By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 10, 2014) — Water, water everywhere, and not a drop for taxpayers. We might call this the latest episode in “TES: Water on the Brain.” (An aside: If you see The Worried Man, a.k.a., The MOP [The Mayor of Pittsfield] today, ask him how well the robocalls he made for his buddy Steve Grossman and Warren Tollman worked out for the two losers).

Like water, poor leadership runs downhill. When not treated and filtered by accountability and oversight, it pollutes the reservoirs. Welcome to that great dysenteric water slide known as TES’ Pittsfield.

A Toxic, TES-Created Atmosphere

First, we have the situation regarding The Empty Suit‘s shabby treatment of Craig Gaetani, co-designer and builder along with Dr. Lawrence K. Wang of the Krofta-teched Cleveland water treatment facility in Hinsdale, which supplies the city’s drinking water. Gaetani and Dr. Wang are partners in a company they say can bring the Pittsfield sewage treatment facility off Holmes Road into federal compliance with savings of tens of millions of dollars over the up-to-$80 million the mayor wants to pay. One would think the CEO of the city, sworn fiduciary duties, would at least want to listen.  Any intelligent person would offer a fair hearing.

However, when Gaetani went to pitch his idea to the mayor, he received the TES Treatment (TEST). TEST involves a histrionic performance of mayoral screaming, finger-jabbing, bullying, and invasion of personal space. Many people have publicly claimed taking the TEST, including Medford businesswoman Doreen Wade, Gaetani, former city veterans’ agent Rosanne Frieri, and former city director of administrative services Mary McGinnis. Moreover, two current city employees have shared with THE PLANET their stories of similar abuse. They have yet to go public out of fear for their jobs.

Such is the toxic atmosphere created by this mayor.

Second in THE PLANET’s version of Handel‘s Water Music is the testimony of another current city employee city. He asked that his name be withheld, but he wanted THE PLANET to publish his story so citizens and taxpayers can know more of what it’s like to be working under the present mayor.

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‘This Has Led to People Reaching Breaking Points and Losing Their Jobs’

Here is what he said:

I am a Wastewater employee here in Pittsfield. I just wanted to bring something to your attention. Every year we get 1% raises. I make less now after this past year’s raise with the insurance increases than before my raise. This is the norm working for this city. We are the second lowest paid municipality in the state of massachusetts.

I was just informed of a new job posting for commissioner of public services. This is not a job where someone has quit or retired. This is a brand new job created. It’s starting salary is $85,000 a year. This new job description outlines many tasks that Mr. [Bruce] Collingwood is currently doing. As far as I know he and the previous commissioner have always had these responsibilities. There have been talks in city hall about how many managers including Collingwood are “over worked” and “under payed.” Recently 25 managers and city hall employees just got considerable pay raises. Some between 25-40%. This includes commissioner Collingwood.

So my question to you is if Collingwood’s work load and responsibilities are being cut in half, then why is his pay being increased considerably? The city lawyer has yet again offered us scraps as far as wages are concerned stating that the city has no money. That’s funny seeing how all these “overworked managers” just got huge raises and the city can afford to make up new positions that pay $85,000 dollars a year to start. 

For this reason, the man currently pretending to be mayor — who currently works for a private energy company … who wants to present a buddy with the gift of 40 percent of city hall as a rental — will not be seeking re-election. You read it here first.

We The People have won at least that small victory.

The real fight will come in the 2015 city elections. Literally, they represent the final chance for citizens to stop The Suits from killing a city we all love.

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“The greatest revelation open to science today is to perceive that every thing precious, active, and progressive originally contained in that cosmic fragment from which our world emerged is now concentrated in and crowned by the [sphere and realm of the mind].” —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phemonenon of Man, (1955).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.