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WHERE ARE THE SNOWS OF YESTERDAY? THEY’RE ON THE STREETS TODAY, AS BIANCHI ADMINISTRATION AGAIN DROPS THE BALL (THEY’RE CERTAINLY NOT DROPPING THE PLOWS)

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By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, SUPER BOWL WEEKEND EDITION, JAN. 30-FEB. 1, 2015) — Last night (Thursday) on the latest live edition of PLANET VALENTI TELEVISION, just before air time, we went outside the PC-TV studios and scooped up a cup of real-ta’-goodness Pittsfield snow. During the course of the broadcast, THE PLANET made use of the prop for a few cheap laughs — ah, nothing more pointed than the seriousness of humor. (ED NOTE: The show can be seen in rerun today on Channel 16 at 11:30 a.m., 3 p.m., 6:30 p.m., and 11 p.m.).

We left relatively untouched the lousy job The Bianchi Administration, command central for failure, has done or not done all year with snow removal. By all accounts, it is the worst in memory. THE PLANET will go one further: How about the worst ever? It doesn’t add up, folks: We’ve had less snow than a typical Berkshire winter, and yet Pittsfield roads, particularly the side streets, have been left in worse shape. Is doesn’t add up. Mayor Incompetence declares martial law, bans driving for two days because of a whopping  4.5 inches of snow, and at the end of it, the roads are still in bad shape.

Slip-Sliding Away Thanks to Mayor Incompetence

Side streets have been left unattended, with large patches of snow-pack and ice dotting them like buried mines all winter. Our own experience on Wednesday sums it up well. The Planetmobile heads north into the city. On South Street, we take a left onto George. As many of you know, George slopes downhill into Elizabeth. We were going perhaps 15 mph maybe less when we braked in order to take a right onto Elizabeth. The brakes worked fine but The Planetmobile didn’t stop. It slid a half-car-length into Elizabeth because of the snow pancakes that had been placed on the griddle by poor, half-assed plowing.

This is a public safety issue. Lives are at risk because of this mayor’s lack of leadership. But why? Exactly what are the changes in the way snow is being handled under Mayor Dan Bianchi as opposed to the eight years of Mayor Jimmy Ruberto? The flip answer and perhaps the best one was the presence of der Wunderbarrett, John Barrett III, a man who was the Picasso of the Plows when it came to snow removal. When Barrett was calling the shots, roads were clean and drivers safe. Barrett himself, in true cowboy fashion, literally drove the streets checking up on the job being done. He would not hesitate to chew out a plow jockey for just going through the motions.

If Barrett saw or got wind of a plow speeding along a major thoroughfare such as East Street, waking a wave of snow onto some homeowners just shoveled sidewalk, he would order a redo — after reading the riot act to the errant plow operator. Ruberto called for no ridiculous driving bans. Ruberto didn’t, like Bianchi did, fine motorists $500 for driving during the ban. Ruberto was smart enough to have Barrett on board for the winter. That’s leadership rather than the ineptitude and Amateur Hour Pittsfield has been forced to endure for more than three years now.

But, what specifically has changed? What was done then that’s not being done now? How can the city better manage this job, which, difficult as it may be, will never be mistaken for rocket science, brain surgery, or mapping the human genome? What resources are needed to get the job done? And where is the accountability, the consequences, for the maladroit performance we’ve seen from the Bianchi Administration?

Bianchi Failed in the Clutch

One commenter to this column pointed out that this was a statewide ban, ordered by Gov. Charlie Baker. That is correct. The implication that it was out of the mayor’s control, however, is incorrect. Local conditions must prevail in a situation like this. The governor issued a One Size Fits All edict that did not take into account local conditions.

It was clear early on in the storm’s progression, the track showed it about 50 miles east of the “Snowmageddon” projection. That was the time, if there ever was one, for the mayor to get on the phone, inform the governor that we weren’t in harm’s way — snow’s way, rather — and that the city would not be adhering to the ban. The governor would not have objected.

THE PLANET did not have a need to be outside during the light snowfall. Common sense tells us to stay in when the streets are slick. If we had the need, though, we would have driven carefully, slowly … and fearlessly. We would have told any cop or Statie that a couple inches of snow were not a match for our Focus, and we would have politely reminded the officer that we, The Private Citizen, own the streets.

The mayor did nothing except panic. There’s no other word for it. Bianchi did not employ common sense or initiative. He did not advocate for his city. Instead, he folded faster than Al Nolli‘s accordion. He ordered a two-day driving ban for 4.5 inches of snow, and even with that, the streets of Pittsfield were left dangerously passable with neither salt nor sand dropped.

THE PLANET checks that. One 73-year-old homeless man was seen talking to himself while emptying out packets of salt that he stole from Burger King onto North Street. The mayor was paying him $85 an hour. That’s Bianchi’s new Snow Czar, appointed when he snuck through a restructuring of the DPW without council consent or approval. If Our Right Honorable Good Friends have any guts or self-respect, they will vote in favor of Chris Connell’s petition for the mayor to rescind the order and subject it to council review and deliberation.

