By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

First of a Two-Part Series

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, OCT. 6, 2014) — As you now know but once again weren’t supposed to know — this is, after all, a city with a mayor who has ordered Administrative Shutdown on transparency, inquiry, questions, and honest debate — RSVP fired executive director Deborah Sadowy Dargie last week.

In investigating this story, THE PLANET followed the evidence. It strongly suggests that mayor Dan Bianchi set up Sadowy for failure as part of a larger plan to shut down RSVP.

Here’s the overview:

(a) The Machiavellian story begins when Sheila Pia tells the mayor and the RSVP board she intends to resign. City hall and RSVP sources say Pia was under a lot of stress and wanted out. We asked where the stress was coming from. Answer: “The mayor.” We asked why: “Because he thinks RSVP is a waste of money. He thinks senior citizens are a burden, weighing down the city.” THE PLANET asked the mayor for his comments, but he failed to respond.

(b) RSVP hires Dargie as RSVP executive director in June. Sadowy begins in early July. That one-month lag between hiring and actually starting the job will prove to be a key part of the plan.

(c) Sadowy is a city employee, responsible to the mayor.

(d) On Sept. 25, Carolyn Valli, RSVP board chair, fires Sadowy.

(e) The RSVP board is an advisory not an administrative or directing board. Its sole job is to advise the executive director and the mayor.

(f) Because it is advisory and not directive, the RSVB board has no independent hiring or firing authority. That must come directly from the mayor.

It appears the mayor took the coward’s way. He hid behind Valli’s skirts and ordered the board do his dirty work. And where was that bastion of integrity, The Sheffield Shuffler? We refer to city personnel director John DeAngelo. Missing in action,  it would seem.

The Rest of the Story: Sadowy Was Set Up to Fail

THE PLANET broke a story The Suits wanted hidden. Sound familiar? After we dragged this Oxbow Incident into the sunlight, The Boring Broadsheet published its Suit-Friendly version of events, in which Sawody was blamed for everything from the Great Chicago Fire, the Titanic sinking, and Ebola.

In the Boring Broadsheet version, Valli threw Sadowy under the steamroller, citing a botched grant. The ensuing heat from Sadowy’s many supporters forced the paper into a hurried story yesterday (Sunday, Oct. 5). Keep in mind the only reason The Eagle wrote one syllable on this was because of THE PLANET’s breaking the story. Without us, the mayor’s latest employee beheading would have been accomplished entirely in the dark.

Sadowy came to RSVP on June 7 with a stellar reputation for accomplishment in executive positions at United Cerebral Palsy , the YMCA, and Hillcrest Educational Centers. After Pia quit after two years at the RSVP helm, the organization began searching for a new exec. The interview committee included Eric Wilder, RSVP board VP; real-estate agent Andy Perineck; RSVP secretary Rosemay Gould; Vin Marinaro, director of the Council on Aging; and Valli, who is also executive director of Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity. 

The board announced Sadowy’s hiring in early June. Sadowy, however, started on July 7, robbing Sadowy of a month in which she could have learned some of the ropes of a perilous position. Was this at the mayor’s behest? One RSVP source says it was.

Sadowy: ‘I had no help at all. I had no support’

Soon after she started on July 7, Sadowy learned that a massive year-end progress report was due to the federal government on July 30. On that report would hinge Uncle Sam’s grant support — all of $40,000.

“No one ever told me about this requirement, and it wasn’t part of what I was doing,” Sadowy told THE PLANET in an exclusive interview. “If this was a smart board, it would have had Sheila Pia [outgoing director] do and submit the report. But this board is so far removed from the daily operations at RSVP, its amazing. The board had no idea of the [daily] operations. Carolyn Valli told the board that she had offered to help me [with the grant]. That’s not true.”

“To prepare the grant, I had to teach myself everything about the progress report,” Sadowy said. “I  worked on it from July 7 to the 30th. I received no help at all. I had no support, and I was given no training. I was asked to come in on a voluntary basis two weeks before Sheila left. She tried to do the best she could, but she was so stressed out. She couldn’t wait to get out of there [RSVP].”

‘I have never felt so alone in and organization in all my life.’

“I learned quickly how political the board was,” Sadowy said. “It was terrible. That’s why I can never ‘do’ politics. It’s too dirty. RSVP is a great organization, but [locally] it’s a four-sided wheel. I have never felt so alone within an organization in my life. I had to come in with no training and get the grant report done. It would take an experienced person months to do it. For Carolyn to use the grant as an excuse to fire me is irresponsible.”

Sadowy says during the interview process, Valli and the committee made it clear they wanted a fresh face, a new start, and an experienced hand to take the reins. The job appeared ideal: “I’m such an assertive person,” Sadowy said. “When they hired me, they said ‘We want you to be the face of RSVP. We want you to take us to another level.’ Well, that’s the kind of challenge that makes me tick — the outside-the-box approach, the cutting edge. I couldn’t wait to get started. I had so many ideas. My vision was to enhance the volunteer experience. They don’t want to sit around and answer phones. This is a newer generation of volunteers with much better skills. They want more fulfilling experiences. The real reason I got fired was that they thought I was trying to change the mission, but that’s not so. I was very true to the mission. I am so mission driven.”

Fact is, neither the mayor, Valli, nor the board gave her the chance. The listless RSVP — with Bianchi  secretly intent with doing away with the organization — hired a strong, independent, intelligent woman, one who knew more than they did.

The question arises: If the mayor secretly wanted to pull the plug on RSVP, why would he approve the hiring of such a strong, capable person? The answer is easy to surmise. Bring in a capable person, set her up to fail, and then claim the organization is beyond saving. Of course, the mayor may have greatly miscalculated, thinking he could intimidate Sadowy through a toothless and weak board. Either way, the evidence is clear: Sadowy’s firing was a planned hit.

This so fits the mayor’s pattern — threatened by talented people, especially women, apparently so unsure of himself that he needs to surround himself with flunkies. What a tragedy, to see this once bright city succumb to a fear-driven administrative death wish.

TOMORROW IN PART TWO — THE PLANET TAKES YOU INSIDE THE ROOM WHEN IT ALL COMES UNDONE. 

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“In her rickshaw on the street or in a cabaret, ‘Please Mei Kwei for Rose,’ you can hear them say. All my life I shall remember Oriental music and you in my arms. Perfumed flowers in your tresses, lotus-scented breezes and swaying palms. — Frankie Laine, “Rose, Rose I Love You,” (1951).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.