BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY AUG. 17, 2020) — THE PLANET‘s Right Honorable Good Friends on the current Ocean’s 11 offer an eclectic mix of competence, incompetence, and the Admiral Stockdale’s “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Competence? Two-and-a-half out of 11. That’s an average of .227. Unless you’re Mark Belanger and have his glove, it gets you sent down to Double A. In Pittsfield, however, where a deliberately injected apathy somnambulates the electorate, .227 might lead the league.

The two in the two-and-a-half are Kevin Morandi, Ward 2, and Chris Connell, Ward 4. The half is Patrick Kavey of Ward 5, who has shown an ability to grasp the importance of issues but needs to find his Big Stick and start swinging at council impotence. Morandi and Connell give evidence that they understand the job, which is to represent constituents, not to advance inside political agendas.

Morandi has submitted two petitions asking that the mayor and community development director provide to the council at its Sept. 8 meeting a list of the small businesses that received Business Hardship Grants and the amount each received under the CARES Act or from the Pittsfield Economic Development Funds Small Business Fund. Both funding sources totaled $550,000. They were item #24 & 25 on the Aug. 11 agenda. As THE PLANET has mentioned several times, mayor Linda Tyer and OCD director Deanna Ruffer have kept the list secreted away. Is it in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s porch? In Al Gore’s lockbox? The hiding of this list suggest funds were handed out on a political basis. If so, that’s corruption, spelled with a “k.”

Connell has consistently acted in the best interests not of himself but those he represents. Does he throw a perfect game? No. Who does? He’s not Don Larsen at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 8, 1956, but he’s Chris Connell, someone who knows who he is and why he is there. For his efforts, Connell has been targeted by this current tenure of the council. Tyer’s fingerprints are all over it.  Earl Persip called him a racist. The mayor’s hubby mocked his manner of speech. Now his colleagues rushed him into a show trial based on a petition filed by a FOT (Friend of Tyer). FOT’s petition questions Connell’s ability to serve based on residence. Suffice it to say that after an interminable and shameful performance by the eight-and-a-half other council members, during which they probed Connell’s personal life with non-sequitur followed by irrelevancy, they said “Never mind. Chris is good. Nothing to see there.” The vote was 10-0. What a colossal waste of time.

This is the same council that routinely ignores citizen petitions, the same council that devalues the open comment period, that spend no time approving a bloated and wasteful budget that once again raises taxes during a pandemic that has seriously impacted the ability of Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski to offer up to Cleopatra her shake-down money.

THE PLANET asked Connell about the “show trial.” He answered this way:

“I’m just glad it’s over. I have been honest with everyone about my intentions and situation  since the beginning of last year (2019). I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I was going to live at 488 Pomeroy Ave. with my mother until such time that the tenant on the other side of the duplex moved out.  The only exception that changed my plans a bit as well as everyone’s in the world was COVID-19. Once everything hit in the middle of March, I had to try to social distance myself from my mom, whom I had moved in with (in a house I own) after selling my house on Dawes Avenue at the end of January 2020.  Fortunately, I was able to spend more time away utilizing a vacation condo in upstate New York that my girlfriend and I purchased over a year earlier.  When COVID-19 is less or no longer a threat, I will be spending the entire work week (Mon.-Fri.) or possibly longer [in the city] and the weekend at the condo. That’s been the plan all along.”

“Honest.”

Unfortunately, that’s a word the supermajority of his colleagues don’t understand. They, too, know who they are: Water carriers for corrupt politics. They also know why they are there: To hassle anyone who stands for the little guy.

As we’ve has said before we repeat now to Chris Connell: Don’t let the bastards get you down.

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“No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation” — Fran Lebowitz.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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