By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

Third of Three Parts

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4, 2015) — Soon, unless there is a change in plans, there will be an announcement of a petition drive to put a direct vote on the Taconic High School construction project — up or down — on the ballot. To be successful, this will need the involvement of thousands of citizens.

Speaking of that, it’s funny how THE PLANET‘s relentless airing of this issue has forced The Establishment to take some notice. Singlehandedly, at this site and on television, we drove so much heat toward this story that The Boring Broadsheet had to take notice. Yesterday, they featured a pg. 1 story above the fold on the possibility of a referendum. We didn’t read the story, just glanced at headlines. We doubt The BB gave credit to THE PLANET for again acting as its news director. Elsewhere when you steal other people’s ideas they call it plagiarism. In Pittsfield, it passes for journalism. Pretty close though, since both are “ism”s.

Elsewhere around the city, in bars and restaurants, clubs and socials, street corners and water coolers, the mood is building and the message is clear: Politicians, do your job. Put the school issue on the ballot. Our Right Honorable Good Friends on the city council, of course, could do just that with passage of a simple resolution to do just that. Such an action would be the most direct and sure way to get this done. If the council were to do this, it would immediately rectify so many years of ignoring citizens and getting away with it because politics has soooo turned off the casual voter. Apathy has set in, leaving elections in the hands of the Special Interests. This would be a chance to change all that.

Malcolm Butler proves that miracles can happen. We ask you: Is it more easier for an undrafted rookie free agent few have ever heard of to single-handedly win a Super Bowl than it is for the city council to do the right thing and put the THS school construction issue on the ballot?

Don’t hold your breath. Still, miracles can happen. Ask Malcom Butler of the Super Bowl Champs The New England Patriots.

——– 000 ——–

Tactically, this is a story about the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars the city can’t afford for a new school it doesn’t need. Philosophically, it boils down to the fate of representative government in the city. If there is no popular vote on this issue, it will ultimately be the fault of We The People for not forcing The Suits to do their bidding.

THE PLANET knows full too well how you have been disgusted with the performance of local government these past 30 years. Your disgust is justified. Your apathy, however, isn’t.

If this petition effort gets under way, it will be about much more than the specific issue of building or not building a new high school. The petition initiative will address an opportunity for citizens and taxpayers to reclaim the government that they own. The Suits have snatched the deed from Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski, but an initiative drive presents a pragmatic chance to win the deed back. For if the petition drive gets under way and is successful in getting a vote on the $150 million THS project on the ballot, it send a warning shot across the bow for the 2015 general election.

By forcing a vote on this issue, taxpayers and citizens will put every candidate for office in September and November of this year on notice. They had better do our bidding, or else. Or else what? Or else they will be summarily executed.

A Faulty Major Premise

Throughout this entire odyssey, the mayor’s office, the SBNC, the school committee, and the city council have not presented enough data to support the contention to justify the claim that the city needs to build this new facility. From the get-go, the project has proceeded deductively based on an a priori major premise that “Pittsfield needs to build a new THS.” Yeah? Says who? Certainly not the citizens.

The approach should have been an inductive one. The evidence first should have been accumulated, shared, and evaluated. Only then could the conclusion be true.

That major premise (“Pittsfield needs to build a new THS”) is faulty. No one knows if that is the case. Based on a falling school population and a crumbling local tax base, the premise looks faulty. Logic says that if the major premise in a deductive process is faulty, any conclusion will be false, even if subsequent reasoning is valid. That’s what we have here, a faulty major premise that has caused the false conclusions that the city “needs” this expensive school.

Back to Broward County, Fla. (from yesterday’s post). One way The Suits in Broward “sold” the overbuilding for schools was by using school population figures that soon were falsified by the county’s drop in population. In case you haven’t noticed it lately, but Pittsfield population is down from about 60,000 to 40,000. Where the city once had 12,000 kids in the public school system now has under 6,000. Nearly two-thirds of them are poor.

The Broward New Times: “For years, the [school] board kept the gravy train going, building and borrowing based on an outdated and useless survey. And the state stood by and allowed it to happen even as top school board officials clearly knew the new construction wasn’t warranted or justified.”

Interesting how the newspaper of that community went to bat for citizens. Where is The Boring Broadsheet in the THS matter? Where is local radio? Where is the mainstream media? Missing in Action.

And that’s where Pittsfield stands. The School Building Needs Commission has yet to make a convincing case. In a recent editorial, The Pittsfield Gazette said, “While the school needs building commission seems to have moved past its last wave of embarrassing outreach meetings, the well-intentioned board still struggles.”

Who blasted cares if the SBNC is “well-intentioned?” What bedraggled taxpayers deserve is intelligence and sharp stewardship. Pittsfield has been ruined by “well intentioned good guys.”

Citizens must force a vote.

Do you belielve in the democratic process? That’s what this is about. Do you wish to reclaim your government? If enough of you answer YES, there will be a vote. Soon, you will be hearing more about the process to put the question of new school construction to a binding referendum. It’s going to need your help. You may need to sacrifice just a little of your time and talent. If you show the usual disinterest and apathy, you will be signing your own civic death warrant.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth for the city we all love. If you fail to support the initiative to force a vote on the building of a new school, you will have thrown away your best chance to reclaim YOUR government. If, though, you rally and out-maneuver The Suits, come November of this year, a new day might have dawned.

Do your civic duty. Be a Patriot. Like The World Champ New England Patriots, you can win the civic version of the Super Bowl.

Force the Vote.

——————————————————————————

 “And I’ll scrap anytime you say, Dim boy.” — Alex (Malcolm McDowell), from Stanley Kubrick‘s “A Clockword Orange,” (1971).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.