MANSLAUGHTER CONVICTION ILLUSTRATES TRUE STATE OF DRUG TRADE, PUBLIC SAFETY IN BITCHFIELD … plus … GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT … or … THE CONTINUED TRASHING OF BITCHFIELD
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
ADD 1 JAN 17 p.m. — THE PLANET received this from the office of D.A. Tim Shugrue. It illustrates the state of the state in Pittsfield. The action took place on King Street, behind Robbins and Dewey avenues, and John Street.
Password is: Laquan.
Good work by the PPD and the D.A. One wonders, however, how many “Laquan’s” there are operating with immunity in our fair burg? Fair question, wouldn’t you say. Perhaps the mayor will choose to address this at some point in his State of the City address? What say, Pete?
On Friday, January 17th, Laquan M. Johnson (1003 North Street, Pittsfield MA: 3/8/1995) pleaded guilty to Manslaughter and seven charges connected the April 4th killing of Stephan Curley. The Commonwealth requested a state prison sentence of 15 to 20-years. The Defense requested a state prison sentence of 10-years to 10-years and 1-day. Honorable Judge Agostini of Berkshire Superior Court sentenced the Defendant to 12 to 15-years in State Prison. The sentence is above sentencing guidelines that recommends 9 to 13.5-years. The plea took place prior to result of a jury verdict from a trial that began on January 8th.
District Attorney Timothy J. Shugrue stated, “My thoughts are with Mr. Curley’s family during this difficult time. While Laquan Johnson’s lengthy sentence will never bring Mr. Curley back, I hope it offers some measure of comfort to his loved ones. Gun violence affects not only the perpetrators and victims but the entire community. Today’s plea represents a step toward healing, offering Ms. Satrape, Mr. Curley’s family, and the community an opportunity to look forward toward a new day.”
|
Count(s) |
CHARGE(S): |
SENTENCE: |
|
101 |
Voluntary Manslaughter |
12 – 15 years state prison, concurrent on all counts |
|
102 |
Armed Assault with Intent to Murder |
5 – 7 years state prison (concurrent to count 1) |
|
103 |
Assault and Battery by Discharging a Firearm |
2 – 3 years state prison (concurrent to count 1) |
|
104 |
Assault and Battery by Discharging a Firearm |
2 – 3 years state prison (concurrent to count 1) |
|
105 |
Possession of a Firearm Without FID |
2 years House of Corrections (concurrent to count 1) |
|
106 |
Possession of Ammunition Without a Firearm Identification Card |
2 years House of Corrections (concurrent to count 1) |
|
107* |
Possession to Distribute Cocaine* |
2 – 4 years state prison (concurrent to count 1) |
|
108* |
Possession to Distribute Class B Substance* |
2 – 4 years state prison (concurrent to count 1) |
Both law enforcement and Mr. Curley’s family were satisfied with the case’s disposition.
On April 4th, 2022 Laquan M. Johnson (Laquan Johnson) shot and killed Stephan Curley (22 Westminster Street, Springfield MA: 1/20/1996) and shot and injured Dominique Satrape (362 Columbus Avenue, Pittsfield: 6/30/1996).
At approximately 4:22pm on April 4, 2022, Pittsfield Police were dispatched after ShotSpotter activation detected five gunshot rounds in the area of 71 King Street. Concurrently, at approximately 4:27pm, Pittsfield Police were dispatched to Berkshire Medical Center after a report of an individual with a gunshot wound was dropped off at the emergency room. The individual was later identified as Stephan Curley.
The police investigators who were dispatched to 71 King Street searched the area surrounding the ShotSpotter activation. At 17 Von Nida Avenue officers observed an individual, later identified as Meilani Eurquhart, Laquan Johnson’s sister, outside leaning over a garbage can. They questioned an Ms. Eurquhart about hearing gunshots, and she said she did hear shots. When Ms. Eurquhart was asked to raise her hands into view, she dropped several spent shell casings. At this point, officers approached the front porch of the residence and observed at least one additional spent shell casing on the porch. Based on the evidence outside the residence, officers determined the house should be secured pending the application of a search warrant. When Officers cleared the residence, they observed Laquan Johnson inside. He appeared to have just exited the shower. Officers observed another spent shell casing in the hall.
Prosecutors stated the Defendant showered immediately following the shooting to wash off gun residue after shooting Mr. Curley and Ms. Satrape. A gun, matching the one used to shoot Mr. Curley and Ms. Satrape, was found inside the residence in a safe belonging to Mr. Johnson.
During a trial, prior to the Defendant pleading guilty, Laquan admitted to shooting Mr. Curley, claiming it was in self-defense. Prosecutors stated the shooting was not in self-defense and that there was no evidence that Mr. Curley had a gun during the incident. Witness testimony from the event state that the Defendant was outside his apartment with a gun and immediately began shooting when Mr. Curley and Ms. Satrape arrived. Prosecutors explained that the timeline of events, just 16 seconds between video evidence shows Mr. Curley driving up to the residence and shots ringing out, demonstrate that the Defendant fired shots towards both Mr. Curley and Ms. Satrape.
