CITY REPORT TO THE STATE, THE ONE THEY TRIED TO HIDE FROM YOU, ADMITS 1/3 OF ALL CITY RESIDENTS ARE DRUG ADDICTED
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Second of Three Parts
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016) — Keeping with yesterday’s theme, the “Gang Violence Public Statement” that Pittsfield filed with the state shared the following additional information. Although the student population (5,774) is 70% white, “students of color are disciplined more frequently than their white peers[,] with over 80% of both in and out of school suspensions given to African American, Latino[,] and multiracial students combined.”
This is Pittsfield. Therefore, we are “required” to see in this racism, racial profiling, and all manner of bias toward K of C — no, not Knights of Columbus but Kids of Color. Fact is, though, K of C and Hispanics are disproportionately rule-breakers not because of prejudice but because of disproportionate amounts of problem behavior. It’s on them.
You can cite poverty, broken homes, and other breakdowns all you want. None of that removes the individuals involved in school discipline issues from personal responsibility. If a minority child is not “of age,” the blame goes to the parents. If the kid is of age, then he or she has to be taught that leaning on the racist card as a crutch leads only to a dead-end. We still live in America. Every kid can lift himself up and out of his personal ghetto by acts of awareness, consciousness, and free will. For role models, THE PLANET would suggest Frederick Douglass, Gary Soto, Malcolm X, Jim Sagel, Martin King Jr., Richard Rodriguez, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright for starters.
Why the Huge Disparity?
The study that Pittsfield shared with the state (but would never share with its citizens and taxpayers, which is why Terry Kinnas and THE PLANET have done it) points out the huge academic disparity between whites and blacks in English and especially math. Why? If you want to argue that blacks are cerebrally inferior, you would be wrong. If you want to blame the schools for being racially insensitive, you’d also lose. Could the answer be that whites apply themselves more? We have given you the solution: Require higher performance standards for all students. Do not reward losers. Don’t give everyone a trophy. Award the silver cups and the A grades only to those who earn them.
If students don’t want to meet expectations, expel their butts out of the classroom and let them go into the far-more-lucrative-though-riskier drug trade, either on the supplier or consumer end. THE PLANET doesn’t care. The Pittsfield Public School system would be better off without its spongers, wastrels, loafers, good-for-nothings, punks, gangstas, and “the-world-owes-me-a-living” types. Pittsfield taxpayers are paying $18,000 a year per pupil for their education. If they don’t want to apply themselves, fine. Boot their little tushes out into the mean streets. As bad as that will be in the social short run, the city will make out better in the quality-of-life long run.
The city’s report to the state also contains this statement, which only a few years ago would have been laughed out of the public marketplace of ideas as inconceivable: “Poverty remains a serious concern in Pittsfield, with … a concentration of poverty in the downtown area, which includes three census tracts with the lowest medium household income in Berkshire County.”
There you have it. The truth about “The Downtown Renaissance.” It goes well beyond the propaganda and puff every time some rich bastard puts a certain-to-fail upscale enterprise downtown. They do it because of tax credits and write offs.
Hooked on a Feeling
The report further states that in 2014, there were 2,029 admissions in Pittsfield for addiction treatment. Using the rule-of-thumb of seven untreated addicts for everyone who goes for treatment leaves Pittsfield with an astounding total about 14,000 addicts. You read that right. About one third of everyone you see in the city is a drug addict. That’s what the city is telling the state.
Compare that to what they’re telling you.
—————————————————————————————————-
“Like the sunshine warms the sand, you will smile and take my hand. Smiling makes me understand that’s the way I feel about you.” — Jesse Colin Young, “Sunlight,” (1974).
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
The views expressed in the comment section or opinions published within the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not those of PLANET VALENTI or endorsed in any way by PLANET VALENTI; this website reserves the right to remove any comment which violates its Rules of Conduct, and it is not liable for the consequences of any posted comment as provided in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and PLANET VALENTI’s terms of service.
How many City Employees do drugs.Where did this info come from? The City answer is vague?
We do not know how many city employees do drugs and probably never will. Most of the unions demand the right NOT to be tested and the city goes along with it.
By the way Wal Mart tests all applicants for drugs before hiring. the city of Pittsfield not so much. They don’t want to hurt any ones feelings.
That’s right JD. And when and if they do get drug tested, there is plenty of advanced noticed. Most drugs are flushed out of your system in 2 or 3 days except for pot, so you catch and fire the pot smokers and the harder drug takers and heavy drinkers just have to go a couple days clean and continue working.
