BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

First of Two Parts

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016) — On April 20, the same day THE PLANET scooped The “New” Boring Broadsheet on the sale of its own paper, we also beat the pathetic rag with confirmation of our earlier reports of ledge and pollution problems at the construction site for the unnecessarily uber-expensive “New” Taconic High School.

THE PLANET wrote on the two findings:

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Rock Ledge — Having to deal with more rock ledge has caused all sorts of problems, sources tell THE PLANET. Building on or around ledge can cause major problems later on with the building’s foundation. Builders will now have to blast where they didn’t before. They may have to blast at least five feet greater in width and depth to allow a proper foundation to be built. Extra costs may also include reinforcement and pinning prior to blasting. It sounds like they will have to pin the foundation’s footings to the ledge with rebar. You engineers out there: Does that make sense? Added cost? Enormous but unspecified.

PCBs on Site – It’s long been known that PCBs have been found on the building site. The SBNC has even listed the need for remediation. It tried to bury this as a small, undocumented line item only to have THE PLANET uncover and publish it. Now we have conflicting reports about the amount of PCBs. Have old, rotted barrels of the stuff been uncovered? Rumors are flying. One of the old timers, a man we’ll call Al, drove forklifts and trucks for GE back in the 60s. He says the THS site was “one of our favorite” dumping sites – all done with company and city approval. Will the SBNC come clean? Will it either refute or confirm rumors of a large PCB cache. And will it also tell us if “PCB Remediation,” which they themselves admit needs to be done, has or has not been included in the official construction figure of $121 million?

With these three items, our $200 estimate is looking more conservative every day.

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The following day, we had this headline: “SBNC HAS MORAL DUTY TO ADDRESS PROBLEM AREAS AT THS SITE.” In that story, we reported that following our earlier story, The Suits sent their goons around the construction site asking “odd questions” in an effort to find out who talked to THE PLANET.

This story present Pittsfield in on the half-shell. Consider:

1. You have a lame newspaper further crippled by an incompetent new ownership group getting scooped for the nth time by a website run part-time by one journalist with the largest set of sources in town. It takes them more than a year to print a word about a story that could have saved taxpayers $200 million.
2. Instead of admitting the ledge and pollution problems and responding publically, the School Building Needs Commission secretly tries to find out THE PLANET’s sources for the story, a variant of the “Kill the Messenger” theory. The intimidation was meant to plug any further leaks from the site. They failed to find out informants, but not before it had construction managers tell their workers that no one was to talk to that troublesome, snooping reporter Dan Valenti. They were threatened with firing. What’s that about Openness and Transparency?
3. No one in government — not one of We The People’s representative on the School Building Needs Commission, the Pittsfield School Committee, the City Council, the mayor’s office, or in any other elected of appointed office — stepped up to try to prevent the predicted boondoggle.

Consequently, here we stand today, with two serious construction problems that will certainly open the check book and hand out blank check to any number of companies, consultants, and assorted toadies and hangers on called in to “remediate” the issues. Of course, there will be no bribes, kickbacks, or money exchanging hands [large bills in enveloped inside of brown, paper bags preferred], just as there has not been up until now in the project, one that, as we also predicted, would use its publicly posted $121 million budget as the starting point.

In Part Two tomorrow, our sources, direct from Ground Zero at the construction site, blow the lid off of what’s ACTUALLY happening there. We go way beyond The “New” Boring Broadsheet‘s tame and apologetic coverage to reveal the truth, that always dangerous commodity in a city such as Pittsfield. Be warned, folks. It’s not pretty. In fact, it’s a shocker — and a lot worse than they’re letting on.

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“And then the Witch would let them take no ill: / Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, / The Witch found one — and so they took their fill” — Percy Shelley, from “The Witch of Atlas,” LXXVII, l. 657-659.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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