By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015) — THE PLANET told you before anyone else about how the bungled job of laying fiber-optic cable opened up a torrent of water that’s flooded the Pittsfield city hall basement.

It’s been mythologized into this little musical ditty. It goes like this:

This is the cable that Bianchi laid.

This is the flooding that resulted from the cable that Bianchi laid.

This is the move to 100 North St. that wasn’t needed that caused the flooding that resulted from the cable that Bianchi laid.

This is the landlord that profited royally from the move to 100 North St. that wasn’t needed that caused the flooding that resulted from the cable that Bianchi laid.

These are the taxpayers that were screwed by the money given to the landlord that profited royally from the move to 100 North St. that wasn’t needed that caused the flooding that resulted from the able that Bianchi laid.

Got all that?

Adventures in Moving 

Taxpayers, your dumbass mayor shook you down for another half-a-million plus in the foolish Adventure in Moving known as 100Gate. That wasn’t enough, however. There is no bill yet for the repairs that are ongoing, no end in sight, for the basement flooding.

Taxpayers, you wouldn’t have known a thing if it wasn’t for THE PLANET. We broke the story on July 1. It took The Boring Broadsheet 10 days to catch up. And if we hadn’t done our investigating on your behalf, you wouldn’t have heard a thing about it. Naturally, since his default position is “sneaky,” your Amazing Transparent Mayor tried to squelch word of the leaks. You know the routine. “Lockdown! Lockdown!” Then rinse, wash, and repeat.

THE PLANET has sources, however, and we know how to use them. The mayor has no chance against The Secret Squadron. Neither does The BB.

The mayor told The BB the flooding was part of an ongoing problem. In other words, the botched trench work had noting to do with it. In fact, the mayor never even mentioned the actual cause of the problem. Since our good friend Jim Therrien works for The BB, he swallowed the mayor’s guff and asked for seconds. The problem in the city hall basement wasn’t flooding caused by 100Gate. It was a routine “evaluation of the stone foundation” of the building, part of a problem that’s longstanding.

Sure it was.

That’s how stupid The Suits think you are, citizens and taxpayers.

Tell Us If You’ve Heard This One Before

In Therrien’s lazy “us too” piece, we read how “[t]he basement has long been subject to leaks and damp conditions, as well as poor air quality …” The BB scribe apparently never thought to ask Hizzoner why the hell the mayor has done nothing to fix the problem. He’s only had four years. He wants four more.

Do you see the circularity? Those were precisely the phony reasons (leaks, damp, mold, air quality) cited in the mayor’s plot to reward his real-estate buddy with the rental plum. Of course, that’s why the mayor talks to The BB. He know he needn’t fear the tough question! Therrien can always fall back on The Nuremberg Defense: “I vas meerly following owdess.”

Reporter Andy McKeever of iBerkshires performed a tad better than The BB‘s JT — nine days later, not 10. He coaxed this “Miss America” air-headed comment from Julia Sabourin, the mayor’s third director of administrative services (he’s also on his third secretary): “They are just trying to diagnose the problem. This is the planning phase.”

Uh-oh, citizens. “This is just the planning phase.” Translation: “Taxpayers, the meter will be running for a long, long, time.”

Are the Monkeys Coming Home to Roost?

You remember Sabourin for her role in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, January 2012, in which the mayor orchestrated a frame-job on then-school committee member Terry Kinnas. The sham was revealed when state officials ruled in favor of Supercitizen Kinnas on all five Open Meeting Law violations he pressed against Sabourin and others. For her slippers-fetching act, the mayor rewarded Sabourin with the job of his assistant and immediately gave her a pay raise. Sabourin’s husband works for the Pittsfield School Department. The two take home probably $120,000 a year+bennies. In thanks, they moved out of Pittsfield to Richmond.

Back to iBerkshires. At least McKeever mentioned the cause, albeit in an implicit manner. He wrote, “The corner dug up this week is also in the same area where workers dug up and ran cables from City Hall to 100 North St. when the inspections departments were moved. Sabourin said part of the work being done this week is to determine if that installation had any additional impact on the flooding.”

“Where is your Deliverer? O, Pittsfield: How long I have yearned to take you under my wing.”

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“The learn’d is happy nature to explore, / The fool is happy that he knows no more.” — Alexander Pope, “Essay on Man,” lines 263-4, (1734).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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