BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION JUNE 19-21, 2020) — You’ve heard the old joke about the definition of mixed emotions: Seeing your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac (THE PLANET can relate!). Well, we have mixed emotions right now.

Lordy, we have actually lived to see the day when a city councilor had the balls to propose and the council approve an actual cut in one of the Big Three city departments. The concept! Requiring a favored child have to do what Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski have been long forced to do — squeeze more performance out of fewer dollars. That’s reasonable, welcomed, and long overdue.

THE PLANET loves the idea of reducing the cost of government, and Ward 1’s Helen Moon’s initiative will take $100 grand out of the Pittsfield Police Department operating budget (she wanted $275,000) and reallocate to mental health “clinicians,” whatever the heck that entails. The problem is that Moon took it out of the wrong department and gives it to the wrong people. It should have been, the school department feeling the ax with most the savings not reallocated but sent directly to Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. It’s THEIR money, after all. The cuts should be $17 million — 10% of the city budget and $13.6% of the PSD’s part of that budget ($125 million out of $175 million, in the time of shrinking school population). Taxpayers could get a break and the police could receive the funds to improve public safety.

In case you haven’t realized it, society has been rent asunder in Pittsfield. THE PLANET can’t go into the countless factors. That’s a topic we’ve well covered elsewhere. The point is, each day and night the police are run ragged by the new influx of human debris that have flocked to Pittsfield to “make a living.” Welfare cheats, gang-bangers, the drug trade, gimme girls pushing out babies from different dads because it pays well, group homes — you get the picture. If you believe dreamers such as Nick “Data Source” Caccamo, Pittsfield doesn’t have a crime problem. He hasn’t seen the “data.” Patrick Kavey doesn’t seem convinced, either. Guess he hasn’t seen the “longitudinal data.”

Instead, Moon and her backers will send the bulk of the “savings” into a nebulous, ill-defined area of “psychological clinicians.” To whom will these ghosts report? From whom will they take orders? What is the qualification of a “clinician?” How do they propose to deliver services? Will they be armed?

And this just in, which provides the key clue in trying to solve the mystery of what’s behind all this: Moon coincidentally lobbied for the school department budget to be sent back to the school committee for (you sitting down?) INCREASES!

You can be sure the big-awful TSC will add millions, unanimously.

This piece of information helped us peel back the layers of the onion to find what appears to be the End Run of All End Runs. The aim: to put huge additional dollars into the porked hands of the the city’s most expensive, worst performing department. The national turn of events since the say George Floyd died provided the opportunity. Those involved have the motive.

Sometimes there are no words.

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Did Moon do all this on her own initiative? Is this the same Moon who hardly peeps during council meetings? The same Moon who has ducked THE PLANET‘s fair questions since being elected? Or is she being used as a willing pawn for her own selfish reasons to feed the Lady McBeth ambitions of others? If so, which others?

The only relevant facts in this case are these:

• Moon’s proposals on the police department budget. She wanted to take out $275,000.
• The council’s actions (technically, 6-5 to cut. Actually, 8-3 because Kavey and, ironically Moon herself, voted “no” with Connell, Caccamo, and Maffuccio. They did it because the move to cut $100 grand from the cops WASN’T ENOUGH for them.

• The council’s action has the PPD enraged, particularly at Moon’s shot at officer Derby, whose community liaison work has won the department acclaim, improved police-citizen relations, and given the department some important information and tips. Understandably, beyond Derby, nearly every officer and staffer took Moon’s attack as a kick in the groin.
• Moon made a comment about her representation of the city’s “black and brown community” that had the council’s lone black, Earl Persip, call her out for racism.

What is the sum when you place the facts into the likely actions? The ones we’ve heard from exhaustive investigative work.

What happens? You enter a labyrinth, that’s what. We feel like Theseus finding Ariadne’s clues and discovering in the twists and turns a few Minotaurs, some of whom we have slain. There are more monsters lurking, however, so we remain on guard.

Why would Moon do this? Why would eight councilors agree?

Here’s what THE PLANET thinks happened based on our contacts with the district attorney’s office, sheriff’s department, court familiars, state police, retired state police, PPD, PCTV, school department, council, city officials, retired city officials, and other “interested parties.”

