By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2014) — Under The Empty Suit (TES), the Global Montello energy company employee who play acts as the mayor of Pittsfield and pulls down nearly $88,000 a year+bennies from bedraggled city taxpayers, the hits just keep coming.

A few years ago, non-supervision and non-accountability led to a corrupt worker draining the Pittsfield Water Department nearly dry. The accused employee “resigned” and left town to his next gig. He wasn’t prosecuted, and the city was never made whole for the missing money.

Yesterday, THE PLANET shared exclusive news about another questionable hire by The Empty Suit. The mayor gave his OK for a long-time water department employee with no managerial experience and nothing more than a high school education to take over as the head of the Highway Department.

Sources describe Kevin Swail as a “crony” of city public works commission Bruce Collingwood. Swain, sources say, is also friends with David Santolin, former head of the Pittsfield water department now serving in the same capacity in Lanesboro. Santolin’s wife, Susan, has a job in as executive secretary in the mayor’s office.

In yet another exclusive, THE PLANET shares the fallout from the recent deluge of rain in this soggiest of city departments. Remember the torrential rains on June 25? Sources say that because of the incompetence at the water department, a sizeable raw sewage spill has infected the Housatonic River and the nearby adjacent farmland. What makes a bad story even worse is that, according to sources, the city has deliberately withheld the worst of the information from the state Environmental Protection Agency.

Our source pick up the story from there:

“Well, even though everyone in the water department knew the downpour [on the 27th] was coming, a decision was made by management to shut down some of the treatment plant equipment.” Consequently, sources tell THE PLANET “a large amount of raw sewage was discharged directly into the Housatonic River. The City is trying to cover this up because of the environmental impact.”

Knowledgeable sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, believe Pittsfield will be fined big bucks for the error in judgment.

——– 000 ——–

News of the environmental disaster will come as a surprise to our Right Honorable Good Friends on the city council, who are, after all, only TES’ co-governors in the running of the city. If our sources are correct and the state EPA hits the city with a large fine, that bill can be attributed directly to the mayor’s ineptness.

Sources say the EPA has gotten wind of this ill wind. As the theme from Dragnet put it so aptly, “Dum dee dum-dum.”

Sources also tell THE PLANET that Carl Shaw was running the plant at the time of the incident.

Piecing together information from our investigation, here’s what THE PLANET thinks happened: At the time of the downpour, two catch basins were down due to repairs. A third basin wasn’t working properly, but it could have held water.  Shaw allegedly ordered the third basin off-line, despite knowing the torrential rain was on its way.  When the next shift took over, sources say, Shaw didn’t inform the workers that he took the third basin off line.  When the rains hit and started to cause back-up problems, the next shift sent water towards that third basin, not knowing it was off-line.

Raw sewage and a river: Not a good combination.

Sources say this action blew off a man-hole cover located by the nearby farm on Holmes Road, and the adjacent farm land was contaminated with raw sewage.  The only reason anything was reported to the EPA was that the sewage that made its way into the river went through a device that captured what happened.

Sources say the water department was told to report what happened to the EPA but only because of the monitoring. They were told not to tell the EPA about the farm land being contaminated. Who gave that order? Who made that decision? Shaw? Collingwood? Bianchi? Aunt Edna’s pet poodle?

THE PLANET has a request for comment into the mayor and commission Collingwood. Here are the questions we have asked them:

* Can you confirm and comment on the incident.
* Did you inform the EPA of the discharge into the river?
* Did you tell the EPA about the farm land?
* What will be done to rectify the situation?
* Will there be accountability?

THE PLANET is awaiting what shall most likely be the usual non-reponse. Meanwhile, the citizens of Pittsfield continue to pay the price for a part-time mayor who with each new day, with each new action, with each new inaction, drives the city closer to its fate with the wrecking ball.

———————— 00000000 ————————-

Coming Soon, a

THEATER REVIEW

By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

THE PLANET reviews The Berkshire Theatre Group‘s full-tilt production of Charles Ludlam‘s The Mystery of Irma Vep, starring Bill Bowers and Tom Hewitt.

New York Times’ Summer Stages Pick
by Charles Ludlam
directed by Aaron Mark
featuring Bill Bowers and Tom Hewitt

at The Fitzpatrick Main Stage, Stockbridge
Previews June 24-June 27
Press Opening/Opening Night: June 28
Talkback: June 30
Closing: July 19
Tickets: Preview: $42
A: $62 B: $52 C: $42

——– 000 ——–

(STOCKBRIDGE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2014) — What happens when Farce meets Theater of the Absurd meets Theater of the Ridiculous? And what occurs when you take this amalgam, throw in cross dressing, gender bending, a spooky dark mansion, a trio of monsters that would make the old Universal Studios proud, and give the nearly panicky script to a director and actors who “get” (no, “Get”) the heart of the play?

ANSWER: THE BTG’s current production of Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep — A Penny Dreadful, as pleasant a look at the oft-unpleasant of personal Identity as you will want to meet … or howl for.

The fun begins with the odd show title. “Irma Vep” is an anagram for “vampire,” while “a penny dreadful” refers to a kind of sensationalistic periodical fiction sold for a penny on cheap paper, popular in 19th century England.

We are already breathless. There’s a vampire, to be sure, plus a mummy (and the inevitable “mummy/mommy” puns) and a werewolf. There’s a lot of deliberately (and creatively) cheap camp that takes “penny dreadful” sensationalism, mainlines it with pure adrenaline, and feeds it coffee for the show’s 90 or so minutes.

BOWERS & HEWITT: All “Vep,” all the time. (Photos, Berkshire Theatre Group)

Director Mark Lane takes Ludlam’s precisely wild script and put his all, and the production’s all, into what we can best term “pace.” To act out this two-man exhale, Lane gives reign to two of the best, Tom Hewitt (playing Lady Enid, Nicodemus, and Alcazar) and actor/mime Bill Bowers (Lord Edgar, Jane, and An Intruder). Hewitt and Bowers pull off Ludlam-cum-Lane’s conception brilliantly. The pair play adeptly with Ludlam’s feverish dialogue, both actors suitably over-the-top — where they find the rim of the glass always rising just beyond their grasp (otherwise, what is a “reach” for?!)

Costumes (Wade Laboissonniere), lighting (Alan Edwards), and sound (Brendan Doyle) enhance the frenetic and fraught pacing, literally pulled off (and on) by Hewitt and Bowers with the flash-drive costume changes, near-perfect handling of the machine-gun dialogue, and tizzied body language (particularly Bowers).

Set designer Randall Parsons takes a literal approach, rendering the interior of Mandacrest with a cartoonish believability. Perfect touch, as is his stylized renderings of “various places in Egypt.”

The only down side to this romp is that it ended.

———————————————————————————————-

“Yet still in me with those soft luxuries / Mixed something of a stern mood, an underthirst / Of vigour seldom utterly allayed: / And from that source how different a sadness / Would issue, let one incident be made known.” — William Wordsworth, opening to “Crossing the Alps,” (1850).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

This

This