By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, DEC. 15, 2014) — It can never be good when the hottest expanding business in a city’s downtown is the criminal courts. Nonetheless, that appears to be the case in orphaned Pittsfield, Mass. THE PLANET says orphaned, because The Land of Benigno Numine has been without political parents for a generation now. As we approach the end of 2014, the “fruit” of this lost generation is coming to term. It is the harvest.

In a nicely reported article last week by Jim Therrien of The Berkshire Eagle, we learn there’s so much business for the Berkshire Juvenile Court (BJC) that the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance needs more space. Currently, the BJC occupies about 22,000 square feet of space at 190 North St.

The state installed the BJC in the 1990s. THE PLANET remembers it well, because at the time, we still had our business downtown in the Shipton Building at 150 North. The construction for the BJC wiped out our favorite lunch spot, Nel’s, located downstairs with an entrance off Eagle Street. Nel’s was owned by former Pittsfield mayor Paul Brindle. His son Paul usually managed, along with the inimitable Dick Stockwell. THE PLANET would show up and without placing an order would be served pasta with Aunt Rose’s awesome sauce on the side.

The point is that a great little family bar and grille gave way to a social service agency whose purpose is to convene some of the worst young elements of a society gone bad. It seems that 22,000 sq. ft. isn’t big enough to hold the rate of juvenile crime that has infected the area. The state wants another 8,000 sq. ft.

The Heart of Darkness

The BJC occupies the geographic heart of Center City — the intersections of Eagle, Columbus, and North streets. A junction that used to house thriving tax-generating private enterprises (Rosenfeld’s, The Bridge Lunch, Pipe and Package, The Berkshire Hills Shop, etc.) now hosts the agencies required by the flotsam that endures in the wake of too many delinquents making bad choices.

On the once-thriving retail corners, we have Persip Park (fronting the Intermodal Transportation Center, the agency for retarded citizens, the BJC, and Sottille Park. The two agencies speak for themselves. The two concrete parks have become base of operations for every category of indigent one can conceive in these times of gangs, drugs, and mean streets — hardly the type of Center City “welcome” a downtown would for impressing visitors and tourists.

According to Therrien’s article, the owner of 190 North St., Floyd Passardi, is among those who have submitted proposals to the state’s request for additional space. His plan is to provide the added 8,000 sq. ft. in the same building — The Miller Building. Would that displace other, non-BJC tenants? Passardi didn’t say.

The article said it’s “unclear … whether the state might be leaning toward an entirely new location for the court,[sic] or whether part of the additional space could be provided in a second building. No information was provided.”

And that may be the small opening the city needs. THE PLANET hopes the first call Mayor Dan Bianchi made today was to the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance pitching other locations for the court. This is a chance to rid the downtown of 1/4 of a giant mistake made at North, Eagle, and Columbus.

A related question is why the need for expansion. Therrien’s article noted that Pittsfield BJC personnel referred all requests for comment to the Trial Court  in Boston. THE PLANET has sources on the inside, and we were not bound by that bureaucratic run-around.

More Crime Needs More Court 

Knowledgeable sources told THE PLANET that the need for more space is required by the uptick in juvenile crime. One source said the request for more space can be directly tied to “an alarming jump” in activity by organized gangs in the city, particularly the lucrative and booming drug trade.

This ties in neatly to THE PLANET column from Monday of last week in which we spilled the gravy on the internal political problems involving key official Pittsfield constituencies that have kept them from responding to the increase in crime in a responsible way. The mayor’s office, The Pittsfield Police Department, Downtown Pittsfield Inc., and the Police Advisory Commission allowed themselves to get involved in a petty political turf war, one that muddied the water on what appeared to be a good idea of using criminal justice students at BCC to assist police as additional downtown“eyes and ears.”

The bottom line is that most local sources, anecdotal and otherwise, agree that juvenile crime in Pittsfield is skyrocketing. This includes violent crime (shootings, rape, armed robbery, assault), property crime, vandalism, shoplifting, stealing, tagging and graffiti, keying cars, slashing tires, illegal use of drugs and alcohol (especially involving minors), fighting, disorderly conduct (for example, skateboarding or biking on sidewalks), illegal sale and use of tobacco, classroom disruptions (as in the recent case of a loaded firearm found on a local high school student), bullying, writing bad checks, loitering, burglary, weapon possession, car jacking.  Most of it doesn’t even warrant coverage.

What can be done? There’s no easy answer, but this is a link that will at least start the discussion. Juvenile Delinquency–What Really Works? Meanwhile, you can be sure that as long as the city of Pittsfield allows politics to dominate every social issue, those mean streets will only get meaner.

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“Oh yeah, The Shadow knows / behind your eyes what grows. / He knows just what you dream. / May all your dreams be of love.” — Quick Fox, “The Shadow,” from the band’s Raw Deal album, (1974).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.