By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

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BULLETIN: THE PLANET received word this afternoon of the resignation of William Monterosso, Berkshire Works executive director. The decision was made following a meeting between John DeAngelo and BW employee Dan Collins, who had filed charges against Monterosso. We shall be following this story, working our sources, and will have more info (than anyone) tomorrow.

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(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, Monday, May 19, 2014) — Did an angry, physically threatening Dan Bianchi use one of the gutter’s most reprehensible words against a black businesswoman? You know the word of which we speak: two syllables, begins with a consonant.

That’s the question everyone is wondering but no one has dared to openly ask in the wake of Doreen Wade‘s allegations of racism officially lodged against the Pittsfield mayor? Suddenly, after just one meeting since its reconstitution, the newly revived Pittsfield Human Rights Commission (HRC) finds itself in a phone booth with a spanked crocodile.

Doreen Wade, speaking to the Human Rights Commission, has accused Pittsfield Mayor Dan Bianchi or criminal behavior, physically threatening her, and treating her in a racist manner. (PHOTO — iBerkshires)

When the Medford businesswoman spoke for 30 passionate minutes on May 12 before the first meeting of the HRC, Wade, who sought city assistance last year in a business start-up, stated she Bianchi discriminated against and treated her in a “criminal” manner. When pressed if the incident could be attributed to an unfortunate but innocent misunderstanding or a miscommunication, Wade said “no.” She said she had no doubt the mayor treated her badly because of her skin color.

Wade said Bianchi made “racially insensitive comments,” yelled at her, and threatened her by shaking his finger in her face. Wade says Bianchi actions made her feel physically threatened. She quoted the mayor as disparaging of “black men over 50.” She says Bianchi told they were deadbeats unable to get jobs “because they are not qualified.” Wade flatly called Bianchi “a racist.”

Bianchi has denied the allegations.

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Wade is the publisher and CEO of the monthly online newsmagazine The New England Informer. Last year, she came back to her native Pittsfield to explore reviving the print version of The Informer to serve the city’s minority community. Part of that process was an 11 a.m. meeting on April 3, 2013, with Bianchi. The meeting was scheduled for an hour, but Wade said Bianchi abruptly ended it after 25 minutes.

Wade alleges the mayor acted in a racist manner during that meeting, which she left, she said, in a state of extreme upset: “He [Bianchi] performed an act of intimidation, also called cowering,” Wade said. “As far as I’m concerned, he committed an assault against me as well as performing an act of criminal threatening.”

Dan Bianchi: Did he call Doreen Wade “a nigger?” (PHOTO: berkshires.twcnews)

But did he out-and-out call her a “nigger?” THE PLANET has posed that question to Wade, who had not responded as of press time. Bianchi isn’t saying, because he doesn’t speak to us. Period. If he did throw that word at Wade and if that is established in a public hearing beyond a reasonable doubt, that would pretty much wrap it up for the mayor. Even if he didn’t use the inflammatory word, discrimination on the basis of color and sex is illegal and immoral. He stands accused of acting in a “criminal” manner by physically threatening this woman because of her skin color and forcing what Wade calls a “horrific” experience upon her.

“It has been horrific,” Wade said. “I am not being allowed to have a living in this city.”

Public officials and figures have lost positions for such gaffes and even lesser offenses than what Wade has accused Bianchi of doing to her. Clearly, there is a lot riding on Wade’s testimony, the evidence, and the HRC’s investigation.

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Is Wade for real or is she a troublemaker?

We posed that question to Josh Cutler, HRC chairman: “I think she is for real,” Cutler said, citing her willingness “to go public as she has.” He added that the commission must fully vet both sides of the story and that “seeing some documents will be crucial to make ultimate determinations.”

Cutler said, “Her candid testimony was most certainly telling about her experiences here.  Having the Human Rights Commission as an active mechanism for people  who wish to have their concerns on the record and remedied is a good step which has been lacking in Pittsfield for a long time.  There’s a lot of work that has to be done in order to determine the scope of what may have happened over the period she described.   We’re going to do our due diligence in vetting the situation.”

