By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015) — Yesterday, we published Ward 2 councilor Kevin Morandi‘s denial that (a) he had promised seniors he would be voting against the $120.8 million THS bonding and (b) he had been muscled into reversing his “nay” vote.

The story doesn’t end there. Rather, it brought up more questions. THE PLANET heard from several sources who dispute Morandi’s accounts. As usual, we obtained the information on a “don’t use my name” basis.

Before we go further, let’s be clear. THE PLANET harbors no desire to make Morandi the scapegoat for the school vote. This was an engineered outcome made possible by 11 councilors, the SBNC, school committee, mayor, superintendent, Pittsfield’s state rep, the PSD, and others. If we had a nickel for every illegal meeting that took place to guarantee both unanimity of the vote and the certainly that citizens would not be allowed a referendum, we’d have enough to fix every pothole in Pittsfield with our own Big Red Magic Pothole Machine. In Podunk, they use the state Open Meeting Law for target practice.

A Tip Gets It Going

It began with a tip from a city hall source, unconfirmed, that Morandi had indeed been “muscled.” Drop the images of Paulie Cocoanuts and Christopher Moltisanti with baseball bats. Think “political pressure.” THE PLANET got to work checking. Some e-mails and phone calls later, and it does appear that:

(1) Morandi was going to vote “no” and

(2) The mayor “talked” him out of it.

THE PLANET has requested clarification from the Ward 2 councilor.

The Circumstantial Evidence

The most persistent (and serious) part of the story is the allegation of pressure from the corner office. Anyone who has read All The King’s Men and The Last Hurrah knows how that sort of top-down arm-twisting works, except in the case of Podunk, Mass., we’re not talking political greatness.

When we look inside the corner office, we don’t see Frank Skeffington or Willie Stark. We see the political equivalent of a pipsqueak, Pee Wee Herman in character and out. We see a high-risk combination of amateurism, incompetence, and petulance, wrapped in a layer of self-righteousness that would put a saint off his pancakes.

Yes, we’re talking Dan Bianchi, the inconsequential flea who fancies himself Big Man On Campus. If he only knew. You should pity a man like that. He has blown his one chance at significance and now, as it begins to sink in he won’t get another chance, he’s starting to panic.

THE PLANET has a double agent working in The Secret Squadron. We must be careful in identifying this person. It is someone still close to the mayor, still inside his “camp.” It is also someone who claims yet-shared information of the mayor’s double dealing and isn’t happy about it. But wait! The intrigue gets better.

The mayor doesn’t know that this person knows what (s)he knows.

Dum-de-dum-dum (sung to the Dragnet theme).

A Threat? If So, What Sort?

Our source claims that “shortly before the school vote, the mayor threatened Morandi.” What sort of threat? Our source thought it had to do with “shutting the ward out of everything.” The source also speculated that it might have to do with some “dirt the mayor has on Kevin.”

Or perhaps, as a separate version of the incident claims, the mayor “convinced” Morandi that if he voted against the THS bonding, Morandi would not get re-elected.

Wouldn’t surprise us. In these days of political apathy and retributive fear, a mayor can make that boast. This is particularly true in a ward like 2, one of the city’s less populated and least involved. Turnouts in 2 are on the nanoscale, and the mayor would presumably control just enough votes (school department employees, favored loyalists, etc.) to make a credible threat.

Morandi says he wasn’t pressured. He also told us that he didn’t know how he would vote until he actually began speaking at the council meeting. On the face of it, both scenarios seem unlikely. They don’t pass the smell test, but then again, when you have a mayor who has turned the corner office into an outhouse, sewer, and cesspool, what does?

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“Like to a falling star, / Or as the flights of eagles are … even such is man, whose borrowed light / Is straight called in and paid to night. … / The dew dries up, the star is shot; / The flight is past, and man forgot.” — Henry King, “Sic Vita,” (1657).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.