Assistant District Attorney Joseph Yorlano and Assistant District Attorney Heather Valentine represented the Commonwealth. Assistant District Attorney Jocelyn McGrath represented the Berkshire District Attorney’s Apelet Unit throughout the trial. Kristen Rapkowicz served as the Victim Witness Advocate on behalf of the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office. The Pittsfield Police Department served as the leading law enforcement agency on the case.
*Johnson faced two outstanding drug charges that stemmed from drugs recovered from the Defendant’s safe when it was searched. At Defenses request, the two drug related charges were severed from the trial. The two charges were incorporated into today’s plea.
———- ooo ———-
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION JAN. 17-9, 2025) — Parking and garbage, two eternal problems that have remained beyond Bitchfield’s ability to solve.
At Tuesday’s city council meeting, if you listened to the mayor and the DPW head, the new toter system is working great.
Peter Marchetti told a whopper: “When we first implemented this program, I couldn’t go anyplace, without someone saying ‘This program is a terrible idea.” As we are getting further and further into the system, I am being approached by people to say ‘Mr. Mayor, it was a bumpy ride but we’re getting there.
Right, and the only reason Marchetti’s nose didn’t reach Pinnochioean length is that the “people” who “approached” him are Ricardo Morales, his two secretaries, and anyone who for whatever reason feels they have to brown-nose the mayor, a disgusting thought if ever THE PLANET knew one. Otherwise, the mayor “can’t go anyplace without someone saying, ‘This program is a terrible idea.'”
chopThe city’s new toter system is going great, city officials tells us. As you can see, it is so.It’s funny that on THE PLANET and throughout the city, people are saying the system stinks.
- The toters are too small
- It’s difficult to keep the lids closed
- Many of the tours have been defective
- Toter stability and placement have been problematic.
- Anecdotal reports also suggest that since the toter system was implemented, the city’s rat population has increased, numbers that, to be clear, do not include the Pittsfield Shoclo Department, the Socohl Committee, or the administration at Pittsfield High Slohoc. Then again, THE PLANET talks to Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski, honest citizens who again are getting screwed. We tend not to hear from those who play kiss up to “Official” power.
Ricky Rumpus spoke in confusions that would tongue-tie a babbler. He mumbled about “something not adding up.” At last, truth in advertising! Something’s not adding up, alright. Rumpus says trash decreased, but he was hard pressed to say why. The answer is blowing in the wind. One reason why garbage is down is that people are dumping illegally. We have heard multiple reports of trash caches. Couple this with residents opting out of trash pickup, which Ricky admitted, and there you have it.
The city’s new toter system has been an immense success, city officials tell us. As you can see, it is so.
“I wish we had a way to quantify all of this, but it’s very difficult to quantify these things,” Ricky lamented. And anything that “Official” Bitchfield finds “difficult” has no chance of being responsibly addressed. Let’s just say that “Officials” do not see heavy lifting as part of their public service.
Rumpus told the council the city has flagged 730 violations with respect to trash day. Citizens in violation have been absconded from their homes and sent to dungeons located deep beneath 70 Allen St. There, THE PLANET discovered an Iron Maiden, two racks, two whipping posts, and a Solitary Room. In that dreaded room, poor victims are tortured by having to watch broadcasts of Sara Hathaway. It is rare for a person undergoing such treatment to emerge with sanity intact.
Marchetti was asked if there is anywhere a confused citizen can go for help with garbage problems. His answer: “No.” He did say the Administration has had “conversations” about this. In other words, the mayor admitted his true attitude toward the problems of ordinary citizens: They can go perform an anatomical impossibility on themselves.
“I think there are conversation we can have internally,” Pete said. In other words, more navel gazing and no real action to help needy citizens. The gangs, illegals, pedophiles, pregnant welfare chicks, drug dealers, and others of that freeloading ilk have no such worries.
Pursuant to all this, the other Pete, White Wash, shuffled through his Voltron trading cards. Gigantic super robots apparently represent the top level of Pork Chops intellectual capabilities. Apparently, five robot lions combined to form Voltron and go Number 2 in Pete 2’s medulla oblongata, It’s how councilors come together on every other Tuesday to form the Drool Threat, a Panel of Idiots divided into two teams of six and five.
Rumpus put his benediction on the meeting: “It’s synergetic. We all work in this together.”
Good heavens. Is this the kind of leadership $215 million buys?
Have a great weekend, everybody!
————————————————————–
“Bitchfield politics is expert on trashing. That much is certain” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Copyright (c) 2024 By Dan Valenti, PLANET VALENTI and EUROPOLIS MANAGEMENT. All rights reserved. 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. Those who leave comments own all the responsibilities that are or can be attached to those comments, be they rhetorical, semantic, or legal. Such commentators remain solely responsible for what they post and shall be and remain solely accountable for their words. 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, but not limited to, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. We serve as a marketplace of ideas, without prejudice and available to all. All users of this site — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice and their use of/participation in this site. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.
Dan
You omitted “the gimp “, ball gags and other assorted devices,from Allen street dungeon inventory.
Can Kufflinks give us a report on how much cash the city has collected from people not following the new trash laws? He could then add to it the money collected on the fines given to half the city’s property owners for not shoveling their sidewalks. This should have been a least 4 times they could have handed out fines so far$$$. The city should be flushed in cash right now. Maybe that’s why the city councilors and mayor need larger clothes they have been partying all year….are the 90 days over yet???
