BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JUNE 17, 2018) — Contempt should only be spent on someone you take seriously. For the lightweights, pick from among ridicule, mockery, and flicking of the kind you do to an insect — three forms of abuse that cozily fit under the heading of satire.

Come on down, Donna Todd Rivers.

Here’s the timeline:

• Mayor Linda Tyer tries to ram through an upgrade to the Pittsfield sewer system that will cost taxpayers $74 million.
• This despite indications that the federal EPA will rescind the overstepping of the Boston regional office and not require the upgrades. Testimony from hydro engineer and designer Craig Gaetani argues convincingly that the upgrades, if needed at all, could be done for a fraction of that cost.
• The city council, in a rare display of independence, defeats the proposal 4-7, one vote short of the required supermajority. The four dissenters are Kevin Morandi, Chris Connell, Melissa Mazzeo, and Rivers.
• Despite the council’s vote, the mayor works “behind the scenes” (interpret this as you wish) to make sure the item is resurrected, even though it’s stinking worse than Lazarus fresh from the tomb. It’s the only time Jesus cries.
• Tyer produces a threatening letter from the Boston EPA, “ordering” the city to do the upgrades or else face large fines.
• What’s not made public is that the mayor essentially asked the EPA to write the letter, done in a meeting to which no opposition councilors or the public are invited.
• In April, Rivers magically receives a make-work public-sector job — county jobs czar — at $75,000 a year, all in taxpayer money. The job offer and Rivers’ acceptance are not made public t the time. It takes iBerkshires and THE PLANET to dig up that buried truth. Again, the rotting corpse assaults the senses.
• When the sewer vote comes around the next time, everyone on the council holds pat except Rivers. She miraculously “gets religion” on the sewer upgrade. She suddenly leads the league in self-righteousness, “explaining” that she kept an open mind. Before you can say “thefixwasin,” Rivers flip-flops. She is the deciding vote on already-overwhelmed city taxpayers being on the hook for an additional — and NEEDLESS — $74 million. At $75,000 a year, The Suits got DTR’s services cheap.

After failing in a brief stint as assistant city attorney and flopping with a downtown business, Rivers has carefully worked her way into the inner’s circles outer limits, that space reserved for glorified coat holders and coffee fetchers who sell themselves cheaply and taken themselves lightly. These people share a combination of characteristics dangerous to healthy, personal spirituality but irresistible to The Suits. They want everyone to love them, don’t appear happy with themselves, lack inner resolution, constantly need the approval of Adult Types and Father Figures, you know, people like Peter Marchetti, Adam Hinds, Peter White, Tricia Farley-Bouvier … you get the drift.

In an honest town where the game was more evenly tilted, such people would never win, and if they did, they would be too ashamed to show themselves in public. In Pittsfield, they walk and talk proudly because their master, The Suits, throw them the drippings — for example, the $75,000 price for turning a $75 million trick.

They are good people at core as we all are, but they (a) don’t seem to know it and (b) even worse, don’t want to trust it. They have ability but lack confidence. It comments most profoundly on the state of the city that these are the types who win elections.

They try to project stability but seem weak with loss.

We do not walk in their Guccis, but they have a mein that exudes with the saddest loss of all, a loss of Self.

It would suck to be like that.

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“Everything is possible until proven otherwise” — Sherlock Holmes.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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