By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2015) — Quick Hitz & Hot Lix comes to you today, brought to you by nothing and no one, which is just how we like it, Unbought and Unbossed. THE PLANET remains the purest medium around, untouched by commercial taint. With so much to say on so many topics, QH&HL comes to the rescue.  Let us, then, mettle the horses and in the torchlight stir:

Bard in the Park, What a Lark! — With the second annual Pittsfield Shakespeare in the Park set for three weekends in July-August, THE PLANET obtained an updated version of RICHARD III, tailored by noted playwright Sir Tiberius Fruitjuice to reflect local politics. We present this exclusive snippet from the aptly titled, BUMSTEAD REX:

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THE CORNER OFFICE, CITY HALL. ENTER BUMSTEAD, COLONWOOD, and FAIL, PLUS OTHER ATTENDANT LORDS and SUCK-UPS

BUMSTEAD: The People’s discord is to my ears the sweetest music. Who would love May flowers if they succeeded not to Winter’s flaws and unplowed streets? Where is joy, without the touch of sorrow or sand?

COLONWOOD: We thank Your Grace, whose very words are like the lilies that glorified Solomon.

FAIL: I agree completely.

BUMSTEAD: Quiet, dog! … My Lord Colon, tell me, what Spirit sits in Valenti’s eyes? Methinks it is too honest for mine presence.

COLONWOOD: Valenti is the pomp that strips the crawling vermin of liars and gives hope to the homeless orphans.

FAIL: I agree without reservation. (BUMSTEAD BOPS HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH A SOILED COPY OF THE BORING BROADSHEET)

BUMSTEAD: Then, by glory or shame, we shall continue with our grim disease until this city is ground into the dirt. For the lame and the people, famine! For the King and Queen Teresa, the wealth and pensions brought about by their squalor. Give them potholes, I say. Give us tribute! Now both of you, fetch and begone!

CURTAIN

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Where is Everybody? — As of Oct. 1, the Pittsfield Public Schools had 5,865 students, the lowest number in city history. About 480 Pittsfield students have opted through “choice” to attend school elsewhere in county.  Another 177 have enrolled at BART Charter School in Adams (total, 659 students lost, along with almost $4 million). It’s gotten so bad that city Supt. Jake “JIV” McCandless admits the school department may have to redistrict students to balance out class sizes. The high schools have experienced the greatest loss.

Naturally, in response to a severely declining enrollment where citizens and taxpayers can barely justify one high school, The Suits propose to build another high school where Taconic High now stands at a cost of who-knows-how-much? Pittsfield taxpayers, whose number also continue to fall, will be forced to pick up at least $40 million of the tab should this wasteful project pass the city council. The final total will almost certainly be higher than that. Not one city official has adequately explained how the bedraggled taxpayers, the vast majority of whom do not have kids in public school, will find the money to pay for this boondoggle. Folks, your last hope lies with our Right Honorable Good Friends on the City Council.

Lots of luck finding four of them with backbone.

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Depends on Who You Know — In the interim, while Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski are being driven out of house and home, The Special Interests continue to clean up. Remember the William Stanley Business Park? Citizens are still waiting 17 years later for the first profitable, private-money investment to land a company there. However, despite a state deficit of $1.5 billion for the upcoming FY16 (thanks, Deval, for nothing), the Bumstead Administration is looking to grant the Berkshire Innovation Center (BIC) at Stanley a 20-year break from taxes.

The center will not produce any products, except, of course, “innovation.” The BIC (or is it BITCH?) is, of course, seeking “not-for-profit status, which would make the free ride Bumstead wants to grant irrelevant. Talk about hedging your bets. Of course.

THE PLANET wonders how The Kapanskis would make out if they sought a similar deal to relieve them from their already crushing (and soon to get worse) tax situation? Phat Chantz.

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Depends on Who You Know II — The Foo Foo grand palace that will go in the former Besse-Clarke building (ex- of the many failed eateries etc. that have tried the high-end space) is called Hotel on North. They ain’t kidding when they call it “north” — as in “north” of $200 a night if you want to stay there. Average room rate will be $225, continuing the Have-Have Not break-up of the city.

That’s an “average” price, mind you, which means that the rates largely go “north” from there.  Yup, we’ve got another destination for the rich and famous who might spill-up from South County in the summer, willing to take life and limb in hand, this being crime-ridden downtown and all.

The conversion of the space is premised on the developers getting — can you guess? — a seven-year tax-break deal.

Taxes, ladies and gentlemen, are a zero-sum game. If the city costs X dollars to run and Hotel on North gets a seven-year tax break, the lost revenue money will come from someone else’s pocket. Can you guess who that someone is?

Got a mirror?

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Deck the Halls — Right next to Hotel on North lies the Columbus Avenue parking deck. Guess what? The Foo Foo guests will need parking for their Bentleys, Jags, and Lamborghinis.

In another of those wild “Pittsfield coincidences,” the city wants to pour nearly $10 million of your money into a renovation of the parking deck. What are the odds?

After decades of neglect at the garage, with bums using the (now-closed) stairwell as a latrine, with all the mishandled enforcement, with all the squalor, all of a sudden fixing up the deck to the tune of almost $10 million becomes urgent. This repair must get done.

Gee, it couldn’t have anything to do with the Hotel on North people putting the squeeze on Bumstead, could it? They wouldn’t be looking for Pittsfield taxpayers to fund their parking problems, would they? And Bumstead wouldn’t cave or sell out We The People, would he?

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“Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate / With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon … / where art thou gone?” — Percy Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” Verse II, lines 13-15, (1817).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.