BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY SEPT. 30, 2019) — “Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Star Ship Pittsfield, whose four-year mission is to explore new scams, seek out new hustlers, and boldly go where most mayors have gone before: Into the Kapanskis pockets.”

So might begin the latest PEDA soap opera threatening Pittsfield. Don’t look now, but mayor Linda Tyer and her director of business development, Michael Coakley, want to carve out yet another six figure chunk of GE settlement money, this to assist space research company Electro Magnetic Associates, a.k.a., a.k.a., Spacely Space Sprockets. It’s another sketchy private company looking for some of the city’s “free” public money. Let us calmly ask: If this is such a great deal, why isn’t private equity scrambling to get onboard?

Which brings to mind …

• EV Worldwide, $250,000 and tax breaks. 1,000 jobs promised, 0 delivered. Armitage sent up the river.
• The Colonial, $30 million in taxpayer money (first budgeted at $3 mm). Thank God for Kate McGuire.
• $1 million in Bossidy Bux, gift of native son Larry Bossidy, wasted on superfluity. Nothing to show for it.
• WorkshopLive! $700,000 and tax breaks. Zero jobs delivered. No guitars plunked. Only taxpayers.
• Spice Restaurant. $500,000 and 12 years of tax relief. Kaput. No payback required.
• The Beacon. Years of tax breaks and losses. $2.3 million owed the city. Forgiven. Stanley sells, keeps the dough.
• Nuclea. Uncounted public money. Fake jobs. Snake oil its only product. The stripey hole for CEO.

As they say, past is prologue.

Tyer and Company made the announcement just days after Melissa Mazzeo handed the mayor a distant second-place finish in the mayoral prelims. Coakley claimed the “funding” and “paperwork” dictated the timing of the announcement, not politics. Did Coakley use Star Trek’s cloaking device to hide the truth?

For the grand announcement, EMI didn’t send its principals (who are they, by the way? Mr. Spacely? Cogswell Cogs?). They sent “chief scientist” Justin McKennon, a.k.a. The Beard, who’s been with the company for all of five months. Who is he? From his Facebook profile: “I’m Justin. I love hanging out with my friends, playing golf, building things, and lifting weights.”

Read it slowly. Let the tone sink in. Seems short in the gravitas department, or is it just the Millennial Way? And this is the Spacely front man? We’d much prefer George Jetson, James Tiberius Kirk, or Space Ghost.

———- ooo ———-

The Beard’s resume on Linked In shows he moves around a lot. The young weight lifter worked at General Dynamics for under two years, Lightning Technologies on Hubbard Avenue not even four years, moved to a brief stint with Lightning’s parent company (that part gets confusing), then on to five months at EMI. To top this impressive curriculum vitae, it seems he was not an actual employee at these firms but a “consultant.” Yes?

Dum-de-dum-dum.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

This is the man EMI chose to appear between Tyer and Coakley at the BIC.

Ah, the BIC.

The Berkshire Innovation Center first came with a $3 million estimate. By the time the grubs in Pittsfield and Boston finished with it, the cost ballooned to $13 million. What’s $10 million among friends? Rest assured, taxpayers. Every dime of YOUR MONEY was subject to the usual rigorous safeguards, accounting, and oversight that comes with public projects of this type in the Bay State (Big Dig: estimate $3 billion; actual $13 billion) and especially in Pittsfield. To the best of THE PLANET‘s knowledge, there were no cash-filled envelopes exchanges. Then again, we don’t get around as much as we used to.

Spacely Space Sprockets (rhymes with “the taxpayer’s pockets”) proposes to build a vacuum test chamber, the only one of its kind in the world, that it claims is vital to the U.S. space effort. Gosh, wonder why NASA, the U.S. Defense Department, or any of the more well established and well financed tech companies haven’t thought of it?

Sputnik, Soyuz, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle, the space station, the might of the superowers’ R&D, the Mars’ Rovers, Neil Armstrong, Space-X and other legit companies looking to get into space — not one of them thought to build such a chamber? Not one of the nation’s space projects of the past 50 years required such a chamber? Now McKennon enters doing a Pat Muraca on the mayor’s headstone, and we’re supposed to buy it?

———- ooo ———-

On Facebook, The Beard spilled his joy:

Still can’t believe this is real. A huge thank you to Jill McKennon for supporting my crazy ass all the time,Linda M. Tyer and Michael Coakley, Ben Sosne and the BIC, John R. Sinopoli and Synagex for helping to get this whole thing started, and every one else who has helped along the way. We’re all going to look back on this and laugh at how small this started out.

Oh, it’s real, all right. Or will be after the city council puts its rubber stamp on this waste of money. The Kapanskis only hope lies with the talents of councilors Kevin Morandi, Chris Connell, and Melissa Mazzeo to ask hard questions and send this space academy to its doom. You’re also right again, Justin. We are “all going to look back on this and laugh” — the kind of laughing to keep from crying.

———- 000 ———-

In his remarks at the public announcement, McKennon said, “We’re building an empire.” Delusions of grandeur? Tyer called Pittsfield the “hub of the emerging space industry.” Earth to Tyer: The space industry has been around since Werner Von Braun was launching V-2s over London. Longer. The only thing “emerging” here is the latest grab for the Kapanskis’ hard-earned coin. Wife Jill, if this thin request gets approved, you’re not the only one who will be supporting your hubby’s “crazy ass.”

The Kapanskis, of course, will have no say … and don’t give any crud about their council “representatives.” The only interests the council represents are the Special ones. While were at it, a few days ago, McKennon’s Linked-In page had a link to Earl Persip’s campaign fundraiser (held in The Dumpster Behind Paul Rich?). Mysteriously, by Saturday, it had disappeared. How do you think Dumpster will vote on the Spacely request? Don’t you see a conflict of interest? Maybe EMA promised The Pearl a ride in the space chamber, so he can feel weightless.

Finally, we have this from Police Report, one THE PLANET‘s most qualified and connected Z-Agents:

“The two people from EMA pushing this deal have worked for EMA for less than six months each

“McKennon has been a consultant for 6 years and prior to that didn’t even work in the “space field”. Beyond consulting at GD during his EMA “tenure” he was a software “salesman” repping EMA at trade show booths.
Neither of these individuals are principals of the company, they aren’t owners, co-owners, or on any board. They are new hire employees with a total of 6-7 years experience in the “space industry”.

“They’ve never run a company, never been responsible for any facilities they’ve owned, have extremely limited expertise in their field, and want to do something “no one has ever done before”.

“No test facility in the world has all these capabilities, let alone in a single test chamber,” EMA states in documents within the proposal.

“Maybe there’s a reason for that? If NASA and SpaceX aren’t doing this, maybe there is a reason this isn’t being done? Seems like a lot of risk for 4 jobs, two of which are entry level administration positions.
https://www.ema3d.com/ema-consultants/”

Of course, The Boring Broadsheet and iBerserkshires gushed over what could end up as another fleecing of the GE economic development fund. The BB touted the “potential,” saying Spacely “evidently” plans to grow and prosper.

Evidently.

May we all “Live long and prosper.”

——————————————————————————————

“What I attack is that the economic optimism which behaves as though, with the increasing expenditure of all, the welfare of all would also necessarily increase” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. All users of this website — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else making use of its information, hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.