By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2014) — First, in an effort to do what the mayor is afraid of doing for you, we get fully transparent and share this e-mail we sent to the corner office inhabitant.

We wrote to Hizzoner:

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MAYOR BIANCHI
In my reporting of your new press policy, I shared information from sources about how you issued the plan with hard copies (not by e-mail). I have also reported that when you learned that I had obtained a copy, you threw a “hissy screaming fit.” I would ask you to comment on this information. Are my sources correct, as I believe they are? If not, please correct the record. As you know, I am always interested in as much factual accuracy as I can obtain on any story.

On the sewage leakage, can you tell me when you were first aware of it? Have you been contacted by the state DEP? Will there be an internal investigation by the city? Will there be consequences? Feel free to add anything else you wish.

I need your comments no later than tomorrow, Wednesday (7/9) at 9 p.m. 

In the interest of better presenting your p.o.v. on pertinent issues, I also invite you to book an appearance on my Thursday night TV show. Let me know if you wish to avail yourself of this opportunity.

Best,
DAN

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That is the full of it (and we mean full of it). When the mayor’s e-mail doesn’t arrive, THE PLANET will know that it’s him, not getting back to us.

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Taxpayers, Hang on To Your Wallet; Politicians Approve Millions in (Ahem) Economic ‘Development’

Good Lord, save us from politicians! That is our perpetual prayer to The God Who Apparently Isn’t There.

Hang on to your wallets, Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. We’ve got talk of more “economic engines” with ignitions made by taxpayer dollars for the advertised purpose of “promoting economic development and provide incentives to create jobs and stimulate the economy.” This being Pittsfield politics, there’s no truth in advertising.

“… promoting economic development and provide incentives to create jobs and stimulate the economy.”

That tired boilerplate language could have easily come from any of the countless and failed of Pittsfield’s such measures from its post-’80s past. Such talk stands as proof positive that the local economy — still failing “economic engine after economic engine” — can’t function unless given artificial respiration from public money. That’s the true significance of “economic engines,” to wallpaper over the economy systemic ills.

These public dollars make for good press releases and “feel good” stories for politicians and lazy journalists, but they are invariably bad news for citizens. These are dollars they can’t afford.

The Empty Suit, leading The Suits‘ propaganda for the unnecessary building of a new public school, has made the “economic engine” pitch for that boondoggle being sold by and for ‘The Children.’ EV Worldwide, WorkshopLive!, Spice, the Intermodal Transportation Center, Nuclea, PEDA — we could go on with the list of past and recent failures, “economic engines” all that have one thing in common. They fail to attract private investment and always, always, come a-knockin’ on the doors of in-cahoots politicians to raid the public treasury. Oh, and they also share the trait of little to no accountability when the deal inevitably collapses.

Thus, local politicians wet themselves recently with the 37-1 passage in the state Senate of legislation (Ben Downing voting in the affirmative) that will cost taxpayers at least $15 million dollars to be divvied up among the state’s 26 “Gateway Cities,” of which Pittsfield is one. It’s a lot of money meant for one purpose only: to give politicians what they and complicit media are spinning as “more good news.” No doubt the Chamber will want to feature this on the cover of its next work of periodical fiction.

Stop with the ‘Good News’ Already; It’s Killing Taxpayers

“This bill combines investments in emerging industries like advanced  manufacturing and Big Data,” Downing said. “Advanced manufacturing?” In Pittsfield, that means turning out more clients for the methadone clinic and the manufacturing of crack and heroin. “Big Data” — a reference, no doubt, to the Pittsfield School Department’s love-in with the bureaucratic scheme of Common Core, also known as “Here we come a-dumbing down, dumbing down, dumbing down. Here we come a-dumbing down, early in the morning.”

Downing continues with the balderdash: “We are outlining a path to success for our residents by equipping them with the tools and necessary resources necessary to capitalize on our state’s existing and developing industries. Through this bill, we are not only supporting economic development across the state, but also making great strides in our efforts to promote ourselves as leaders in the world economy.”

Human beings don’t talk like this. These are lines, poor ones, scripted in “press-release-ese,” that variation of Speaking in Tongues that neither suggests the presence of the Holy Spirit nor any amount of charism.

The Senate talks of Pittsfield as a “Gateway City.” This is another mealy cliche The Suits love when referring to mismanaged cities on their way down and out. Another is “post-industrial city.” Both mean the same thing: A city down whose tense lies in the past, not the future. In Pittsfield’s case, it also means a city kept down in the dumps by the very measures that the “experts” propose will lift it up — such as the Senate’s infusion of more public money where private markets fear to tread.

The bill will also remove the ceiling on the number of liquor licenses Pittsfield can allocate. At last, a bit of truth in the boondoggle legislation disguised as a boon. Welcome to “economic development” Pittsfield style: More barrooms. More drunks. More fights. More stabbings. More shootings.

Have you ever wondered why, if such “investments” of the kind provisioned in and by this bill are so good, the private equity markets want nothing to do with them? Gee, perhaps they aren’t “investments” at all. Investments produce returns. Could it be they are more Band-Aids for The Suits to place over the severed financial artery created by out-of-touch pols such as The Empty Suit and the rest of the water-toting hegemonists and party loyalists paying homage to the local and state Democratic Party?

Make no mistake. All this bill does is give the politicians some very expensive PR, $15 million worth, paid for by those lovable suckers, The Taxpayers.

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 MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE PLANET now takes the time to print some letters that came in over the wire. They are published here for the first time.

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TO THE PLANET:

Several weeks ago I posted a note telling your readers that I had submitted a project for the Taconic High School Carpentry program.  At the time I didn’t not think that my project would be accepted,,  In yesterdays mail I received a letter advising that my project was not chosen.  I will be paying very close attention as to whose was.

Thank you as always for your “planetvalenti.com” and have a happy and safe July 4 week end. — MAGIC

PLANET RESPONDS — Thank you, Magic, for the note. After the Frank “Free House” Cote disaster, which caught the authorities looking the other way (another of those odd Pittsfield coincidences, we’re sure!), many people will be interested in who wins the prize.

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TO THE PLANET:

Thank you for your efforts. Your [web]site and TV show are reliable sources of fresh, independent information. You are obviously an experienced hand.

We are new to the area and discovered your work through a neighbor. I am a retired newspaper executive, and I worked for most of my career in New York City and the Midwest. We are following the recent news involving your site and TV show and Mayor Bianchi’s press policy. You are correct. This plan is a gag order being imposed on public workers. My paper would have fought this tooth and nail.

Keep up the good work. — Mr. and Mrs. Ryan [name changed on request].

THE PLANET RESPONDS — It’s wonderful to receive a letter such as yours, which belies a certain level of awareness and insight into public affairs we don’t offer see. Glad you appreciate my work.

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TO THE PLANET:

While you are clever with words it’s a shame you waste them on “entertainment” which you hide with the fancy title of “journalism.” You rip apart good public servants doing their best especially Mayor Bianchi. You are a divider. It is unfair.  — Bianchi Supporter

THE PLANET RESPONDS: Dear BS, thank you for your views. We are content to let your words speak for themselves! They express the situation beautifully, though not in the way you think.

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“Deliberately buried?” — Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester), from Stanley Kubrick‘s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” (1968).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.