One gets the feeling Cutler means these words. Certainly THE PLANET speaks for virtually every citizen of Pittsfield when we say we hope so. There will be no excuse for the HRC to miss finding the truth of this situation, wherever it may rest. The city has granted the commission the power of subpoena. It can administer oaths and receive testimony under penalty of perjury. The HRC exercises this power with a majority vote, and it will be clear if sleazy politics enter into the proceedings. Its members, after all, are all Bianchi appointees. THE PLANET as of the moment is willing to invest the HRC with its trust to look into this situation professionally and without blinking.

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Where does the matter stand now? The HRC will gather relevant supporting materials from Wade, review it, and further investigate her allegations prior to its next meeting, slated for June 9. THE PLANET calls on citizens who wish to see justice done in this case to attend the meeting.

Besides Cutler, HRC members include Pam Malumphy, Bob Sykes, Susan O’Leary, Alfred Johnson, Louis Perez, Cecilia Rock, and Church Cotton.  Members are bound by their oaths to forget whatever political loyalties they may have to the mayor and look at Wade’s complaints with as much neutrality and objectivity as humanly possible. A whitewash will not be allowed.

Cotton, the city council’s representative to the HRC and the lone black on the council, said “There were some pretty serious charges made here tonight. I think it’s going to warrant a formal investigation.”

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Doreen Wade

Doreen Wade has raised the most serious of character issues against the mayor. We don’t have to go into the ugliness of racism, as repellent a social ill as one can imagine. Racism exists in society as a malignancy, growing in environments that send deformed messages, clear or subtle. When the CEO of any corporation, in this case the city of Pittsfield, faces credible accusations of such behavior, that corporation must investigate in a relentless fashion. Bianchi faces repellent, repulsive, and repugnant charges that must be fully probed without the trace of politics. If he in fact acted in the manner claimed by Wade, the city must demand a punishment that will send a clear message: such metastatic virulence will not be tolerated. If Bianchi has been falsely accused, that must also be established and proven not just to clear his name but also the reputation of the city, which has been stained.

Pittsfield has fallen to some pretty discouraging depths under this present mayor, but none would be more depressing or damaging to have it shown that Bianchi is a racist.

If, and we only say if, the commission supports Wade’s allegations, there would only be one acceptable solution for Mayor Bianchi at that point: resignation. Having lost his honor, he could only do the one honorable thing left for him, and that would be to fall on his political sword.

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As a related aside that has not been reported elsewhere, it’s interesting what happened when Wade asked to speak before the city council at its April 22 meeting. Her request was included on the council agenda for that night.

City Council president Melissa Mazzeo denied Wade the opportunity to address members.

“I was put off and told that I have to take my petition to the Human Rights Commission,” Wade told THE PLANET. “I feel [Mazzeo] violated my rights to speak before my government. The president told me that the council doesn’t handle this type of information. She told me she wasn’t qualified to handle this. And then she said she wasn’t the boss of the mayor and doesn’t make rules over him.”

Wade told us she has documentation of “specific instances of abuse … but I cannot expose them right at this moment. There [are] a lot of things that need to be exposed.”

Wade said she asked Mazzeo, “If the NAACP can talk about the issue, why couldn’t I? [Mazzeo] told me that the NAACP is acting as [an official] board [or] representative of the city. I didn’t know that the NAACP was working in conjunction with the city. That is very interesting. So because they are a representative of the city, they have right that I as an American citizen do not have? Can you believe that one?”

The NAACP needs to step forward and clarify its position vis-a-vis the city of Pittsfield. Is the NAACP in bed with the city of Pittsfield? THE PLANET thought (and still thinks) that the NAACP acts as an independent organization designed to help improve life for blacks in America. We could see no good to have an autonomous outfit such as the NAACP fetching water for the “leaders” of a municipality.

“Can you believe that one?” Wade asked us.

Yes, Doreen, we can.

Welcome to Pittsfield.

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When der Fuehrer says ‘We is de master race,’ we heil, we heil right in de Fuehrer’s face.” — Spike Jones, “Der Fuehrer’s Face.”

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.