BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

EXTRA!! Norman Rockwell’s three sons filed suit today (10-20) in Berkshire Superior Court to enjoin the Berkshire Museum’s planned auction of art work. The action comes as the state attorney general’s office moves closer to issuing a halt on the proposed Sotheby’s auction. Things are popping. Stay tuned to this developing story, especially now that THE PLANET has given it via room service to the local mainstream press.

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(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION OCT. 20-22, 2017) — As the leaves fall, so does Pittsfield. Thank you, Mayor Linda Tyer. Thank you, city council.

For nothing.

With her tax increases, fat budgets, ribbon cuttings for garbage cans, and support of the abominable betrayal of public trust being attempted by the incompetents running the Berkshire Museum (BM), we’ve come to expect it from Mayor Trashcan. That the council would follow suit on derelict “leadership” also shouldn’t come as a shock, although THE PLANET offers faint (and feint) praise for its objection to the rape of the BM. We realize, though, that this rare and sensible group action bedazzles a meek observer the way a blind squirrel will occasionally stumble upon a nut or the manner in which Longfellow’s broken “Clock on the Staircase” gave the great poet the correct time twice a day when he lived in Pittsfield.

The latest affront to Pittsfield’s bedraggled taxpaying public comes in the form of a $1 million grant Tyer proposed and the council approved. Grants — ye be the devil fer Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. Grants — Reminds THE PLANET of our favorite joke: “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” Answer: Pittsfield. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

The latest futile giveaway, this of the GE settlement money, will be thrown down a sinkhole with the fancy sounding name, the Berkshire Innovation Center (BIC), to be built in the wasteland euphemistically known as The William Stanley Business Park. We like the moniker, although given this latest mistake, we propose one even fancier: the Berkshire Innovation Center for Taxpayer Harrassment (BITCH).

The BITCH represents another example in the long, grey Pittsfield line of a nearly bankrupt public sector financing what the Dreaded Private Sector should be willing to do on its own. The BITCH, so the propaganda goes, would offer high-tech manufacturing “resources” and training that small- to medium-sized businesses cannot afford using their own money. That’s the spin, and it betrays the fundamental flaw of this proposed center. Stay with us on this one.

Private-sector businesses who made a product in demand by the marketplace will gladly invest in such equipment and upgrades if they believe it will be profitable. They then go to private lenders who, being greedy, gladly furnish venture capital, providing, that is, that they judge the company’s proposal to be a sound one. You know, private lenders require such picky details as sound business plans and evidence of responsible management. Folks, beware of any venture that uses public money to fund private manufacturing. It means banks aren’t willing to take the risk.

That’s when “Politicians” (in every sense of the word) like Mayor Trashcan and most of the councilors step up to the plate. They will gladly blow the public’s money, because it keeps them in good stead with The Suits, which in turn helps them win votes in elections which in Pittsfield have become exercises in masturbation by the only entities that vote, meaning the special interests.

The BITCH was first proposed in the Lincoln Administration … or does it only seem like four score and seven years ago? The initial price tag came in at $3 million, but you know how these things go in The Land of Benigno Numine. The costs for this planned “not-for-profit” boondoggle mysteriously jumped to $9 million, then $12 million, leading to a multimillion dollar funding gap. Finally, the state had to step in and ask: “What in hell are you yokels doing?” You know the stink is on the turd when lily-white Boston has to bother itself with Pittsfield’s own special brand of corruption.

Want to know how redolent this deal is? Community development director Deanna “We’re Baaaaaaaaack” Ruffer is involved. That should be enough to jolt the bolts off Frankenstein‘s neck.

But noooooooooo, as Steve Martin used to joke.

Councilors OK’d Trashcan’s $1 million pillage of the dwindling GE settlement money. It doesn’t stop there. The mayor said she wants another million. That would be $2 million thrown away, money that could and should be used to lower taxes for businesses and homeowners.

Trashcan said the state “wants to know we’re committed.”

Yeah, so do we, and THE PLANET will gladly sign the papers.

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“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether [the city], or any [city] so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure” — Abraham Lincoln, modified.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.