That whole area up around MOhegan street has very little sidewalk snow removal. they must be getting their asses fined off. But are probably telling the city to go shove it up their collective anal glands.
RIP David Lynch. Graduate Pennsylbsnia Avademy of the Fine Arts and recorder of the darkness.
You got that right, Dan. 215 million buys you aphids, caterpillars, and tats.
Sir Chaz – I appreciate your post yesterday about agenda items “special municipal employees.”
As I am slow of brain, what, in your opinion, is the goal in regards to Warren’s petition to increase pay for school committee members? Is it pay to ensure their silence over the allegations leveled at PHS staff?
The objective points to the complete consolidation of power for a select group of individuals and the formal erasure of boundaries that protect from conflict of interest and professional ethics. I’ll summarize below the implications.
Higher salary for School Committee is nothing compared to the broad reclassifying of appointed boards as Special Municipal Employee positions.
SIR CHAZ
Can you explain how this reclassification would protect them from conflict of interest, especially, and secondarily, professional ethics? That would be helpful not just to readers but to THE PLANET.
“Appointees may represent private interests on the board. Albeit they may not represent their own interests (an appointee may not represent his employer). The means of abusing that distinction are obvious.
From the State website:
[general restrictions applying to public employees and appointees]
Section 17 [of MGL] generally prohibits municipal employees from representing a private party before municipal boards or departments. It also prohibits municipal employees from acting as agent (or attorney) for a private party in connection with any matter of direct and substantial interest to their city or town. Finally, it prohibits municipal employees from accepting pay or other compensation in connection with any matter of direct and substantial interest to their municipality.
[What the reclassification does]
However, if you are a “special municipal employee,” you may:
represent private parties before municipal boards other than your own, provided that you have not officially participated in the matter and the matter is not now (and was not within the past year) within your official responsibility; act as agent for private parties in connection with a matter of interest to your city or town, provided that you have not participated in the matters as a municipal official, and that the matter is not (and has not been, during the past year) within your official responsibility; and receive pay or other compensation in connection with matters involving your city or town, provided that you have not officially participated in the matters and they are not (and have not been, within the past year) within your official responsibility.”
Only very large cities may designate public boards ‘special municipal employees’. Pittsfield meets the threshold, but we know that the actual number of principals representing a financial or zoning interest are very small and highly restricted. The application of MGL exclusion from conflict ought to be rejected.
SIR CHAZ
Your information is most enlightening. “Special muni employees” would be able to represent private interests. And we think corruption in Pedofield is bad now. The Password is: “Kickback”
Misread your question – sorry. I haven’t a clue why Warren wants to raise the SC salary. Probably just grubbing for votes. He has a penchant for silly petitions that do nothing (recognize postal workers, ballot workers, special parking spots for vets).
Does he still live in the trailer park on Cheshire Road?
Thanks Chas for the explanation. Legal jargon numbs my pea brain.
Anything written in MGL both angers and numbs the brain. It’s the most painful document in the galaxy.
I’m probably confusing you because I have figured out how this works in their favor my explanation isn’t very good.
Give some examples of people, councilors who have or had conflict of interest. And what were their conflicts.
*I have NOT figured out how this works…
Example: Roots Dreams Mustard Seeds organization that is a frequent customer of CPA. And, Affordable Housing Trust has members who serve on private groups that have appeared before the Council in search of funds and land.
You no longer have a modern charter that provides governance in conformance with MGL. You have a private charter that establishes a territory governed at the whim of an elite who wrote it and it works in isolation from the State. It’s just like the early New England Charter of the 1630’s (granted by the King and hence forgotten) or more recently, like any Scientologist town. You pay taxes directly into their pockets. I once advocated for community response at the polls. I think maybe the ethical thing is for you to just leave. Sell for what you can afford to take, and you will have done the right thing.
A deeply insightful explanation, SIR CHAZ. Everyone would pay attention. The charter, when rewritten, became the blueprint for the massive “legal” (and otherwise) corruption of public government. That why John Krol fell victim to The Fix. You did too, Chaz, and you could see it coming 10 miles off.
Stay in Pittsfield if you can stand being a servant or a tenant.
Hello
We were awarded the CPA grant one time.
So far we have used that money to fix the roof of a building that has been neglected for about 50 years.
Seems really inaccurate to call us “frequent customers”
Please leave us out of your culture war
And remember to visit us if you need free food or clothes
Once is more than enough for you. The historic preservation was intended to preserve the historic icons of Pittsfield, not put a roof on derelict buildings that have no significance.
Theft of public funds.
So this is weird I’m not sure if you’re a hypocrite or if you just have a short memory, but you have publicly praised our work before
And something that does make the building historic which you would know if you research this thing you say you’re so invested in is our building was where the first kindergarten in Berkshire County was, it also served as a home for orphans and a center for their flower selling business, as well as being a cooking school For young widows, and it was also between the 1880s and the 1920s where the local philanthropies all met to conduct their business
Just because you personally don’t know the historic significance of a place doesn’t mean it’s not historically significant. You’re rudely showing your own ignorance here.
This building is also significant architecturally because it is the melting of two different patterns of development. In the 1840s, when the first section of the building was built, this was the agricultural edge of town. This is one of the few remaining wood frame buildings of that era. In 1932 when the Italian banker and businessman, Genovese assumed ownership, he built a brick façade and made it into a business district. There are very few buildings of either type left, and this is a very historically significant example of the two types of buildings.
I hope I haven’t been rude to you, but it’s very frustrating when somebody who thinks they know what they’re talking about. Didn’t do any research. We had to be approved for historical significance by people who spend their lives researching this. If you personally don’t like it that’s not really the same as saying it is not historically significant.
You used to be someone honest I don’t know if your politics have made it impossible for you to stay honest but here you’re just wrong and I hope you’ll admit it
I doubt you’ll admit it though because instead of correcting yourself by calling us frequent customers, you just responded with spite.
I thank you for publicly praising us in the past but now I just don’t know why you did. Were you just being a cynical, dishonest politician at the time or did you have some heartfelt reason to? The whole thing doesn’t make sense. This is a shameful use of your public voice
Thanks MICHAEL, first for sharing such great info on a building that’s played a part in my life. I was not aware of its past. Second, thanks for posting under your own name. That’s not a requirement on THE PLANET, retribution being an Olympic sport in the city where politics are concerned, but it’s always encouraged and more so respected when it does occur.
And please remember to drop by if ever you are in need.
The timing is mind boggling. Read the room Kenny!!!
I think someone asked him to write it. He was probably there, in that that room.
I’m convinced someone asked him to write it.
The school committee owns the Deans’ crimes. Their silence does not need to be purchased or even rewarded. But, given the severity of their actions, I could see them telling the Mayor, “Look here, I’ve done things! If you want me to keep doing them give me more.”
hmm, that doesn’t sound right. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
What would work as good as Duct Tape or WD40, is the Mayor getting out and riding shotgun like Trump did in the garbage truck for a week or two and seeing first hand what the problems are.
Marchetti saying the trash collection is going well when everyone with eyeballs knows it is not and is why no one believes anything that comes out of city hall anymore. Drive the trash collection route any day of the week and you will see many overfilled bins because they are just too small. Marcehtti knows they are too small but cannot admit he messed up again.
I just cannot imagine the state of the city by the time his and Whites term ends. White is supposed to stick up for the people but is apparently tied to Marchettis apron strings just like Marchetti was tied to Tyers apron strings. The people are simply screwed and there seems nothing they can do to help themselves anymore in Pittsfield. He could have taken some of that 30 million he wants to spend on the special interest “ballpark” and given the beleaguered taxpayer a decent sized trash receptacle. But he could not even do that much. Sad, sad, sad.
Lumpy should ride in the back of the garbage truck.
It will help him understand how good his mayoral term is going so far.
**Lumpy, while you are out riding in the garbage truck, if you see a large dumpster fire near the Pedofield Pubic Sohol Admin building, you can disregard it. It’s completely normal.
That dumpster fire in Pedofield is as synonymous here, as is the constant burning of methane gas from the above ground pipes at covered landfills. Covered landfills just smell a little better than Pedofield. Look a little better too….
And Lumpy wouldn’t even have to wear a tie!
I have a serious question for The Planet. I was reading the Eagle’s article on Lumpy’s state of the city address, when after I read the second paragraph in the article, it dawned on me, how many millions of tax dollars have been (laundered) poured into the “Westside Initiative” over the last 10-15 years? And for what? Some freshly painted murals? New basketball nets? Have you seen it over there lately?
Now, I fully understand and am all for building up neighborhoods, but to what end?
In the latest, Lumpy is going to use the $1,600,000 grant (strings attached) from the US DOT to help “deconstruct urban renewal” on The Westside. You have to wonder what strings China Joe Xiden and his merry band of democRATS attached to those strings. Hide illegal alien pedophile rapists from Trump’s people.
We have witnessed that the Pedofield Pubic Scohol’s Administrators do have a soft spot in their hearts for pedophiles. Some are even pedophile card carrying members for crying out loud.
Back to my subject, I was unfamiliar with what “deconstruct urban renewal” was and what were the results were where it was implemented elsewhere.
It took about a nanosecond for the first link below to appear. I cut and paste the highlighted section of the article dealing deconstructing urban renewal and how it will pertain to Pedofield.
Read for yourself and then ask yourself, is really what Pedofield is striving for? An accelerated version of what you currently have now, but worse?
“Projects displaced too many people and chased small businesses out of the city. They failed to slow white suburbanization, accelerating it instead. Meanwhile, slum clearance uprooted communities of color and dropped people into overtaxed public housing or into other deteriorating neighborhoods.”
Do the “leaders” of Pedofield ever turn “grant money” down and the scrouge that tends to come with it? Or as Johnny Sack once begrudgingly asked Carmine Lupertazzi Sr, “Is it all just about money?”
Urban Renewal and Its Discontents – Public Books
In his first State of the City address, Mayor Peter Marchetti lays out plan for a unified Pittsfield | Central Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com
MARK
Urban Renewal in the late 1960s was a disaster for cities. Look at what it did to central West Street. It was a money scam. The “deconstruct urban renewal” is the bookend to the Catch-22 scam: More public money wasted (and kicked back) for, as you say, veneer. The “leadership” of Pedofield needs Johnny Sack and Tony Soprano to pay a visit. Maybe send Furio to pay a house call on Hizzoner to start.
Urban renewal = Underclass renewal.
Pittsfield politics pollutes, purges public participation, & predictably pounds people’s purses.
The 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics has NOT changed anything for the better in a little over 1-year.
2-Pete Government = No accountability, No access, Highest taxation, corruption, arrogance.
January 17, 2025
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
Pittsfield politics is totally predictable. I have studied my native hometown for decades of my adult life of 49.5 years of age. I concur with your commentary that the 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics is a picture of failed leadership in municipal governance.
Pittsfield charges average local residential taxpayers somewhere around $6,000.00 per fiscal year in municipal taxes and fees, which is around 12 percent of the pretax median income in 01201.
Pittsfield’s annual budget always increases by 5 percent or more, they spend tens of millions of dollars more per fiscal year than similar small postindustrial cities, they have hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal debts plus OPEB unfunded liabilities, and they play irrational financial shell games with the state bureaucrats in Boston that the average person does not comprehend.
Pittsfield’s financial formula: Overtaxed (Under-served) = Secretive Slush Funds for the vested and special interests that are bankrupting the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski hard-working-class family.
The Pittsfield economy is both distressed and severely unequal. The inner-city is poverty-stricken. The city’s downtown is sarcastically called “Social Services Alley”. The impoverished neighborhoods that surround North Street are sarcastically called “The Ring of Poverty”. The only economic growth in Pittsfield is in the inner-city’s disproportionately large underclass population.
When I was a young man decades ago living in or near Pittsfield, I feared that I would end up spending my adult life in “The Ring of Poverty” inner-city neighborhood(s) of Pittsfield. But now, I live in the wealthiest municipality in New Hampshire, albeit in a 1-bedroom condo unit with my 16.5-year-old Emotional Support Animal (ESA) dog named Chocolate, with my elderly parents only around 1.5 miles away from me.
Pittsfield’s Level 5 public school district has long been and is a total mess. The largest amount of state administered federal aid that Pittsfield receives is for the city’s failed public school district. This translates to Pittsfield using its public school district as its biggest revenue source rather than to educate children and prepare them for an adulthood away from the city’s large underclass population.
Pittsfield’s financial management runs on “Perverse Incentives”. This translates to the more local people living in poverty or near poverty means the more state administered federal aid received by the city. This then translates to instead of the state and local career politicians investing in people and the community, they use the poor people as numbers on their spreadsheets to receive as much state aid as possible.
Pittsfield politics does NOTHING to create and retain living wage jobs for the working-class families who live there. Meanwhile, they soak the local taxpayers for an excessive amount of local taxes and fees. It is the absolute WORSE of both worlds.
This is why many thousands of people and their families have moved away from Pittsfield over the past 50 years. The people and families who remained in Pittsfield who are not in or near poverty are the of the clique variety. These insider families are interrelated, incestuous-like in their relations to city politics, and only serve themselves, while the rest of us pound sand.
For the past 25 or so years now, GE made Pittsfield into its dump full of industrial chemicals called PCBs that cause brain damage and cancer in people. The capped landfills in Pittsfield pose public health hazards to the environment. Capped landfills eventually leak, and they have shelf lives. Pittsfield has received a sum total of $18 million in GE settlement dollars.
Pittsfield politics’ other name is RETRIBUTION. The people that the government serves have no power because when an average citizen addresses the above ways Pittsfield operates, he or she is met with conspiratorial bullying and persecution.
The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) rag (newspaper) blacklists many good people from publishing letters when they do not conform to the city’s corruption and lies. The last time they published one of my letters was during the early-Spring 2004, which is almost 21 years ago now. I dare them to publish this lengthy op-ed, but they will not because Pittsfield politics is always predictable by purging public participation while pounding people’s purses.
In one word: DISSERVICES.
Best wishes,
Jon Melle
You’re wasting your life on that nonsense. Hit the gas pedal and get thee gone.
We’d be better off if we were governed by peat moss
Deconstruct urban renewal may mean tearing up North street and removing the multi million dollar disaster they created so that they can redo it for another multi-million dollar renewal. Deconstruct urban renewal means, “we fucked up…we are not going to admit it…..and you are going to pay to fix it”.
Also lost the Train Station demolished. I think the transportation part of it was to prepare for a link or spur to the Pike with on and off ramps in the West and Center St. area. If part of the deconstruction involves closing College Drive then that will alleviate the need for a Rotary at the intersection near The Salvation Army. A round about way for traffic calming.
Dan, that is the perfect “Sopranos-Pedofield” version of the show. The scene begins:
Lumpy and Wimpy White are sitting around with a weeks worth of fast food for the average person sitting on the coffee table, both guys in their underwear having an intense action figure battle, when Furio (the taxpayers) pays a “visit.”
Furio helps find “lost” taxpayer money and helps “expedite” an HONEST investigation, into the Pedofield Pubic High ASSistant prinicpals and the Dancin’ Dean, and how a guy with a dancing certificate, NOT A MUSIC DEGREE, got the job he did.
Who in God’s name signed off on that hire? They need to get shown the door as well.
Post Modern meets the taxpayer pockets.
Literary critics now give municipal grants?
I saw in Mayor Pete’s speech Zion Church is also building a Resource Center. Will have full kitchen, showers, internet, phone charging stations, laundry, bathrooms and showers. This is for the homeless to use during the day. Opening date summer of 2025. I wonder once it’s open Mayor Pete finds it in his heart to let us have our Library back. No more food or drink, bringing in hoards of belongings, playing music on phones and loud talking. It’s costing us 1.5 million a year to run a homeless daycare now.
Imagine having a Library you could bring children to!
I got to see cohorts dragging an overdosing addict into the Mens room at Library. PFD, amubulance and PPD showed up. Reading room full of sleeping bums and bumettees, other feasting on fast/junk food at the tables.
Nice place to bring your children…….
As a lifetime library rat, we shake our heads in sorrow. The question: My God, what have we done?
I think we should stop catering and feeling sorry for the West Side of the City and tell them to clean the F up after themselves like adults.
It would be an interesting to see how many MILLIONS of dollars have been spent (laundered) on the Westside Initiative.
If memory serves me correctly, I believe Gerry Doyle started the taxpayer money BBQ with a million dollars from the GE settlement towards the Westside Initiative.
Almost 30 years ago, which led up to Linda “Flat” Tyer tossing out our tax money freely to two prominent advocates of the black community in Pedofield, Shirley and the BBEC. Did they help their own community?
I know Shirley LOVES to pontificate about how RACIST my upbringing was because I’m an older white guy. Her issue with me is, I don’t buy her BS and she knows it.
Take a ride around and see if you’re happy with ALL that tax money spent on the Westside and is it a bang for your buck.
*Not boost for their wallets.
Edgerton, the racial grifter, thinks she speaks for the entire black community in Bitchfield. Talk to black people privately, however, and they this she is full of herself.
No such thing as a ‘racial grifter.’ Just a thief. That’s all.
I would love to see the real $$ books, the ones for their eyes only and not the ones they would offer for the public eyes they have. I would like to see every penny documented received and every penny documented where they spent it, from every group that received any form of $$ from Tyer and current mayor of Bitchfield. Wondering how many people they claim to represent also benefited?
The new trash pick-up has so many problems. They do tip over and deposit trash all over especially the recyclable tote. My regular garbage tote is so full and heavy by garbage day that I think that somehow keeps it upright. The recycle tote is also full to the brim, but items are lighter so it tips. The mayor admitted there are delays for getting new recycle totes, but no date as to when they will be available. Poor planning on this new system by everyone involved.
The 48 gallon toters are top heavy when full. A bigger toter would have the load lower . You’d think Wimpy would have known Weebels wobble but don’t fall down. Morales is a idiot and Lumpy’s a bigger idiot for listening to him.
Just leave the toter in place near the curb (6′). Put heavy wheels on it so it slides easily on a skid. Then, melt your trash into it for 100% density. Properly and efficiently compacted those toters can probably bear 100# of trash.
Carr Hardware has all you do what you need to get the job done and done well.
I glued a gold brick to the bottom of my toter. Don’t confuse gold brick with Conant
Three hours of work will save the gumptious taxpayer countless labor down the road.
Nobody ever brings up how it’s costing people that can least afford it $160 a year for their trash pick up when it was just picked up for money that we pay in taxes before so the only winner in this is the City of Pittsfield and Casilla
Do those imprisoned in the dungeons get to use the gym? God knows Lumpy doesn’t.
From the looks of it neither does Bicycle Cardo. Where was stooge the rubber neckL
Dancing Dean
(Apologies to Abba)
Any night you’re selling blow
Looking out for people who like that snow
Where they’ll pay the right money they’re liking your thing
You think you Are the king (pin)
Not anybody could be you, guy
The girls are young and the teachers hi gh
With a bit of rock cocaine everything is fine
You’re the dean of the dance
And when you get the chance
You are the Dancing Dean
You like them young and sweet less than 17
You can dance you can jive
Ruining so many lives
Ooh see that girl watch that scene
Digging the Dancing Dean
FOX
This is Grammy material!
Here’s Grammy material. The new city lawyer worked for Andrea Nuciforo. Sorry Jon.
Thank you but honestly can’t take too much credit because I had a superlative template to work with!
All I had to do was fill in the blanks! Kind of like Mad libs, really.
There’s a really cringy pun to be made on how a gram is a measurement used in street drugs so what would a Dancin Dean “Gram”my really be?
Can we also add the verse,
“Look at the Dancin’ Dean,
his cola is pure and clean,
take a toot and you’ll feel like a king or queen, he is the Dancin’ Dean, his cola his pure and clean, and not covered in afro-sheen, he is the Dancin’ Dean…..”
The Dean is awful quiet. Who is the lawyer?…….
Arthur Murray? Gower Champion?
Rhonda and Kenny will do the Charleston at the next CC meeting!
Probably African American tap dancer Savion Glover
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze with these tiny toters. It didn’t lower taxes did it? If they cared about us they would have spent MORE money on keeping the city clean not less! They should have added sanitation services not cut them. Pittsfield has always been a dirty place so how did they convince the city council to cut garbage collection? If something doesn’t add up it’s because you’re not including the graft in your math.
May we put all of the Pittsfield politicians – past & present – into the new toters, please?
