BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITIDE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 15, 2015) — We saw him.

With our own eyes.

If you watched the mayoral debate last night, you did too. It’s been a long time, but “We saw him,” the man we loved for so many years.

Bianchi Came With His A-Game

THE PLANET ended our previous column wondering if we were going to see the Dan Bianchi we loved when he was the Ward 6 city councilor for 1o years.

We saw him.

Bianchi came in with his A-game and easily disposed of two non-entities and a formidable challenger. The non-entities were Donna Walto and Craig Gaetani. Walto’s only offering of the night was the two-headed serpent that she (a) graduated from Williams College and (b) she knew Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick, and Mary Flynn — all dead, as is her campaign. Walto graduated from Williams in the Pleistocene Era, long gone to The Conqueror Worm. As for Gaetani, we heard that he “saved” the city “$212 million” on the water plants. Funny how the number keeps growing. That, too, is in the long, dead past, a broken record that keeps skipping or, keeping within a more appropriate metaphor, a Chinese water torture that Pittsfield doesn’t need at this point in its fragile moment. And so it was that these two B-list characters played up to form as nothing more than footnotes to the real business at hand, which is Mayor Dan Bianchi versus City Clerk Linda Tyer.

From what THE PLANET saw last night, we give the triumph hands down to Mayor Bianchi. Let us count the ways.

First, THE PLANET takes up the opening statements. We can stop there.

Walto: A Late Show and, Figuratively, a No Show

When the debate began, Walto was nowhere to be seen. She came staggering in after the debate had begun, several minutes late. There is no excuse to traipse in late for an event of this importance. Walto not only humiliated herself, but she spat upon every member of the electorate. THE PLANET cannot say, and let’s be clear on that, but from what we thought we heard through her  slurring of words and the loud kind of voice you hear at your friendly neighborhood bar about 15 minutes before last call, we would guess that she showed up three sheets to the ambient breeze. Of course, we could be wrong. Perhaps she really is that out of touch. We understand. Life has been hard on her.

Yeah? Welcome to the club.

In her opening, Walto told us she was a graduate of Williams College, with access to “the world’s greatest alumni network.” Apparently, Walto never heard of Union College and Syracuse University, let alone Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Slippery Rock.

Then came Gaetani, another one who loves the Way Back Machine. He hammered on how much he “saved” taxpayers” with his involvement with the Pittsfield water plants. This time, it was “$212 million.” It started in the 100 millions and has been growing with each telling. Gaetani, who has the delusion that he can win then election by hosting a TV show on Time-Warner cable, spoke volumes by showing up in a … windbreaker. THE PLANET shall pass on the obvious comment here. Suffice it to say that Gaetani is a raw nerve exposed to a salt bath. Not exactly what one would call mayoral timber.

We can say that the forum in K-111 at BCC did a public service by demonstrating from the first question why Walto and Gaetani do not deserve to advance past Tuesday. Good Lord, if that’s what Pittsfield can offer by way of an alternative to the status quo, let us all take the pipe now and get it over with.

Bianchi: In a Word, ‘Mayoral’

So we come to the two First-Tier candidates. Everyone know going in that this election would be between Bianchi and Tyer. That was the Main Event. The other two were strictly the undercard. So what did we see last night? THE PLANET saw Bianchi finding his form and touching the right chords. He was, in a word, mayoral. Bianchi, rising to the occasion, began his opening statement with a lovely personal touch, a nod to his 35 years of marriage and being the father of three children, “the toughest job in the world.” He began on script, reading from notes and then broke off to free flight — obviously rehearsed from also from the heart.

He connected.

in contract, Tyer, in her opening remarks, came off as over-rehearsed. She read stiffly from her notes, body language betraying nervousness, the shoulders at her neck. She whiffed. When finally gaining a bit of composure, Tyer came off as a cheery, “let’s put on a show” light weight. You could see the mayor lapping it up like the last drop of Johnny Walker Blue.

A Format? No — More Like a Straightjacket

As for the format, THE PLANET can only say “dreadful.” THE PLANET loves Jonathan Levine for his involvement in the public forum going back to The Gazette‘s inception in 1991, but there comes a time when perhaps you need to think about “hanging them up.”

Moderator Bill Sturgeon went by an arbitrary  90-second limit for each candidate’s response. Fine, except that Sturgeon kept losing his place. He seemed ill-prepared and also asked the type of pre-scripted questions that candidates could easily anticipate. Thus, the only thing the electorate heard were the prefabricated answers. Sturgeon stumbled through the night, often overlooking a candidate who was supposed to speak. He also asked incredibly awkward questions. For example, he asked two versions of the same question — on economic development — in two parts. He then went through each of the four candidates, twice, on the same one issue, repeating the questions eight times! It was agonizing, the death by a thousand cuts for those viewing in the auditorium or by TV.

THE PLANET will do it differently. We went into last night’s forum determined not to host or moderate any of these “debates” or “forums.” We came out last night determined to host true “debates” with all of the contested races. This means we shall be inviting the candidates from Ward 1, 2, 5, 7, at large, and mayor to appear on our TV show for true person-to-person showdowns. We will throw out the clock. We will ban notes. We will let the candidates engage each other, face to face.

That will come after Tuesday, when Walto and Gaetani are mercifully assigned their right place in obscurity and Bianchi and Tyer go head-to-head for the ultimate prize.

Going into all that, THE PLANET tips our fedora to Dan Bianchi. He rose to the occasion. He was, in a word, mayoral. We didn’t expect it, but we shall be the first to admit we enjoyed it.

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“I push the first valve down, / the music goes round and round. / Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho / And it comes out here.” — “The Music Goes Round and Round,” The Onyx Club Boys, (1935).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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