By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, DEC. 1, 2014) — Welcome to December, when snow finds its legitimacy  and snow jobs grab the spotlight — as when THE PLANET considers the latest sabotage of taxpayers performed by that body of our Right Honorable Good Friends known as the Pittsfield City Council.

For 17 years, an obscure state law has been on the books empowering local councils override power over school budgets. The law, product of a Napoleonic Beacon Hill, exemplifies bad legislation, defined as passing a law when one isn’t needed. How bad? In all the years of its existence, not one city, town, or community has adopted it. No empowered board, council, or commission has been that stupid — until now.

C’mon down, Pittsfield City Council!

Even When It’s Right, It’s Wrong

Prior to the lunk-headed adoption of this measure, when presented with a school budget from the mayor (and by extension the school committee), the city council had three options: approve, reduce, or send it back. It cannot add to the budget request.

Now this spend-drunk collection of political do-gooders has the power to tack on more of Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski‘s dollars to the school department budget, which, as you know, has — even without this dumb move — become the fattest calf in a corral of obesity. The council’s action cannibalizes a previous recommendation by its own Ordinance and Rules Committee not to adopt the measure. O&R got it right, but the council itself hurled. That’s how hapless this current edition of The Gang of 11 is right now: Even when it acts responsibly, it doesn’t.

To the poor (and THE PLANET means “poor”) bedraggled Pittsfield taxpayer, it spells potential doom, like putting a loaded Glock handgun into the hands of a kid on the playground.

Taxpayers have councilor-at-small Churchill Cotton to blame for the shot in the head. The one time all year Cotton decides to say boo! is to advance a measure that has the potential to sink Benigno Numine. Or haven’t you noticed that, even without this measure, the city is in the throes of a generation-long spending spree, approving budgets it can’t afford by taking on debt it cannot responsibly repay in slavish response to the games politics plays with The Suits and Special Interests?

Cotton Action Basically Calls Taxpayers ‘Honky’

Cotton — supported by seven spendthrift colleagues, notably Ward 5’s John Krol — argued for the measure as a “safeguard” against an “anti-education mayor” (opposed and on the right side of this quack measure were Lisa Tully, Kevin Morandi, Melissa Mazzeo, and Kathy Amuso).

John Q. Taxpayer, Cotton just called you a honky, because you can search from now to Armageddon for a sane person who’s “anti-education,” and you won’t find one. So what’s really going on here? Cotton, Krol, and Co. are speaking in code. What they actually mean is they want to ensure the city’s taxpayers don’t elect a mayor who’s aim will be to induce fiscal sanity back into the department that consistently asks for and receives the fiscal loon. Remember, “It’s for The Children.”

Yes, friend, The Suits just made sure fiscal reform in Pittsfield will not occur! A mayor looking to tackle the city’s terrible spending excess in light of a shrinking population and tax base would naturally begin with the school department, which consumes 70% of a $140+ million budget. The new measure makes that more difficult (though still doable). Defenders of the new law point point to supermajority requirements required from both the council and the school committee. Unfortunately, these two bodies have for a generation been tools for the Special Interests, doing their bidding by spending, spending, and more spending. Supermajorities haven’t been difficult at all.

This measure only hastens the day and fossilizes the certainly that Pittsfield will end up filing Chapters 7, 11, and 13. No, those chapters are leaves from Dan Valenti‘s latest murder mystery. They are the filings for municipal bankruptcy.

Amuso: Measure Not Needed; More Spending Will Be Too Tempting for Councilors 

Cottonmouth says the measure “levels the playing field,” whatever that means. Cotton noted how in FY14, the school committee asked for $2 million more than the almost $100 million it received (operating plus capital) but received only $1 million of that thanks to action by Mayor Dan Bianchi.

Boo hoo-hoo, pity the overloaded school department, with its filo-dough layers of administrator on top of administrator.

Krol blasted Bianchi for dictating rather than cooperating with the council in his move to reduce the amount of the school department hike in FY14. He’s not playing mayoral politics, is he? Sorry, JK, we’re not buying it. Krol issued forth with this doozy: “I felt like our school budget ought to have been a higher number last year.”

That’s the kind of statement that can come back to haunt a candidate on the campaign trail.

Amuso, in opposing the measure, had once of her best moments as a councilor. The former school committee member argued that the current budgeting process — prior to the passing of this bad law — required mayor, council, and school committee to work together. She then made the essential point: Passing this law will provide the council with the mechanism to jack up school spending beyond its highest limits.

Taxpayers, you just got hosed again.

Next year is a municipal election.

Do the figuring.

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“Out on the streets for a living. Picture’s only begun. Got you under their thumb. Hit it.” — Kiss, “Black Diamond,” (1974).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.