Lampiasi asked Casella mob to shake the cardboard in the Toter because it’ gets stuck. I’m shakin it boss I’m shakin it. Cool Hand Luke.
Does anyone have any idea how to cut up Amazon boxes? I can’t believe seniors can break it down. Toters are a bad idea. To damn tedious. Let’s hope Mrs. Simonetta goes to the meetings. She’s my advocate.
ANI
“Shakin’ it boss!” Absolutely classic. For that, I’ll “kick a buck.”
You the man Dan. Luke you is a good ol boy.
Love it!
Some of that cardboard, (think strawberry boxes) are quite heavy duty and even a sharp utility knife will not cut through them without a labor intensive effort. I do have a sawzall but not going to use that. The boxes will go into the toter right on top as is.
It’s burning season………
I foresee in the near future a burn pit in every Bitchfield yard. A necessity as essential as toilets and sinks.
Dig yours while the ground is soft and choose a spade once you free the soil of rocks.
And somehow the city when they do property assessments will find a way to use our burn pits to increase our taxes
Keep it modest.
Send them to hamp
Anyone see the state of yer city address. The audience were all Lump’s campaign help.
Preaching to the choir, and everyone was soooo out of tune. Quick Draw Mcgraw singing “O, My Darling Clementine” is Enrico Caruso compared to Lumpy’s screeching.
As I retrieved my Toter last week I was unaware that several rats had crawled into it. About five babies and adults. The lid was open from the wind on the ground and they must have crawled in. Thank goodness that is was cold which relieved the stench. Yeah I had to dump them out myself. Put them in the compost.
Should have left them there. They’d eat the garbage making more space.
Live trap them and let them loose at a city clowncil meeting.
Good idea. Always a quorum going forward. Council Critters.
So sad. There are restaurants on North street that would have loved to have them rats. Think of donating the next batch. Not as tasty as squirrels but better than some of the local hamburgers.
Tiny toters please go away
Tiny toters we should have had the last say
Tiny toters, don’t make me feel fine
Cuz I just don’t like them
I’m giving my neighbor mine……..
Tiny toters the mayor says they’re fine
Everyone he talked to,says they’re working out fine
Tiny toters please take them away
Cuz a family of rats were found in them
The other day…
…..Tiny Bubbles……
Don Ho-Ho Hee-Hee Ha-Ha
You sharp today Dan. Me and you the only ones that know what the heck were talking about. Lol.
Exactly. The Math. How would less trash benefit the city and or Hauler? You ask. Trash has to go somewhere? Recycles are now seperate from trash? Then why not a bigger tote? Do the math
It would be so funny if they made pulp from your trash and sold it to China and India as specialty paper.
The larger toters actually make great little shelters for the homeless folk. Wind proof, rain and snow proof and portable. You even have the privacy to take a shit in one if you don’t get it on your pillow and remove it in a timely manner.
1/16 MUTED INCOMING writes: “Amused-So is in direct conflict in my opinion on the license board. She is not a liaison she is appointed by the Mayor.”
READ the agenda items #25 +26 on your 1/14/25 City Council agenda(start page 147).
The Mayor wants to make appointed commissions “special municipal employees.” That makes everyone serving on one FREE FROM CONFLICT OF INTEREST reporting standards and compliance. The door to favors, cash, and embedding special interests into regulatory and permitting bodies, will open and formal recognition of special interests and their power will guide them. Once it becomes effective, you will lose your objection to Amuso’s violation of conflict of interest in any matter.
Your leaders already scorn their professional ethics in the finance departments with a guy who serves as director of Accounting, Treasury, and Tax collection and chooses and manages his departments’ external financial audit). You are left with a city that is strictly run by and for the special interests, and no more checks and balances internal or external remain. The spectacle of councilors bolting the public input agenda item, official council business, underscores their committment and service to those who do not want state ethics to hinder their progress.
You are on the verge of losing the last standing safeguard established in M.G.L. that protects the public and businesses from the designs of those who have demonstrated their unfair advantage and losing even the right to object to the flattened ethical standards.
LINK to Council Agenda:
https://cms2.revize.com/revize/pittsfieldma/government/city_council/docs/January%2014,%202025.pdf
LINK to prior post on this issue:
https://planetvalenti.com/2025/01/pedofield-mayor-fails-another-one/#comment-298272
Exactly Sir Charles.Some are having a hard time with Voltron as Council President as he is chummy with Lumpy.
I think it’s time for Conant to start showing some Gonads. What a broken record he is. Same old same old.
Healey starting to bend the knee to Trump & Tom Homan……
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/another-democrat-mugged-reality-ma-governor-proposes-significant/
Healey has aided and abetted her whole time in office. Federal felony.
Lock her up Tom Homan on the 21st.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/ice-preparing-big-f-king-operation-raiding-sanctuary/
” Starting Jan. 21, multi-day “ground operations” will be launched across cities that have served as safe havens for migrants because the local authorities do not cooperate with the federal government when it comes to immigration issues, sources said.
The massive sweep is likely to target people with removal orders, according to sources.
Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan has vowed that the mass deportations will begin on Day 1 to focus on illegal immigrants who pose threats to the country.”
Report em and send them.
