BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

First of Two Parts

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, MAY 16, 2016) — The deeper we get into Mayor Linda Tyer’s reign, the more information we have upon which we can draw reasonable conclusions. Of course, less than five months in with more than three and a half years to go, judgments must be tenuous. That being said, THE PLANET presents another troubling indication that policy matters from The Corner Office continue to favor The Suits at the literal expense of Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski, the ordinary citizens who bear the brunt.

With her first budget yet to reach the City Council (hold your breath and your wallets), The Lovely Linda has proposed extending the original nine-year tax break of multimillionaire impressario William Stanley for another five years. The initial break expires next month. Do you think you, The Little Guy, have a shot at a 14-year tax abatement?

He Used Your Money, Not His Own

Stanley, developer of The Beacon Cinema, relied heavily on about $20 million in public money. THE PLANET certainly wouldn’t call it capitalism, where the risk taker ponies up  from his own resources and private lenders. Stanley, however, couldn’t find enough banks willing to take the risk. Not to worry. He convinced city and state officials to allow him to use your money, Pittsfield taxpayers, to build his theater. Of course, you were not given a say, though you might ask: Why were the politicians so eager to oblige? Answer: Follow the money.

In the misguided plea for her rich friend to our Right Honorable Good Friends on the City Council, the mayor calls the cinema “unique” [ED. NOTE: everything is unique] and is a “catalyst for increased pedestrian engagement” downtown — an “economic engine” by any other name. Tyer wants taxpayers to continue to lug Bwana Stanley’s heavy load another five years through the jungle of an increasingly hostile and violent downtown. She wants to reduce his real estate taxes (not yours) and, not being content with that, wants to to cut his personal property tax.

The Suits’ Lackeys Think It’s a Great Idea!

To pressure the council, The Suits trotted our their lackeys and bobos. The useless Downtown Pittsfield Inc. (DPI) president (Jesse Cook-Dubin) and executive director (The Lovelier Kristine Hurley) shamelessly begged the council to support the mayor’s request. You don’t think they did it because there’s pressure on the mayor from several sources to cut DPI from the budget.

Ty Allen Jackson, one of the token blacks in this veddy white city The Suits like to trot out for such occasions, called the Beacon “a flagship” and “an important place if we want to attract millennials” to Pittsfield. Apparently, Jackson did not read THE PLANET from The Weekend Edition, April 29-May 1: “Millennials: These ‘Crybaby Kids’ CAn’t Handle Honest Feedback, So Why Would the City Care aBout Keeping Them?”

Warren Dews — another Man of Color, husband of Tyer’s #2 [no conflict of interest there], and vice president of The Boring Broadsheet — claimed without documentation that Stanley has topped the employment goals set for The Beacon. What jobs? How many? At how much? A handful of part-time jobs of minimum wage and little or no benefits? Let’s get a look at The Beacon’s books to decide the point.

The well appointed Rev. Dews called the tax breaks for his multimillionaire friend a mere bag o’ shells, as if it were a trifle. Janis Akerstrom, Pittsfield’s Community Development director, also shilled for this proposal the city cannot afford. Akerstrom favors relieving Stanley of more than $72,000 in taxes (on top of the approximately $150,000 he hasn’t paid [but you did for him] in the past nine years).

If the City Council grants Tyer’s proposal, that $72,000 will have to be made up by the same folks who ate the previous $150K … got a mirror?

A Money Loser?

According to industry sources, The Beacon is losing money. Most of its patrons come disguised as empty seats. There’s a hefty overhead, no convenient parking, and it requires people to venture downtown at night. Who wants to do that? There are other expenses: staffing, security, supplies, maintenance, film rental, utility costs, and the like. Ticket prices cover only about 30%. Going to The Beacon costs $30 to $100 per family. People would rather go to Red Box, buy a DVD, see a film on demand cable, see it on HBO, or download the film — illegally — for free.

Of course, The Beacon is failing also for the same reason a lot of movie houses fail: today’s crummy movies. Unlike he first promised when he came looking for your money, Stanley doesn’t show independent and art films unavailable anywhere else. He shows the same junk you can see out at the mall. Consider that if The Beacon were raking in the dough, Stanley would not need an additional five years of life support from taxpayers. If the cinema isn’t profitable on its own by now, it deserves to die.

This comes down to the City Council. The public is vehemently against Tyer’s proposal, as we shall see tomorrow in Part Two of this series. This is the council’s a chance to assert its co-governance and, for once, stick up for citizens and taxpayers. It must reject an additional tax break. Citizens are watching.

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“The  ‘Welfare State’ is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.” — Thomas Sowell.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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