Council Needs to Investigate

THE PLANET has a suggestion. We urge our Right Honorable Good Friends on the Pittsfield city council to convene an investigation to find the answers. The council has this power under the new charter. It can even subpoena witnesses. It would be a worthwhile exercise in civics and public safety to bring in the mayor, DPW chief Bruce Collingwood, and other relevant witnesses, and under oath get some answers. The probe wouldn’t take long and it might be of considerable use in the remaining snow window that Pittsfield has remaining.

When it comes to the snows of yesterday and today, something is not being done that should be done, that used to be done. What is it?

What’s going on? Citizens and Taxpayers need answers.

—————————————————————————————

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight here! This is the war room! — Dialog from Stanley Kubrick‘s classic, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb, (1963).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

 

 

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Rich Dunlop
Rich Dunlop
9 years ago

Dan you know it was the State and not Bianchi who called for the driving ban. Pretty shabby journalism Dan!

joetaxpayer
joetaxpayer
Reply to  Rich Dunlop
9 years ago

I believe Dan and most people knew that governor Baker was the fool who called for a statewide ban of driving. Our Mayor and State reps should have had the balls to call the governor and let him know that not every section of the state is getting
buried in snow. We are not a large state but have a unique area that has coast lines and in lands with higher elevations. There should very rarely be a statewide ban. Would love to see Boston shut down when they get 3 inches
of snow, and Berkshires get 2 ft.

Shelly Liver
Shelly Liver
9 years ago

Barrett for Mayor. Like his moxie.

Knows the Truth
Knows the Truth
9 years ago

Subcontractors are hired by taxpayer dollars, same contractors steal taxpayer free sand, contractors don plow streets until their personal clients are done, contractors don’t use sand or salt, contractors are overseen by DPW. DPW is overseen by Mayor, City Council has no voice……and has 0 guts to do anything since were in an election year……..on and on and on…..

PopKornSutton
PopKornSutton
9 years ago

Let’s see, the ban was lifted at 7 am yet plows are going down streets with vehicles parked in the street. How can the plows do there jobs with congestion and why don’t the plower’s call police?Why pay them 85 an hour when they do half the job?

Dave
Dave
Reply to  PopKornSutton
9 years ago

If I was a snowplow driver and I gave a shit about doing my job , I would plow every bit of snow on the street and push it right up against the car parked on the street. I’m guessing the person would not do it again.

BeaBreef
BeaBreef
9 years ago

POP, it’s called redundancy….at 85 an hour.

FloggingMolly
FloggingMolly
9 years ago

Did anyone see one grain of salt or sand dropped on City streets this week???

Spider
Spider
Reply to  FloggingMolly
9 years ago

To answer your question, Molly, NO. Not any sign of salt or sand. Not on the streets I was driving on.

Pittsfield streets are a disaster! And we are not even half way thru the winter.

Luxor Rex
Luxor Rex
Reply to  FloggingMolly
9 years ago

No Molly not a bit. Odd because there have been private plow jockeys seen getting both. Wheres it going? To their private clients?
No oversight. Under the clueless mayor, scandal city.

Agree with DV for coucnil to investigate. Now while the snow is still flying.

dusty
dusty
9 years ago

Usually about this time of year we hear that the sand and salt and plowing budget is near broke and needs an infusion of cash.

Someone suggested that Bianchi was holding back on the plowing in an effort to divert public exasperation away from the new school issue. And that sounds plausible to me.

BeaBreef
BeaBreef
9 years ago

Usually I get a call from Tes during an emergency, the War and Peace version, for some odd reason the phone didn’t ring?

Scott
Scott
9 years ago

The main streets seem good to me brown with sand. I’m on a dead end plow trucks fave been through several times today. In the past I’ve gone to the garage on west housatonic and asked for assistance and the guy came right over and sanded the slope the idiots from up the road were coming down too fast and sliding.

Jonathan Melle
Jonathan Melle
9 years ago

I read that all 4 of the Berkshire State Representatives, including William “Smitty” Pignatelli, voted to end term limits for the Speaker of the House, Robert DeLeo. Only 11 Democratic State Representatives on Beacon Hill voted for term limits for Speaker Bob DeLeo. This is yet another example of top-down, insider, corrupt politics of the banal. All 5 Berkshire delegates, including State Senator Ben Downing, ran unopposed in 2014. There is no democracy in Berkshire County!
Jimmy Ruberto gave his buddy John Barrett III various plums to keep his crony publicly employed until his public pension kicked in. It must be nice to be politically connected. If you need a job, the Good Old Boys that run Pittsfield politics will take care of you. Ruberto left Pittsfield with very high taxes, population and job loss, and a multi-million dollar dead downtown. Barrett left North Adams insolvent, a doomed hospital, and post industrial wasteland local rural economy.
Dan Bianchi is betting it all on a new Taconic High School, while he leads Pittsfield on the edge of the proverbial cliff.
Meanwhile, the state government, with its anointed legislative leaders like Stan Rosenberg and Robert DeLeo, has a billion dollar budget deficit this year, which ends on June 30, 2015.
Pittsfield politics needs a miracle worker to turn things around!

