When former Gov. John G. Rowland called Gov. Dannel P. Malloy a “pathological liar” in an interview with The American Spectator, Malloy’s senior communications adviser, wasn’t about to let it slide.
“It’s kinda like Snooki calling someone cheap,” Roy Occhiogrosso said Thursday morning in a phone interview.
“I can’t believe WTIC gives him a platform,” he added referring to Rowland’s part-time job as afternoon talk show host.
Rowland, a convicted felon who left office after contracting scandals, uses his three-hour drive time radio spot to criticize Malloy and his policies. The criticism intensified after Malloy took a swipe at him for negotiating the current 20 year deal with unionized state employees that’s now “unsustainable.”
“It was the single worst agreement in state history,“ Occhiogrosso said of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition deal Rowland inked back in 1997.
Malloy tried to change the terms of that agreement, but a minority of the SEBAC membership who voted, rejected the package.
“He’s trying to make me the scapegoat, but he actually wanted to extend that deal another five years through 2022” Rowland told The American Spectator. “He went from supporting an extension of the deal, to blaming it for all of the state’s problems. He’s all over the place.”
Malloy’s decision to extend the deal until 2022 was an attempt to get labor to agree to increasing the retirement age and other pension.
Rowland has spent the better part of the past two days on the air talking about the rejection of the labor agreement.
Occhiogrosso said he never, ever listens to the show, which lately has revolved around the rejection of the labor agreement.