By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, NOV. 21-23, 2014) — Taking time this weekend to remember the events of Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas, THE PLANET is pleased to present Poetry Weekend (P.W.). This is our chance to share a great poem or two with you, allow you to make comments on ANY topic (there is no subject “off topic” on P.W.), and to first sneak in a few brief points of our own.

Speaking of which, there were a couple of interesting speakers at Thursday’s tax classification hearing. At the hearing, the council left the mayor’s proposed split intact. Homeowners will be paying $18.06 per thousand, with the commercial rate at $36.62. Both rates are record highs required to pay an all-time (an irresponsibly) high city budget.

Government Hostility Breeds Loss of a Great Resource

With the hostile treatment this city government (mayor, council, and school committee) gives to citizen activists, THE PLANET has no illusions that the speakers who bothered offering input to the council shall be taken seriously. Perhaps the greatest sin of this Administration has been the treatment of private citizens who dare petition the government. We speak of people like Terry Kinnas, Craig Gaetani, Mary McGinniss, Donna Walto, Robert O’Connor, and Connie Boyle, and others. This hostility has robbed Pittsfield of a great asset and resource, which is the creativity of the Owners of Government for solutions to the financial mess the politicians have created.

Kinnas told councilors that a full dollar of the tax rate ($3 to f$4 million plus) gets shipped to other school districts because of the loss of students to school choice and to the charter school. This is yet another indictment of a failing Pittsfield public school system that will not be fixed with a $130 million-plus high school that the community can’t afford. Supercitizen Kinnas also mentioned something first published on THE PLANET with respect to the 29% rate hike sought by WMECO, noting how the announcement came after the election — just another of those “Pittsfield coincidences.”

Kinnas also mentioned:

* Under Obamacare, GE exempt retirees will be losing their health insurance on Jan. 1, 2015, with hourly retirees in the same boat on Jan. 1, 2016. Some have gone on the city’s health insurance. This will drive up those costs, on top of the increase the mayor forced on taxpayers and city employees by the switch out of the state-run GIC and into private Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage. Added costs could be in the millions.

* Property values are going down. The levy limit should go down concomitantly.

* A unique solution, one THE PLANET loves, would be to use the GE PEDA money ($4-$5 million is left of the original $10 million) to reduce the commercial tax rate. Kinnas told THE PLANET that he spoke with Tom Hickey, former PEDA director, who confirmed that was the original intent of the $10 million fund. Naturally, the council shot down the plan.

Citizens Dare Speak — To No Avail

Citizen Robert O’Connor told councilors he was on a fixed income. He says he’s seriously considering moving from Pittsfield because he can no longer afford the property taxes. O’Connor also had the courage (and the wisdom) to criticize the mayor and council for the choice of priorities in setting the budget. Instead of helping ordinary citizens, he said, city government caved into The Special Interests. He cited such examples as the ongoing airport renovation and the construction of a new Taconic High School.

Connie Boyle attended the hearing and spoke on behalf of Berkshire Hills Country Club, which in a decade has seen its taxes rise by 400%. Boyle made a point that the vast majority of citizens and all of the city’s businesses can make: The club has no children in public schools yet must pay for them. That’s an entirely separate discussion of course, but it’s a great point. Why do homeowners and businesses with no kids in school have to pay for their education?

Boyle pointed out that the club receives little in the way of city services (garbage pickup, for example) yet pays through the nose for permits, inspections, licenses, and other fees. He said that such practices “make doing business in Pittsfield very difficult.” Boyle did not mention it, but the fact is that club membership is down significantly. Again, this is a sign that citizens, faced with funding the impetuous spending plan of a financially bloated government, have to do something government in Pittsfield never does: Makes cuts.

THE PLANET shall have more on the dire ramifications of the tax classification hearing early next week. Meanwhile, enjoy this poem.

This is by one of THE PLANET’s favorite poets (certainly in our Top 5), Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

ODE TO SOLITUDE

By ALEXANDER POPE

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix’d; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie. 

——– 000 ——–

Here is one of our own:

FACE: THE WISP END OF HEROD’s BEARD

By DAN VALENTI

Face-evicted feelings, not expressed, living yet

Though intolerant inner aims, would war into motion —

An element to surface, to be read with regret

By itinerants in a life of fragmentary notion.

Not in this or in other passing lies my bliss

That would give a nickel to a beggar

And to the begging old woman a kiss

counted as gain, a dollar on a ledger.

Nefarious sweet love, candle-colored aim

Lit for its fragrance more than its light

Floods a room with violets that remain

Days later, long after day has become night.

Daytime and the candle sheds its glow

As beams of sun flood turnpikes of light.

A river army sounds the call from below,

But in such joy one doesn’t heed the fight.

Weapons do the cartoon dance of ducks,

While wars go the way of the dinosaur,

Tell-tale fossils that make memory of flux

Having once had an epoch but needing no more.

Philos, lover of wisdom, death is the question —

Bends faith into a query, a query into a curve

While logic loses the argument’s suggestion

And answers in follow-ups that they deserve.

The birch tree peels off parchments of white

They curl like the wisp end of Herod’s beard,

Turn in on themselves and fall in the night.

At leaven, luncheons for squirrels appeared.

——– 000 ——–

Happy Weekend!!

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“Sisters fled by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow. Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.” — Bob Dylan,  “My Back Pages,” (1964).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.