Okay, say you’re running a newspaper that has to cut expenses. (What newspaper doesn’t?)

Your newspaper is the largest in the state and pre-eminent in its coverage of state government and politics. (It used to be loved and respected for its deep and detailed coverage of local news, but those days are so over.)

You decide to reduce the staff and focus your remaining reporting power on state-level news. Take wire for international stuff, cut out the parachute missions to hot spots like, say, the Elian Gonzalez mess in Miami, or the war in Iraq, or Columbine.

Along with the rest of the nation, the state has just come out of an election of huge interest and now faces what will be one of the most difficult budget years in three decades. Readers throughout the state will be clamouring for political news and relying on the skill, experience and insight of your capitol bureau, which is now down to two or three distinguished reporters (depending on how you count), including Mark Pazniokas.

He has covered city and state politics for more than 20 years, on deadline,  night and day, near and far, with style and grace and hardly a typo. Readers know and respect him. Politican’s fear and respect him. His co-workers love and respect him.

So naturally you lay him off.

This is the major disconnect Paz’s friends were trying to understand Thursday night at the Red Rock. There were some theories, of course, mainly having to do with who likes who. And there were some complaints that there was no plausible business principle articulated by the company that might explain the layoff choices… not just of Paz, but of everyone.

Aside from that, those who were able to show up (on admittedly short notice) were in fairly good spirits considering the circumstances. It was good to see veterans like Bob Frahm, Colin Poitras, Greg Seay, Karen Hunter and Dave Drury who made it a point to attend.

Frahm is doing a little education-related freelancing for the University of Connnecticutt and McGraw-Hill. Drury has been home caring for his wife, whose ankle was severely injured in a work-related car accident. Seay is the web editor at the Hartford Business Journal, where John Ferraro takes over as editor next week.

Ferraro was at Paz’s (and his own) send-off, as were fellow departing colleagues David Funkhouser and Beth Hamilton. Ferraro has the  rare distinction of leaving for another job. Beth has, of course, some other important business to attend to soon, as you can see from the pix.