Mr. Valenti:
Let me see if I got this right. A city populace is exposed FOR GENERATIONS in the air it breaths to high levels of bio-accumulative PCB’s and other carcinogens plus gobs of complex chemical compounds for which there is almost no research into long-term effects, and we are now supposed to be surprised that 70% of the city’s school-age children are categorized as “high need” or that 1/3 of all residents are drug addicted?
Bottom line: Starting a family in Pittsfield is no longer an option if the goal is to raise healthy thriving offspring.
Further, given the extent to which General Electric Company FOR DECADES sought to dispose of vast amounts of poisonous chemical wastes throughout the county, it is also not hard to imagine that the rest of the county is at similar risk as Pittsfield.
What percentage of all Berkshire County children are now ‘high need’ and what percentage of all county residents are now drug-addicted?
Heller has a good point. Also, easy for white people to deny institutional racism. There isn’t the ‘world owes me a living’ it is, as frequent contributor J. Melle suggests, living wage jobs in Pittsfield are difficult to acquire without technical expertise, education, and training. Those tools are devastatingly difficult to get if you are poor, i.e. not connected. They were significantly easier to get when GE had thousands of living wage jobs, with healthcare, pensions, training, & community in the Berkshires. When GE left, which it did for many factors, it shattered the future for several generations of Berkshire residents and left a literally toxic legacy.
Dan, your pontification on the disparity between the racial composition of students overall in the PSD versus the racial composition of discipline problems therein is, if not patently wrong on its face, at least poorly informed. While personal responsibility must certainly be lacking, and a contributing factor, there is more than enough blame to go around within the entire system. What you say above is straight blaming the victim and smacks of the old saw, “why are there so many battered women? Because they just don’t effing listen.” As Shakes says just above, it starts with institutional racism. While we’d all like to think that infants of every race start on the same footing, it just isn’t true. KoC, as you refer to them. are often disadvantaged right from the womb based on socio-economic factors, NOT biological shortcomings (such as cerebral inferiority as you cite above). There are nutritional challenges, parenting skill challenges sometimes, even drug addiction in the home sometimes. Then when they get to school, they are quickly labeled, and from there it’s all over. These kids are failed by their parents, teachers at many steps along the way, healthcare providers and yes, the “system” overall. I’m not saying “it’s not their fault, poor dears.” But I am saying they are in a deep hole right from the start, and many of the adults they come into contact with along the way either don’t care enough or don’t know enough to help. The educational system, and for that matter the criminal justice system which is also disproportionately African American focused, are horribly broken and need to be addressed from the bottom; from the very start.
MR G
Actually, we are in agreement, especially on the following points:
* A lack of personal responsibility. This is the most important factor.
* There’s enough blame for the entire system.
* There is indeed institutional racism.
* K of C are often in the hole from the start.
* There are no “cerebral inferiority” or biological shortcomings.
* The public education system in Pittsfield is “horribly broken.”
I appreciate your well expressed, well-reasoned arguments. That’s the kind of critical post that I would hold up as the model. Well done.
SHAKES
That literal, toxic legacy of GE “shattered the future” for Pittsfield. It’s a devastating reality captured nicley by your turn of phrase.
Perhaps the skills should be acquired during the 13 or 14 years of taxpayer funded “free” education.
GMH
The “high need” ratios are devastating. Meanwhile, GE has been allowed to skate on its responsibilities for the industrial toxins if left behind. That, along with a broken public school system that rewards failure and sucks up almost 75% of the city’s budget, dooms the realistic chances of recovery or comeback for a once great city. It’s a tragedy in the finest Greek dramatic sense.
A great many of those children classified as special needs do not have families that have a long history in Pittsfield. Another factor is a school system gets more funding if it has more special needs/ high needs kids, so lo and behold an abundance of special needs students are discovered in Pittsfield. PCB’s have no connection.
Kids today.
Can’t educate em….
Can’t discipline em…..
Can’t shoot em.
We can pump them full of psychotropic drugs and hope they don’t commit mass murder or suicide. No studies will ever be done with the cumulative effects of disciplinary drugs and PCBs.
We need more taxpayer funded money from the state.
The new high school will fix everything as long as we build it like a high tech prison or concentration camp.
I hope Pittsfield will start to care about its most vulnerable residents instead of using them as numbers and statistics to apply for grant money from the state government.
About 70% of Pittsfield residents belong to the underclass. Pittsfield has become another version of North Adams.
Dan Valenti points out the dysfunction and corruption in Pittsfield politics, but I believe he cares about all of the people who live in Pittsfield, unlike the Good Old Boys.
I do care, JONATHAN, and deeply. That’s why I do this blog and my TV show. It is my form of public service, better than winning office.
