By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17, 2014) — Let’s scan some of the routine, daily happenings in Podunk Paradise:

• A police stand-off on Stoddard Avenue involving a 20-year-old young man with a gun, threatening his mama because she wouldn’t let him have the car.
• A Bronx man accused of beating his 14-year-old son, leaving the boy with a bloodied brain and, police say, unable to breathe on his own. Location: First Street and Maplewood Avenue. “Downtown, no finer place for sure, downtown” (Pet Clark)
• Two drug busts, one involving two 21-year-olds. One is from Dalton. The other is from West Grove, Pa.
• Multiple arrests for numerous “incidents.”
• Police calls involving “harassment,” “disturbances,” “suspicious activity,” “trespass.”

This is just a partial bulleting of the long list of activity on Pittsfield mean streets for a another routine day in mid-December. Actually, the way the center has not been holding, it was a day on the slow side. The point is not to belabor the obvious. It is not to be “negative.”

Being “negative” stands as a favorite curse hurled at truth tellers such as THE PLANET by The Suits’ apologetic ostriches when a prophet points out any unpleasant aspect of life in Paradise. When we point out such un-niceties, it is not to be “negative” — or to “be” anything at all. Rather, it is to illustrate that as long as the city participates in hand-wringing debates over whether or not the quality of life is deteriorating, the unquestionable deterioration will not only continue but accelerate.

Problems must be admitted, thought through, and strategized for there to be any chance of a solution. It would also help to have a mayor and a police chief to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue instead of issuing pleasant sounding but not reassuring bromides and sound bites. The mayor is on record saying the problem with the downtown is that so many visitors and tourists are visiting, there’s not enough “good will” ambassadors to show them around. The police chief says Pittsfield doesn’t have a problem with “violent crime.”

Of course, as we looked at recently, “violent crime” is all in how you define it.

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Another Good Program (Once Upon a Time) Run into the Ground

You will recall THE PLANET’s telling of the sad fall from grace of the RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) program in Pittsfield, beginning with the politically motivated firing of executive director Deborah Sadowy.

For a quick refresher, we wrote on Oct. 2:

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In the lightning round of Don’t Tell Anybody, Because It’s Supposed to be a Secret, informed sources say the mayor yesterday fired the well-respected Deborah Sadowy from her directorship at RSVP. Hmmm … another woman, fired. Wonder why? It couldn’t be because she was a bit too strong, capable, and independent to suit the mayor’s tastes, could it? We don’t know. That’s why we ask.

THE PLANET has a request into the mayor for comment. You know about “when the phone doesn’t ring.”

Sadowy was just hired in June based on “her strong leadership skills, successful grant writing history, past experience in human resources, experience working with diverse cliental, extensive knowledge of the community and her strategic and program management skills,” according to the mayor’s office. Funny how those skills can evaporate, overnight.

“I was delighted when the search committee came to inform me that Deborah was their choice for the position,” Bianchi gushed on June 6. Guess he’s not so delighted today. He’s probably not gushing as much either. One source told us that when she went to the RSVP offices yesterday, the staff was visibly upset, including some who were in tears.

So are the citizens of Pittsfield. Seeing this type of guillotining from afar, why would anyone want to come to work for or in the city?

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We followed that up with details in subsequent posts. Getting rid of a savvy administrative hand such as Sadowy marked doom for the agency.

And now (yes, another exclusive) we share the pathetic doings and goings at RSVP in light of the disastrous decision to force Sadowy out.

Earlier this month, the RSVP executive board, which is to say the triumverate of She, Herself, and Her — Carolyn Valli — hired Ray Ross as the new director. Ross had previously served as executive director at Big Brothers and Sisters. Why he left there, we don’t know. Before that, Ross worked at BCARC, the agency for people with disabilities. Sources told THE PLANET that Ross “was asked to resign … from BCARC.”

Yesterday, THE PLANET received word from knowledgeable sources:

“Ray Ross, who was hired for RSVP, has suddenly resigned after spending two weeks with Sheila Pia This now leaves RSVP to hire a now-second-person from North County who potentially doesnt have anyone to train them because Sheila was only staying till December and adamantly says she will not return. 

“I think Ray figured out that there is no money for staffing and he would be running the organization by his lonesome like Big Brothers Big Sisters, and he wouldn’t have anyone to assist him.” 

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It appears, folks, that because of the sad state of Administrative politics, another erstwhile community organization has tasted the dust.

This sort of chaos and doom happens regularly in Podunk. When you team that with the ineffectiveness of so many of the city’s boards and commissions then add the state of politics, you have the formula for collapse.

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“We all saw the Invisible Man at the Halloween Parade.” — Mick Valenti, “Halloween Parade,” from his album Modern Man (2014).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.