The national situation played right into the hands of the “Let’s get the cops” mentality that has gripped the far left. It provided the perfect cover for what one source connected to the D.A.’s office called “a coup of the police department.” Who would want to do this? The prime players in this game of Clue include Moon of course, D.A. Andrea Harrington, school superintendent, Jason “JIV” McCandless, Kathy Yon, and John Krol, with a supporting cast that resembles a Cecil B. DeFonebone epic. The cast does not include Col. Mustard.

Our theory based on an inductive analysis of the available information (think Sherlock Holmes in the parlor of the old, dark house telling the gathered suspects: “One of you here is the murderer”).

• “Defunding the Police” gave Harrington the idea to strike. The national hysteria might provide good “smoke” to launch the plan to “Defund the Police.”
• Harrington gave Moon her marching orders for the move. Harrington is Moon’s boss.
• JIV huddled with school committee chair Kathy Yon.
• JIV announces 140 teachers will have to go if he doesn’t get money money. This is the same, tired ploy used by the PSD and teachers every budget session. Create panic among parents, arouse the minority who control elections, and magically set into motion the mechanism for more millions.
• Harrington and either JIV or Yon got together through go-betweens (Behnke and Moon most likely) to collude on a plan that would give in a series of moves a.) let the culprits buy into the politically hot DEFUND THE POLICE hysteria; b.) let Harrington slap the cops in the face, something she would probably want to do given the nearly insurmountable friction between the D.A and local law enforcement; c.) Send millions more to the Pittsfield School Department, which would d.) Buy lots of political support from the corrupt teachers’ union.
• In doing so,
  • the D.A. could undercut Wynn’s authority
  • embarrass the police department at a time where cops are like priests after the child-rape scandal broke
  • give her more leverage in her interactions with local and state cop — a huge miscalculation. One unanswered question is how to courts are viewing all this. A prominent local attorney thinks this is going to hurt the already bedraggled process of bringing criminals to justice. Not good for already-imperiled public safety.

• Krol, remember him?, enters the picture on an allegation he is also “mentoring” Moon, perhaps independently of Harrington, prompting her to propose the cuts. Krol denied THE PLANET that he has a mentoring relationship with Moon, let alone a Svengali one. Why would Krol do this? According to the “other side,” to further his ambitions of returning to city politics, with his eye on the corner office (thinking ahead to Campaign ’23). This line of thinking proposes that Krol wants to curry favor with the teachers’ unions. THE PLANET doesn’t give it much credence, although we could be wrong. It’s been known to happen. Does Krol want to keep his options open? Certainly. Most politicians do. We are, though, privy to information indicating that Krol has other pressing priorities on his plate at the moment — not an election 2.5 years from now. That information stays between the two of us. No, in our view, it’s far more likely that Harrington would be the puppet mistress, perhaps with JIV, Yon, and others in her camp offering “assistance.” This raises the question: Who, if anyone, gives Harrington orders?
• The move would also a way to stick it to mayor Linda Tyer and her camp. The once close relationship between the mayor and district attorney has chilled itself into an Ice Age. From Harrington’s point of view, cutting the cops will weaken the mayor politically, show Wynn who’s boss, and hurt both of them.
• To allow Moon opening cover for her maneuvering at the budget hearing, she persuaded 14 “concerned citizens” to call into PCTV for the 30-minute comment period prior to the budget hearing. They were all “plants,” likely teachers, and other Kool-Aid drinkers who have a vested interest in seeing the cops defunded. None of them were black.
• Moon and some or all of the other seven councilors who want to cut the police met illegally in violation of the Open Meeting Law to the team in goose-step unison.

Quite a tale, eh? So far, though we’ve heard other scenarios to explain these bizarre events, mostly but not all the same one’s you’ve seen or read about in the lame stream local media, we haven’t seen one that fits the known facts and the available clues as well as of better than ours. THE PLANET isn’t putting this forward as definitive. We could be wrong, but, and it’s a big one, if anyone’s got a better explanation, we’re all ears. We asked around. When it got “real quiet … too quiet,” we knew we were at least on the right trail.

Oh, one last note. Only Harrington and Moon didn’t respond to our requests for comment.

You know the drill, when the phone doesn’t ring, we know its them not getting back to us.

Blue Lives Matter. Pittsfield Blue needs support now more than ever. There are far more good cops than bad. Think the police have that support now in Pittsfield?

Not in a Blue Moon.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“Behold, I stand at the door and knock …” — The Book of Revelations.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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