BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY MARCH 9, 2017) — You’ve heard the hackneyed buzz words overused in and by Pittsfield until you don’t even hear them any longer: “renaissance” … “revitalization.” Without the presence of a strong local economy, however, no city is going to find new life.

Language is powerful. THE PLANET knows this more than most, but even the nitroglycerin of words cannot create new life by themselves. Someone should tell the politicians that you can’t gum a vibrant economy into existence.

The arts and culture “economy” is dying on the vine. Art serves no practical purpose when a citizenry faces such “gut hit” problems as having enough money to pay rent, heat the home, buy prescription drugs, pay taxes, and satisfy the thousand-and-two financial obligations that accrue in living a self-sufficient life. Of course, the bottom feeders don’t have these worries. They get their free cell phones, free EBT cards, free education, free meals, and free you-name-it handed to them courtesy of taxpayers.

Similarly, artificial government support designed to “revitalize” sections of the city — think “Streetscape” — ultimately faces doom, because it, too, comes from money government steals from a shrinking pool of working, productive citizens. Take the “revitalization” of Tyler Street. Please.

Hoss … Without the Cartwrights

Late last month, city planner C.J. Hoss outlined for the gullible-as-usual Pittsfield City Council the Tyler Street plans to be funded by the euphemistically named Transformative Development Initiative, a pie-in-the-sky program of MassDevelopment. Who funds this, ultimately? Got a mirror?

Local mainstream media save two — the Berkshire Courier and THE PLANET — fell for the puffery the same as the suckered council. Only the Courier and THE PLANET gave you the complete, the truer, picture.

As reporter Olivia Schneider pointed out in the Courier, receiving money through the TDI is no great honor. From her story in the March 3-9 issue: “To qualify [for TDI], cities must have had a population between 35,000 and 250,000, a mean income below the state average[,] and college education attainment below the state average.”

In other words, to get this funny money, cities have to be poor and dumb.

C’mon down, Pittsfield!

‘Gateways’ is Wrongways

Again proving its love of euphemism, the state calls these pitiful burghs “gateway cities.” Translated into the vernacular, a “gateway city” is … well, see the above paragraph: poor and dumb.

Schneider’s story captured a telling quote from Hoss, who by the way is a good public servant, a man who delivers an honest day’s work for his pay. Hoss, however, makes his living in the public sector, where politics rather than performance rules. You play the game or you’re out.

Hoss said getting the TDI bucks isn’t about the money: “This was really about becoming eligible for program and grant opportunities that were eligible only to these TDI [cities].” Reading between and among the lines, as one must always do when a “public servant” speaks, Hoss’ statement admits Pittsfield is on empty when it comes to the local economy. Why else are “program and grant opportunities” needed?

Over the most recent (de)generation, Pittsfield has received countless such “programs and grants.” Each perpetuates the city’s economic depression in the way a hit of methadone keeps a heroin junkie addicted. As long as Pittsfield relies on taxing its vanishing middle class to death and pursuing program and grant money rather than rebuilding the economy, it will not have the energy, the vision, nor the capacity for strategic thought required to throw off the fiscal shackles and build an economy that works for productive citizens and not for deadbeats.

The Typler Street spiff calls for improved lighting (to see what, exactly?), sheltered bus stops (to go where, exactly?), and bicycle lanes (to improve whose safety, exactly?). Naturally, Ward 3 councilor Nick Caccamo and Ward 6’s John Krol love the idea of bike lanes. Heck, they’re a whole lot easier than getting good jobs to move to Pittsfield.

And so while politicians fall in love with bike lanes and lighting, they continue to do nothing except to distract citizens from the extinction that, in events remain unaltered, lies just ahead.

—————————————————————————-

“Too many churches and not enough truth.” — The Guess Who

“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 that violates its Rules of Conduct, and it is not liable for the consequences of any posted comment, written word, or information from any source other than PLANET VALENTI as provided in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and PLANET VALENTI’s terms of service. All users of the services of PLANET VALENTI agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice.