By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, NOV. 6, 2014) — So how has the move to 100 North St. worked out? THE PLANET, and only THE PLANET, has the inside scoop.

All of the information obtained below was given by city hall sources and confirmed by tenants of 100 North. You recall we did The Dan Valenti Show mornings for 14 years from the WBRK studios located there, from 1992 to 2006. We still have lots of friends there. Those were the days when Dan Bianchi couldn’t get enough of us, sucking around like the cupped fingers of a frog holding onto the sheer longitude of a tall glass.

100gate, c’mon down!

‘Taxpayers Are Gonna Love This’

To date, Pittsfield’s Health Department and DPW offices have moved to 100 North. Sources say the workers in those offices will not have phones or the Internet “for at least a week.” Upon further investigation, “at least a week” is best-case scenario. Worse case? After Thanksgiving or beyond.

Gosh, THE PLANET isn’t one of the all-knowing bureaucrats making The Big Big Money courtesy of the bedraggled taxpayers, but we have worked in and managed offices before. Our wild guess is that not having phones or online capability for a week or weeks hampers business and productivity. Guess the masterminds who “thunk up” (stunk up) 100gate didn’t think that far ahead — or perhaps they did and simply didn’t care.

The building inspectors, we learned, won’t move into their new digs until March because the space hasn’t been renovated yet. This brings up an eminently fair criticism: With all that time to plan (you’ll recall THE PLANET dug up evidence of that this Done Deal was in the works at least five months before an RFP was issued), it’s an embarrassment that this move has not been properly coordinated. As one city hall source put it, “Gotta love this administration.”

What does this mean on the ground? It means that for the next five months, people seeking permits from the two most used, relevant, and related permitting offices will have to travel between two buildings, in the coldest months of the year. Prior to the switch, the officers were literally a door away. One wag put it this way: “Permitting just got a whole lot easier!”

Another source told us of the many citizens who have been to city hall who have been “confused and pissed off” by the move. Signage is non-existent, and help is hard to come by. O, the joy of having to report to work each morning in a building controlled by the worst mayor in city history.

Through our vast network of operatives from The Secret Squadron, THE PLANET sent a reconnaissance mission to 100 North St. to check out the situation. Here’s the “Eyes Only” report from one of our trusted Z-Agents:

When you arrive at the door on the 2^nd floor, you see a door with a keypad to gain entry.  There is a button to push to get buzzed in.  When you push the button, no one comes to the door.  This happened multiple times.  It looks like high security.

When you try to turn the handle on the door, it doesn’t open.  [Agent Z] knocked hard and finally someone came to open the door.  The person claimed the door was unlocked.  [I] asked them to step outside to try for themselves.  They agreed the door was locked.  Then a janitor came by who said it was unlocked.  He agreed the handle doesn’t turn, but you just have to pull the door open.  [I] couldn’t tell this, nor could the employee who now works there.  No signs, nothing.

Once inside, the offices that are occupied are all the way down at the other end of the building, so it’s like walking back to city hall.

 So say you need to access the permitting offices. You go to city hall. There, you’re told to go to 100 North St.  Then, if you can figure out how to get in, you then have to walk practically the distance back to city hall.  Taxpayers are going to love this!

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THE PLANET thanks Agent Z-11 for the bit ‘o’ James Bond.

It Couldn’t Get Worse, You Say? Ah, But It Can … And Did

THE PLANET received a report yesterday morning of “water, water everywhere.” While digging a trench from city hall to 100 North St., workers drilled clear through a wall and into 70 Allen St. The goof busted a pipe, flooding an area in the basement where the city houses computers for its Internet system. The question was posed: “How much is this going to cost taxpayers to replace the ruined equipment and counting the work lost during the down time?” The answer came in shrugs, finally resolving itself into a pithy phrase: “Plenty. This is going to have us paying through the nose.”

“Us” in this case translates as Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski.

Need we say more about the incompetence, ineptness, inefficieny, inadequacy, insufficiency, and inability in this “F Troop” event?

All together now: “Thank you, TES!”

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“And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually.” — Jimi Hendrix, “Castles Made of Sand,” from the Axis: Bold As Love album, (1968).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.

LOVE TO ALL.