By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, MARCH 20-22, 2015) — As this website first

OUSTED — Terry Hughes, then Club executive director, listen to criticism from Club members on Thursday. The Club board fired Hughes the next day. (Photo by Ben Garver of The Berkshire Eagle)

reported via information relayed by Patrick Touhy, the Board of Directors of the Pittsfield Boys and Girls Club has terminated “The Terminator.”

Terry Hughes is out as director.

Seems like a lot went on inside the closed doors of the Club’s board room on Thursday.  Board member Chris Jacoby will take over as interim director. Jacoby is leaving his board position to take temporary reigns of the Club leadership. The decision was made late Thursday evening and finalized on Friday, effective immediately. As THE PLANET led below, “We waited it out and won.”

In a parting public statement, first reported in The Berkshire Eagle, Hughes blasted the board for not sticking by him, saying the board “lost its nerve.” He called Thursday’s public session of the board meeting a “public flogging” and then accused Club members of “running me out of town.” Way to go out with class.

Yup, Hughes played the victim. It was the “Club members'” fault. They ran him out of town. It has nothing to do with his own actions or management style, which he praised in his public statement.

The man should count his blessings. If he was run out of town, at least it wasn’t on a rail.

After the tar and feathering, of course.

We wish Hughes all the best. As he advised Chris Keegan, THE PLANET “urges [him] to direct your attention and energies to your future.”

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WE NOW RESUME WITH OUR “PRE-OUSTER” COVERAGE.

We waited it out, and we won. Thus it came to pass, that winter begot spring, and spring begot … well, we shall have to wait and see what spring bringeth. THE PLANET knows one thing with certainty: Despite the attempts of the executive director to put a benign face on his recent hatchet work, there’s one gigantic mess brewing at the once- and still-beloved Pittsfield Boys and Girls Club.

What is happening? Who can you believe? One thing is certain: There are forces at work whose main design is to destroy the Club “as we have known it” and replace it with … well, that’s one of the main points. Replace it with what?

In his 11-month reign, which one critic has lebeled a “reign of terror,” Club executive director Terry Hughes has yet to articulate “the grand vision.” What’s behind the summary executions of so many long-time Club staffers, respected and beloved people such as the late Peter Bell, Billy Tobin, and Chris Keegan? It reads like a cheap murder mystery — 10 guests stranded in a lonely, dark mansion. One by one, they start disappearing. Long-time staffers who have thus far survived with jobs intact have the security of a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Who’s next? Oddly enough, THE PLANET may have the answer. Playing this all-too-real game of Clue!, you can almost predict the next to go. Ah, but we digress.

The Brusque Manner of the Dismissals is the Unkindest Cut

The most distressing aspect of these terminations is the manner in which the dismissals were done. These people were the faces of the Club to thousands of children, parents, and members of the community. You don’t discard them like so many pieces of refuse meant for curbside pickup. The Club isn’t a private corporation. It’s community property, bigger than the cloying ambitions of any one man or woman.  It would appear that Hughes has yet to learn that.

Are these firings the unfortunate but benign and necessary adjuncts to a house cleaning and revitalization long overdo, as Hughes’ supporters say, or are they the products of a man whose management style is that of a bully, an insecure man who cannot tolerate any differing opinion, view, or strategy that does, however slightly, not align fully with his own?  Are the staff earthquakes the result of fault lines in need of a repair the sort of which only a complete rebranding of the Club can achieve, or are they an attempt from the outside to wrest control out of the hands of the local community and put it in the hands of avaricious corporate raiders, the type usually wooed by The Suits?

Board Meeting Resolves Nothing

On Thursday, the board met at the club at 3:30 p.m. Almost 30 members of the community showed up to express their frustration over the Keegan firing and over the lack of information on what’s behind that and the other abrupt dismissals. The board said it was not an “emergency meeting” but just their typical, routine monthly gathering.

That may well be, but we wonder if the board usually hires security to muscle up at the door, as was the case on Thursday. People were led to the Lighthouse back door, another odd measure, and checked before they went inside. Board president John Donna allowed anyone who wanted to say something two minutes. There was support for Keegan, but Donna broke off one speaker who wanted to ask questions about the present “red alert.” Donna would have none of it, saying that he would not allow anyone to hijack the meeting.

So much for wanting a true airing.

As for the board meeting itself, members left the Lighthouse and reconvened in an upstairs conference room, out of sight but definitely not out of mind.

Once again, both Hughes and the board had an opportunity to communicate with the public. It had a wonderful chance to explain “the grand vision” that they claim is driving these painful (but they say necessary) turn of events.

Once again, Hughes and the board whiffed. They chose to lock the public outside and retreat into the inner sanctum. That’s the space where executions and hits are normally planned. It’s never done out in the open. Left hanging, yet again, is the “why?” What’s it all about?

As THE PLANET probes further into the nether reaches, we again remind anyone with pertinent information to feel free to send it along, in confidence if you wish, to the e-mail listed here or directly to danvalenti@verizon.net.

In the interest of bringing as much sunshine into this cloudy affair, THE PLANET will share with you a message we sent today to both Hughes and Donna. In it, you will see we invite them to participate in an on-camera interview with yours truly:

——– 000 ——–

JOHN & TERRY
You have not responded to several of my questions regarding certain claims and allegations that are being repeated surrounding the Club. Let me assure you, my only aim is to get at the truth, and I hope you will provide comment on some of these points. I won’t repeat them but refer you to my e-mails of March 18.

I also am extending an invitation to appear with me for an on-camera interview. This can either be done live on the set of my TV show (airs Thursday night, 7 to 8 p.m., from the Time Warner PCTV studios on Federico Drive) or I can come with camera and crew to either of your offices. It will be your opportunity to convey your points of view in what has become a distressing community event. It will also give you a chance to respond to questions. The more you guys can communicate to the questioning public, the more quickly healing can occur. 

Please let me know if you wish to avail yourself of this opportunity.
All the best,
DAN

——– 000 ——–

That is all we can do. We can invite. We can’t force anyone to speak with us, on the record.

These are tough questions with no easy answers, but as best a we can THE PLANET will continue to probe and poke. We are receiving lots of information from our operatives, a collection of informants we call The Secret Squadron. We have more to come later on in the Weekend Edition, as we try to stay on top of the story. Be sure to keep checking back. Meanwhile, we encourage you, as a community, to weigh in on this debate. Share your views. Be passionate, be forceful, be on point … and remain civil.

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“Calm was the day, and through the trembling air / Sweet breathing Zephryus did softly play.” — Edmund Spenser, first lines of Prothalamion, (1596).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.