Dan,
I believe your data is flawed. A quick search on the internet shows four drug treatment centers in Berkshire county, three of which are located in Pittsfield, one in south county and none in Northern Berkshire. It stands to reason that of the 131,219 people listed in the most recent Berkshire county census, those seeking a drug treatment facility would end up being admitted in Pittsfield. That does not necessarily translate to the 14,000 seeking treatment as being residents of Pittsfield.
Just asking for clarification: of the 2029 admissions in 2014, how many were unique admissions (i.e. not repeats) and are all of those admitted from Pittsfield or were they admitted to treatment facilities within Pittsfield? that is important since I doubt many communities in the county have treatment facilities.
Each day I drive past the methadone clinic and I see cabs and vans from the various cab companies and ambulance services. one of the driver tells me that they pick up hundreds of folks in the surrounding communities (including Sheffield, Williamstown, Stockbridge and other towns) for their “treatment”. Before this clinic was located here (and I believe one is now in N Adams) these folks needed to go to Holyoke.
Now they want a “recovery house” at the old SIOGA club. is this all counter productive? How many folks are revived on narcan just to shoot up again? Does anyone ever beat opioid addiction?
SE
The 2,014 admissions for addictions in Pittsfield in 2014 involved 1,750 individuals. 65% were men, 35% were “women or transgender.” 40% were 30 years old or under. More than 2/3 of them were unemployed. More than half the admissions were for the first time.Treatment for alcohol is down while heroin admissions have risen dramatically.
and was there a zip code breakdown of where those admitted gave as addresses?
It makes sense that most were unemployed. How can you possibly hold a job (or raise a child) if you are chasing a high or chasing the money to feed the addiction? That can be more than a full time job in itself.
I hate the PC language though – it supports much of your post today that we are too wrapped up in making sure no one’s feelings are hurt to just do the right thing when the problems first manifest themselves. once a person shoots up – that battle is lost. making sure we are sensitive to their self identified sexual o9rientation seems more important than fixing the damn problem.
There are detox and treatment programs in every neighborhood in Pittsfield. Federal laws prevent discrimination against many types of these facilities.
The old method of “Cold Turkey” has been abandoned as cruel. The goal is no longer to help them beat opioid addiction. The method used now with methadone clinics is to give the addicts a daily dose of methadone which is synthetic heroin. This being deemed more humane.
Which method works better? We are seeing the results. Taxpayers fund methadone clinics where the addicts get their daily “fix” for the rest of their lives. Does it really help them become productive members of society?
Breaking addiction or keeping them addicted? That is the question.
Seems like hardly two days go by that I don’t hear on the scanner..”person unconscious..possible drug overdose”. Would any of the local hot shots care to reveal how many overdose deaths there were in Pittsfield in the past year?
and I thought there was a law that you could charge a dealer with murder if one of his customers died from his drugs. Not hearing anyone charged as such.
Good point, ROG. “Cold turkey” has the disadvantage that it works. The local drug industry doesn’t want that. The system is geared to keeping people hooked on drugs. For each one who gets off, there are several who get on.
Will someone tell T F B that having her picture taken all the Time won’t get her reelected she has to do some work for the tax payers of Pittsfield.
Work for taxpayers!! That’s a Laugh. She is too busy fighting for the right of illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses. Does nothing for long time tax payers, but fights for a reward for people who are here illegally. Go figure.
You use the word ‘admissions’ as if each admission is an individual, totaling the vast number of addicts you are claiming exist in Pittsfield. Two flaws – first of all, an admission is not always a singular event, and often is not. One person can be admitted several times in one year, meaning there weren’t likely 2,029 people admitted. Secondly, you seem to believe that if someone is admitted for drug use, they must be from Pittsfield. The local center for such admissions is in Pittsfield, but it is open to anyone across the region, and the admissions come from all over the county.
BULL
See my reply early to SE. There were 1,750 individuals accounting for the 2,029 individuals. The data supplied by the city indicated that these were Pittsfield residents. Even granting your point that the numbers include those outside of Pittsfield, it’s clear that the vast majority were from Pittsfield.
Recycled numbers maybe? How many times has one individual for instance,been called to help by police for sleeping in a hallway or pan handling or ambulatory after ambulatory services over and over and over and over, again and again and again. In this case is the individual counted let’s say a hundred times after repetitive calls?
let’s hope Mr. G takes names tonight!
Let’s hope he makes it to the end of the show without a nap!!
Troll
Will Tully make it through the council meeting without a nap?
Hard to tell, some of them sleep with their eyes wide open.
And all that woman wanted to do a little while ago was go topless. Our priorities are all mixed up!
Did any one watch the city council meeting? What were No Kllew Lew and Gaetani whispering about?…..And then Stergis and No Klew were chatting away like a couple of school girls???? Anyone have any guesses?