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
Reply to  Jonathan Melle
9 years ago

You forgot to mention what all of these people had in common……they are all liberal democrats.

Jonathan Melle
Jonathan Melle
Reply to  Joe Blow
9 years ago

Republican Scott Brown filed for a $60k per year Massachusetts state pension this week.
Republican Bill Weld, who has an $80 million trust fund, registered as a Beacon Hill casino gambling lobbyist earlier this year.
Republican Willard Mitt Romney, who has a hundred million dollar trust fund, is not running for U.S. President in 2016 because he knows he would hurt his party and lose again.
You forgot to mention what all these people had in common…they are all trust fund spoiled brat Republicans.

go figure
go figure
9 years ago

I live on a dead end street with only 2 houses on it. We were both sanded and salted. Nice…

Tourtière
Tourtière
9 years ago

JBlll had the best interest’s for the DPW and for tax payers of Pittsfield. Give the people what they pay taxes for. Garbage pickup, clean swept streets, potholes patched, and Guess what folk’s SNOW plowed and sanded streets that are safe to travel on. Now this isn’t brain surgery, and has worked fine for the past few years. Well it seems that TES & BC has turned what is a simple task into a mess. Oh and guess what! The guy JBlll put in charge of the DPW I think retired last year. So it’s back to the drawing board.

nostrodumbass
nostrodumbass
9 years ago

Dan,

Ever notice how things are done incrementally?
When they do something that sends shockwave through our Independence and Freedoms people at first are outraged.
However as these things continue, people say oh well that’s nothing new, they’ve been doing that for years. As though its acceptable once commonplace.

Take drug testiing. What drug testing does is say, you are guilty of drug abuse unless you pee in this cup or we draw blood and prove yourself innocent. The exact opposite of innocent til proven guilty.

Take sobriety check points. You must stop, have an officer shine a flashlight into your face, produce identity and registration papers, answer to where you are coming from and where you are going. Simply because you are driving down a public road. Again, you must prove yourself innocent while committing no crime.

When you fly on an aircraft you must subject your searches and seizures, scanners and interrogations. Your luggage and even body is scanned by x-ray machines. No big deal because they’ve been doing it for a long time now right?

Listening in on your phone conversations, able to turn on your camera and microphone in your portable cell spy device. Reading your emails, tracking your internet activity, face recognition software and cameras now being installed everywhere. License plate reader/tracking cameras are now installed in almost every community in the United States. The militaization of all police forces.

All of this and more would have been labeled a “conspiracy theory” just a few decades ago but now considered “acceptable” in every day life in America. Its all now documented fact.

Now the Martial Law/shelter in place snowstorm lockdowns. Some are asking if its even legal. Some are shocked by it, some are outraged. However, the more they do this henceforth, they will be able to lockdown entire cities and states for whatever reason in the name of “security” and people will accept this as nothing new. As though its suddenly OK. People will say oh that’s nothing new, they’ve done this before. They even locked down an entire state for a snowstorm.

Some say, “Its not the mayor’s fault, its the governor’s” as though passing it up to higher entity makes it OK.

Step back and take a look at the forest instead of each tree.
You can clearly see where society as a whole is heading by all this.
Giving up freedom for security will not turn out well.
Its already very clear the massive abuse of a “police state” at the point we are at. The heat is slowly being turned up although the pace is being accelerated. 1984 is already 30 years behind schedule.

A goverment by the people for the people?
Innocent til proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of your peers?
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

nostrodumbass
nostrodumbass
Reply to  danvalenti
9 years ago

Thank you Dan.

You are one of the ones who “gets it”
Your excellent columns every day are always spot on.
I always look forward to reading them.
You are a true Patriot. One who fights for Liberty and the Freedom that this country has always enjoyed. Wish there were a lot more like you.

You would make an excellent Mayor of the city of Pittsfield.
The best its ever had.

Perhaps one day I’ll stop in the corner office; your office and introduce myself.

AlaskanBushClown
AlaskanBushClown
9 years ago

Heh heh!

Gene
Gene
9 years ago

This website is the best of all local media mainstream or otherwise. Its the one everyone reads to know whats’ going on. it will have a major say in what happens in election this year whether or not DV runs for mayor.

Substitute for another guy
Substitute for another guy
9 years ago

So, are we under Martial Law again?

Payroll Patriot
Payroll Patriot
9 years ago

The CITY has at least 35 plows: Yellow, Green, Red, White, not including the private contractors. Summary: most sides street suck as well as some of the main streets. Snow removal is done by the wind. Maybe, Big Wind from North is still working for the Chief Keystone Director of Plowing, Collingwood.

amandaWell
amandaWell
9 years ago

That would make sense,PATRIOT! An out of town consultant. Where have we heard that before?

BeaBreef
BeaBreef
9 years ago

Thank you Dan Valenti and your callers who picked the PATRIOTS???WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! N

Nota
Nota
9 years ago

Was there ever any doubt Bea?

CosbiesladiesWhen
CosbiesladiesWhen
9 years ago

Deflate Gate is officially over!

Pete Thanks
Pete Thanks
9 years ago

Valenti is the best! great reporting!