By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12, 2014) —  Of all the underwhelming, useless boards, committees, and commissions in the city of Pittsfield, you would be hard pressed to find a more worthless one than the Human Rights Commission. The HRC was born bad. It’s a pity, because such a commission — if it could shake incompetence, a sneaky mayor, and rampant political correctness — could do much good.

Look, THE PLANET keeps score by actions. The HRC can talk a blue streak into an ashcan. So friggin’ what? When you examine the results, this panel has been a wallop-o-loser. It has been what Dan Collins called the recently deposed head of Berkshire Works: “an embarrassment.”

Revenge of The Creature

The HRC’s deadbeat dad, the mayor, was forced into forming the commission after his #2 at the time, Mary McGinnis, pressed for its reactivation. TES resisted the effort with all his might, and when he lost the PR battle, caved in. He satisfied his lust for revenge, however, by appointing a disappointing collection of comfortable, enabling, boat-steadiers. They’re not “bad people.” No one is a “bad person” in Pittsfield. They’re just bad commissioners. They haven’t met a wrong they didn’t like because they wouldn’t know a wrong if it French kissed them between the legs.

TES appointed seven of the nine members of the panel that included Josh Cutler, Cecelia Rock, Louis Perez, Len Kates, Susan O’Leary, Robert Sykes, and Pummelin’ Pam Malumphy. Informed sources tell THE PLANET that part of the mayor’s plan to make the HRC toothless was to approve (and secretly urge) the appointment of Cutler as chairman. Cutler, the least experienced of the panel, would be the most easily swayed — and easy prey for the machinations of the team’s political predators.

Cutler abruptly quit the commission a couple months after its formation, claiming he was too busy with other matters. THE PLANET knows Cutler well. He covered baseball for us a few years ago. Josh is an articulate, ambitious, level-headed young man. He’s not the kind who would have misjudged his workload in weighing whether or not to accept the HRC chair.

When you’re enterprising and in your mid-20s, there’s always room for one more project. There’s isn’t enough room to breathe, however,  if you have a poisoned political environment with key team members out to get you. Cutler has his eye on one day becoming the city’s mayor. He was wise to bail out of the plane before it crashed.

Another member, Alfred Johnson, resigned as well.  He says because he’s leaving the area. Could be. Could be. Then again, all the high “meller-dramer” in Pittsfield’s public life may have played a part in the hegira.

HRC At It Again, Meeting At A Time To Assure Citizens Can’t Make It

Well guess what? The HRC will have at it again. It meets again soon, but do you really care when? The meeting time is what’s important. It meets at 5:30 p.m.

Great, isn’t it? Notice the way they set meeting times in Pittsfield. The more inconvenient, the less likely you, The Private Citizen, will be apt to show up and butt into what The Suits want all to themselves, which is, of course, The Government YOU Own! Let’s see: A 5:30 p.m start eliminates right off the bat most people who are gainfully employed and most stable households, since it is the dinner hour.

At the meeting TES will be appointing a new member (Mark Kennedy, a retired social worker) and the HR director of the School Department is set to nominate a new commissioner. [An aside: Why is there so much duplication in the city? The HR function is ripe for consolidation. What say we boot The Sheffield Shuffler and give it all to the survivor?]. Since its reluctant inception, the panel has struggled with procedures, bickering, lack of a regular schedule, and incoherence. It has in its previous meetings (only two if memory serves) bungled legitimate and serious complaints filed by Medford businesswoman Doreen Wade and Pittsfield citizen Craig Gaetani.

Its ironic also to consider that McGinnis, who hounded the mayor to reform the HRC, herself has filed discrimination allegations against TES with the state’s attorney general.

Only.

In.

Pittsfield.

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Ten-Hut! TES Nominates Clark as VA Director … Minus the Ringing Endorsement

THE PLANET broke the story on our TV show last Thursday. The Empty Suit, who fired veteran affairs director Rosanne Frieri (and is facing charges from her; who hasn’t filed charges against the mayor?), named James H. Clark of Pittsfield to the position, submitting Clark’s name to the city council.

Clark comes to the post from the Pittsfield Public Schools, where he has served as a paraprofessional and assistant teacher since January 2013.  He is a veteran of the Army. We wish him well. The fellow TES appointed to be the interim VA director was supposed to serve until the end of the year. He quit after the first week, saying he “didn’t need the stress.”

You can see it’s a real picnic to be working under this mayor.

The final sentence of the mayor’s terse, three line letter to the council submitting Clark’s name reads: “He shall serve as long as qualified.”

Hardly what you would call a ringing endorsement, eh?

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“Hut Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit.” — Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights, “The Hut-Sut Song,” (1941).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.