She’s not stupid. Most paid prostitutes wish they were in her income range.
Her audience/followers, on the other hand… that’s where the word
stupid enters.
https://youtu.be/ZCqh5ROtQRg?si=wpKirgY3sevkUHeP
So Johnson cops a plea and hopefully the sumbitch will die in prison. Thinning the herd!
If you’re in prison you can’t shoot anyone on the 4th of July
10 year sabbatical. He just got a free office.
January 18, 2025
Someone posted: “Here’s Grammy material. The new city lawyer worked for Andrea Nuciforo. Sorry Jon.”
My reply: I am disappointed that the new city lawyer worked for Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior.
I am one of a hand-full of people who know who Nuciforo really is and what he is all about in Pittsfield politics and beyond to Boston. Nuciforo’s conspiratorial persecution and bullying of me since I was 20 years old in the Spring 1996 made me look like I was a paranoid schizophrenic during my 20’s from the Spring 1996 until the Summer 2005; I am now 49.5 years old in January 2025. My dad, Bob Melle, was an elected Berkshire County Commissioner from 1997 – mid-2000.
Nuciforo is also known as Luciforo: Pittsfield’s Pot King (of lawsuits). Nuciforo is a corrupt Attorney who serves the special interests of insurance companies in Boston. Nuciforo is a disgraced former Pittsfield State Senator who allegedly illegally double-dipped as the Chair of the Massachusetts State Senate Finance Committee while at the same time serving as private legal counsel for Boston’s big banks and insurance companies from 1999-2006, according to a report in the Boston Globe in January 2007.
When I lived in my native hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a few decades ago, I asked local residents about Nuciforo. They mostly said the same thing to me, which is that they disliked him, but they don’t want to lose their job(s) in Pittsfield.
Nuciforo comes from a provincial political family whereby his late father of the same name was a Pittsfield State Senator and later a Probate and Family Court Judge, his late Uncle was a Pittsfield State Representative and Attorney, his late Aunt was Pittsfield’s first woman Mayor, as well as a career professor at Berkshire Community College.
Nuciforo is a millionaire who owns the marijuana company he named Berkshire Roots. He is also a landlord who owns buildings in Boston and Pittsfield alike. He also has a law firm in Boston’s Financial District. He has a residence of his own in Boston. He owns a $950,000 mansion in Pittsfield’s elitist Gated Community west of Berkshire Community College that is only 0.3 miles from Barry Clairmont and former Mayor Linda Tyer’s mansion close to the Hancock border.
Nuciforo is my Enemy #1 in my life who also tried to ruin my dad, Bob Melle’s, life many years ago now when my dad, Bob, was a Berkshire County Commissioner, when Nuciforo led the effort to abolish county government(s) in Massachusetts, but 6 of the 14 county governments in Massachusetts still operate in the southeastern region of Massachusetts in 2025.
When Mayor Peter Marchetti, who is my relative as we share the same great-grandparents who emigrated from Italy and settled in Pittsfield well over one century ago, settled Nuciforo’s pot permit by giving Nuciforo a city FREE CASH settlement check for $341,000 in 2024, I knew then that Marchetti was in Nuciforo’s pocket. I should not be too surprised that Marchetti hired Pittsfield new city lawyer from Nuciforo’s corrupt law firm’s Pittsfield office.
While I understand all too well that one of Luciforo’s goals in his EVIL life is to ruin my life, I also know that Nuciforo will turn 61 years old next month of February 2025, and that time is no longer on Nuciforo’s side to complete his mean-spirited mission of ruining “Jon Melle’s” life. Nuciforo may still do so, but I also know that a lot of good people and news media outlets are aware of these unusual and mean-spirited events that have been taking place throughout most of my adult life, and that I will always be defended because GOOD always prevails over EVIL!
Jon Melle
Your New Year’s resolution, should have been to stop beating dead horses , John.
Thank you for your *SARCASM* kind words of support on my path of recovery.
*SARCASM* I should just bend over for Luciforo so that he can just shove it up my….
You can’t recover by rehashing in social media – you just become addicted to yourself. Stop writing about it. Instead, tape record yourself reading what you wrote, and listen to it over and over for an hour every day. That is how you recover.
Pocahontas, hypocrite extraordinaire…..
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/elizabeth-warren-other-democrats-sent-threatening-letters-people/
Governor Maura T. Healey today declared that a state of emergency exists in Massachusetts due to rapidly rising numbers of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts in need of shelter and services and a severe lack of shelter availability in the state.
Peter Marchetti told a whopper: “When we first implemented this program, I couldn’t go anyplace, without someone saying ‘This program is a terrible idea.” As we are getting further and further into the system, I am being approached by people to say ‘Mr. Mayor, it was a bumpy ride but we’re getting there. If he would leave his office and talk to the average taxpayer, they would tell him the truth. The totals are too small and the taxpayers are being punished by having to pay $160 more and that will fall on the people that can least afford so much for trying to save money
The mayor and the city council must think everybody is stupid. That is the The toters are too small
It’s difficult to keep the lids closed
Many of the tours have been defective
Toter stability and placement have been problematic.
And worst of all the families that need the extra total are gonna be charged $160 and they will be the people that can least afford it as usual usually the poor and the older the ones that suffer in Pittsfield