BY DAN VALENTI

This may be the weekend the wheels come completely off America. And perhaps the whole world. If you believe in God, this may be a good time to pray.

Teacher’s Union President Randi Weingarten is one of the main No Kings organizers. Old Randi who never spoke out about what was being done in the schools to very young children with transitioning them without their parent’s knowledge because she is all for it. Others behind it are the George Soros clan and a Walmart heiress. Seems that wealthy people have nothing better to do than plot the destruction of our country. Walmart has tried to distance itself from the antics of the “Too much time on her hands” heiress. The Soros clan has been up to no good with interference in our legal system for years and they are continually trying to flip Texas blue. It’s these type of people along with many nefarious NGOs who are behind the No Kings protests and tells all we need to know about their bad intentions for this country.

June 15, 2025

Re: The Berkshire Eagle and its double standards

Hello blogger Dan Valenti,

The Editors of the Berkshire Eagle write lofty opinion pieces advocating for government transparency in state and local government in Massachusetts. While at the same time, the Eagle is a biased news media outlet that has blacklisted me – Jon Melle – from publishing the many letters I have sent to the Eagle over the years. Moreover, the Eagle defended the horrible, secretive settlement between the corrupt EPA and the polluter GE that would so-called clean-up of the polluted Housatonic River of GE’s industrial chemicals called PCBs and plans to put a capped “leaky” landfill in Lee, Massachusetts.

The bottom line is that Pittsfield’s Level 5 (failed), Group 11 (underclass) public school district failed to address the serious allegations by Pittsfield High School (PHS) – my Alma Mater, 1993 – students. Moreover, Pittsfield’s elected officials refuse to release the taxpayer-funded legal report with limited redactions to the general public, despite state law. Furthermore, when I wrote to Governor Maura Healey about these facts, her office emailed me to contact the same Pittsfield elected officials that failed to address the allegations by the PHS students.

This is why people, including myself, move out of Massachusetts. First, the Eagle and its double standards of being lofty while biased. Second, the elected officials do NOT care about the people they serve, but rather, they are all about greed, MONEY and POWER for the elites. Third, when “Jon Melle” exercises FREE SPEECH, it is met with RETRIBUTION by the elites, as well as the Eagle. Fourth, the common people do NOT count, but rather, the state and local government only does DISSERVICES to us on many levels.

God. I hate it when the Eagle and others pretend to be so lofty in their ideals, but then their actions are anything but. I would rather have it be direct. It is almost like they are luring good people into their network, only to entrap us with their double standards.

Lastly, Pittsfield School Committee Chair Dr. Bill Cameron should NOT have promised transparency only to refuse to release the taxpayer-funded legal report to the general public. Pittsfield School Committee Member – and former Pittsfield Mayor – Sara Hathaway should NOT have chuckled while saying to a young women PHS student who spoke at open mic: You kinds with your anxieties. The 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics SILENCE on these matters is WRONG.

Best wishes,

Jon Melle

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Our Opinion: “PHS report’s price tag underscores why taxpayers should be able to see it”
The Berkshire Eagle, Editorial, June 14, 2025

Our advocacy for the release of the full Pittsfield High School investigation report is rooted in the principle of official transparency and the priority for the city’s school district to regain constituents’ trust. But it’s also rooted in a sense of fairness for Pittsfield’s taxpayers, who should be able to see the report they paid for.

The itemized invoice from Bulkley Richardson & Gelinas, obtained Wednesday by The Eagle, shows how the firm logged its hours of reviewing documents, interviewing witnesses, communicating with officials by phone and email, strategizing next steps and drafting and revising its findings.

By our lights, that argument gained additional heft when we recently learned just how much the people of Pittsfield shelled out for this probe: $154,502.47. The six-figure price tag reflects the reality that thorough professional inquiries aren’t cheap. Still, throwing some disinfecting sunlight on a trying time for the county’s largest public school district would be a worthwhile investment. Even after this investigation has wrapped, however, we still must use the conditional “would” — because the proverbial sunlight can only do its disinfecting job if it illuminates the full and potentially painful truth for the eyes of all in the community rather than a chosen few officials.

The “executive summaries” don’t cut it. District families deserve the whole truth about not just the alarming allegations against PHS staff past and present that raised these controversies but the managerial culture and reporting system in which they festered. As we’ve argued previously, the executive summaries used ill-defined evidentiary standards to support their proffered conclusions that these allegations were largely “unsupported.” Further, a primary reason this investigation was necessary in the first place was that Pittsfield Public Schools needed to rebuild community trust eroded by controversy, which is achievable only through true transparency. If the conclusions forwarded by the executive summaries are similarly supported by the full report, then why not reassure district families by letting them see it?

Pittsfield School Committee Chairman William Cameron has argued that the whole truth should be shielded from public view because of privacy concerns and personnel records bound up in the full report. Yet those are not blanket excuses for secrecy. That’s not our opinion; it’s the ruling of the state’s Division of Public Records. After the Pittsfield School Committee rejected a Pittsfield parent’s Freedom of Information Request for the report, that local citizen appealed to the state. The state’s public records officer sided with the citizen, ordering the district to release a redacted version of the report.

That order held that while exemptions to state public records law are appropriate in certain limited circumstances, any exemption claim requires “a balancing of the public’s right to know against the relevant privacy interests at stake.” That reasoning underscores the entire point of the state’s public records law, as emphasized by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin: “Every government record in Massachusetts is presumed to be public unless it may be withheld under a specifically stated exemption.”

After the Pittsfield School Committee sought “clarity” on that ruling, the Division of Public Records ordered an in-camera review of the report to be conducted with school district representatives and the Pittsfield parent who made the public records request. In this process, the district can make its case as to why elements of the report should be exempted from public view, and then the state’s public records officer can decide whether those exemptions are merited on a case-by-case basis. Based on our preference for as much transparency as reasonably possible, this seems a much better alternative to the Pittsfield School Committee blocking their constituents’ view of the report based on blanket (and specious) public record exemption claims.

As far as we know, that review process is still ongoing. We are not against minimal, sensible redactions to a publicly released version of the PHS report; we’ve consistently argued that approach could mitigate privacy and liability concerns while still giving appropriate weight to the need for utmost transparency. For the sake of the city’s students and families, as well as the integrity of their public school district, we are for giving the people of Pittsfield the fullest possible view of the facts. As this review continues and hopefully concludes in a timely manner, we encourage all parties participating to keep the recently revealed cost of this report in mind: $154,502. That’s 154,502 more reasons why this report must be brought into the disinfecting light.