By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, DEC. 19-21, 2014) — You blinked and therefore missed the announcement of a meeting regarding the building of a new Taconic High School.

The city of Pittsfield and the School Building Needs Commission (SBNC) wants you, The Little Guy, to participate fully in the decisions regarding this vitally necessary project, of course. That is why they chose today (Friday, Dec. 19) at 2 p.m. for the meeting, at which time, according to the agenda, a SBNC subcommittee will discuss selection of a contractor for the project. Conducting the meeting at 2 p.m. will assure that few to no members of the general public will attend.

That’s how they want it.

Meeting Particulars Again Another Indication of the ‘DDD’

By conducting the meeting at that time, several items become clear:

* If you are a working stiff, forget it. You have a job to tend.

* If you’re a home maker, forget it. You have chores to do.

* If you’re … well, you get THE PLANET‘s drift. The timing is meant to keep YOU the hell away. It also has the beauty of technically fulfilling the requirements of a “public” meeting. Watch, after the school is built and the regrets come in the form of overwhelming debt, The Suits will say in their finest lecturing form, “Well, these meetings were public. Not our fault you didn’t show up.”

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When South County wanted a $56 million renovation of Monument Mountain High School, We The People put it to a vote and defeated it. The proponents tried again, and again we forced it on the ballot. Again, voters defeated it. So when the Pittsfield Powers That Be decided that certain Special Interests needed big dough in the form of building contracts, they proposed a $130 million building of a third high school (PHS, THS, and the New THS). In doing so, they made sure the proposal would never see the light of day. The principal way was to make sure the item was not put to a binding referendum. Pittsfield never got to vote on the Dreaded Done Deal (DDD).

Leading the League in Shut Outs

The secondary manner in which They shut Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski out of the process would be to —

(a) Select a SBNC membership that would guarantee an overwhelming majority in support of the project.

(b) Schedule public meetings at inconvenient times.

(c) Fulfill only the bare minimum requirements of notice.

(d) Rely on a tame and complicit mainstream media to provide propagandistic coverage.

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The selection of 2 p.m. on a Friday speaks volumes about the city’s plan to shut the public out of the decisions regarding this project, the need of which has not been established in light of a triple diminishment — or aren’t you aware that the city’s population, its K-12 student population, and its tax base are declining? Every action thus far taken on this suspect project bears the DDD stamp.

There are a few other points worth nothing about the timing of this meeting.

* It comes on a Friday, the day least available on most people’s calendars.

* It comes on the weekend before Christmas. No conflicts there.

* The agenda lists no public comment period. THE PLANET isn’t sure, but this may be a violation of state law. Even if it is not, you would think that The Suits might allow three minutes for We The People to waste their breath.

* The agenda labels this as a meeting of “The School Building Needs Contractor Selection Subcommittee.” There is a sparse order of business:

1. Call to Order.

2. Information Session on the Construction Project.

3. Adjournment.

That’s it.

* Nowhere do we find the members of the subcommittee identified. Nowhere do we see defined the purpose of the “information session.” It would accordingly be impossible to properly prepare for this meeting if you, as the Owner of Government, made the heroic effort to attend. For all we know, this meeting could be to select a contractor for a project that has not been put out to bid.

* The meeting will be held not in council chambers but at the less convenient Mercer Building at 269 First st., Room 108.

Who’s Who to the What’s What

The city may not want you to know who is on this subcommittee, and so THE PLANET will give you the “universe” from which the panel will be selected. The SBNC consists of the following members:

APPOINTED BY THE MAYOR (WHO SERVES AS A MEMBER)

John Krol, Melissa Mazzeo, Floriana Fitzgerald, Ellen Kennedy, Chuck Vincelette, Warren Dews Jr., Carmen Massimaino, Patrick Mele Jr., Colleen Hunter-Mullet (city’s purchasing agent), Kathy Amuso, John Barber, Peter Sondrini (city director of maintenance).

APPOINTED BY THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE

Kathy Yon

APPOINTED BY THE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT (WHO SERVES AS A MEMBER)

John Vosbugh (THS principal), Rich Brady, Frank LaRagione (parent), Lori Kays (parent), Louis Higuera, Shea Hassett (student), Bill Travis (former city school superintendent).

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The one ray of sunshine, of hope, lies in the fact that in less than two weeks, we enter 2015, the year for municipal elections.

At the rate Pittsfield has continued its filthy public spending, accumulated overbearing debt, and increased taxes on homeowners and businesses, the 2015 elections will mark one last-gasp chance to stem to bleeding. Unless voters turn out in high numbers and elect an outsider who won’t be afraid to take the necessary fiscal actions, it’s over.

You can bring in Do Ho for his rendition of “Aloha.”

Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“The stuff of the universe, woven into a single piece according to one and the same system, but never repeating itself from one point to another, represents a single figure. Structurally, it forms a Whole.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from his epic work, The Phenomenon of Man, (written in the 1930s and published posthumously in 1955, the year of Chardin’s death).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.