katz’s texts. Some became available only after the former high court justice turned in her phone at the end of her controversial tenure at DCF as the Malloy administration came to a conclusion. Katz’s message is shaded in the exchange above.

Wagner left the Malloy administration in 2018 to join the Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin. She left private practice to become the number two person at OPM early this year. Wagner’s leaving that post was announced in a terse email in early February–after the discovery of the text messages.

The Lamont administration is seeking a Deputy Commissioner of Business Development. The position includes a wide range of duties, including attracting new businesses to Connecticut and retaining the ones already here.

The annual salary ranges from $109,673 to $225,937. Read more here.

Governor Ned Lamont told a Washington business association Wednesday about “big savings we’ll soon be able to announce on health care very soon with our state employees.” Lamont told members of the association of foreign-based companies doing business in the United States, some with operations in Connecticut, that “now I’ve got to deliver” on plans to address the state’s persistent financial problems.

According to to statements provided by The Bollinger Law Firm, P.C., Lamont assured the roundtable gathering that Connecticut has “got the greatest location in the world.” That declaration was followed by a discussion of energy issues and the sort of odd Lamont observation that bewilders listeners. “I have got to do everything I can with sort of a small, landlocked state like we are to make us more self-reliant when it comes to power.”

But we aren’t landlocked.

The state’s southern border is Long Island Sound, a large body of water between Connecticut and New York.

The Greenwich Democrat is capable of offering flights of fluency on state issues, and then come the crash landings. Asked by one well-informed participant Wednesday if he could tell listeners about the Partnership to Advance the Connecticut of Tomorrow, Lamont said “no.” He had not a clue about what on February 1st he declared is one of the “key components of his vision to transform the state’s economic development strategy….” Two months ago, Lamont announced in a press release “that two of Connecticut’s principal economic development entities – the nonprofit Connecticut Economic Resource Center, Inc. (CERC) and DECD – will form an innovative public-private partnership known as the Partnership to Advance the Connecticut of Tomorrow (PACT).” By Wednesday, it was news to Lamont.

UPDATE: This Tuesday Hartford Courant article reports that Eddie Perez  has not made a decision on entering the 2019 race for mayor.

Former Hartford mayor Eddie Perez will launch his comeback bid this weekend, Daily Ructions has learned. Perez will have a busy weekend of appearances. He resigned as mayor in 2010 after being convicted of corruption. The former gang member and Trinity College official’s conviction were overturned on appeal. Perez recently withdrew his lawsuit against the city seeking reimbursement of his legal costs during the corruption saga.

In 2017, Perez reached an agreement with prosecutors and “pleaded guilty Thursday to taking a bribe and attempted first-degree larceny by extortion, but was spared prison,” according to The Hartford Courant. Perez received an eight-year suspended sentence and conditional discharge.

Perez will join a crowded Democratic field that includes incumbent Luke Bronin, state Representative Brandon McGee, school board chair Craig Stallings, J. Stan McCauley, and Aaron Lewis. All or some of the candidates will meet in a September 10th primary.

Governor Ned Lamont attempted to heave himself out of his credibility gap on transportation Wednesday. Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie asked the new governor how he will get people to trust him that money from tolls will go to the transportation lockbox when the tolls may not be in place until after he leaves office.

Lamont responded that the lockbox passed by voters in Novembers was a good start. Acknowledging that there is a lot of mistrust toward politicians, Lamont, who is raiding the fund of $1 billion in his budget proposal, declared, “I gotta look people in the eye and tell them my word is good.”

The Greenwich Democrat last month abandoned his signature campaign promise to support tolls on trucks only, raising essential questions about his trustworthiness.

Trumpian Justin Clark will return to West Hartford on April 4th to raise money for local Republicans. Clark worked on the loathsome demagogue’s 2016 campaign, did a stint in the chaotic White House, and now is an official on the 2020 campaign.

Clark will be the guest of honor at a private reception. This may be an opportunity to have someone who was at the White House in 2017 explain just who those “very fine people” were marching under Nazi flags in Charlottesville. You may recall them chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

Clark, who managed Republican Tom Foleys 2010 and 2014 losing bids for governor, will be the opener for an address by 2018 gubernatorial hopeful Tim Herbst on state of the Connecticut GOP.

The evening begins at 6 p.m. at the Rockledge Grille.

It makes you scratch your head and wonder. State Republican chairman J.R. Romano posted his thoughts on local public education on Facebook. Lord have mercy, the Derby Republican is one proud ignoramus. What a mess. He is willfully unaware of the difference between ‘’you’re” and “your.” Oy, and that “payed” makes one think the bursar at wherever college Romano Attended owes him a rebate for its failures.

Was there once a movement to eliminate punctuation? If so, the former Whiskey Patriot is one of its victims.