By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI  News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, OCT. 23, 2011) — Supping in hand-made ravioli squares with a chick pea-and-beat balsamic salad and washed down by red and white might take our mind off of the issues of the day, but alas, ’tis Monday, and the world awaits.

First up today is the roadwork in downtown North Street, Pittsfield. The wider sidewalks may look pretty, but they come at a high price (excluding, for the moment, the Massive Gravy Train the cops get in OT pay to stand there, talk on their cell phones, ignore traffic, and chat with workers). The most exacting cost will be on downtown merchants, who will be robbed of 20 parking spaces because of the curved bump-outs. The bump-outs serve an aesthetic purpose, not a functional one. They provide a classic example of what works on the drawing board may not work in real life.

THE CITY’s ANSWER TO THE PARKING PROBLEM: MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT

Parking has FOREVER been an issue, or at least for the past generation. There aren’t enough spaces to satisfy the needs, the parking maids and maidmen act like zealots, and the contemplation of parking keeps more people away from the business hub than any other single factor, except for maybe the walking dead and assorted critters who infest the street.

So what does the city of Pittsfield do? It designs away 20 spaces. The bump-outs eat up that many spaces. Neat, huh? Also note that in designing this, the city ignored the en masse protests of the majority of small business owners directly affected by this move.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

The improper design also has created a snow-removal problem. First, the bump-outs round out directly into what used to be the straight plowing lanes, a smooth, straight, curb-aligned path for quick removal. Under the new design, the plows must each up before hitting the bumps. This will pile up snow and require extra maneuvering by the drivers. A supporter made the ridiculous point that the round-outs are like parked cars that plows have to negotiate.

Un no. Illegally parked cars can be towed. Try doing that with a round-out.

THE PLANET had the chance to speak with several plow jockeys recently: Uniformly, they spit on the new design. One plow guy called the bump-outs “a Sun City design.” When we asked him to explain, he said it’s the type of sidewalk enhancement that usually gets reserved for locales with warm climates and little or no snow. In Pittsfield, he said, “This will be a disaster.”

Moreover, the wider sidewalks means more work for the store merchants to keep the paths clean in winter. Apparently, the city feels they don’t have enough to do now trying to stay alive on the mean streets.

Wider sidewalks  translate into narrower vehicle lanes. Snow pileup on curbside, a persistent winter discouragement for downtown foot traffic, will further eat into the traffic lanes. THE PLANET shares some inside knowledge to all and any budding entrepreneurs for a great business to break into before the snows fall: Renting Sherpa guides and pack mules to help people climb the mountainous snowbanks.

A TOWN WITHOUT PITY, A CITY WITHOUT A CLUE

It all adds up to a city without a clue, the implementation of a Master Plan that wasn’t so masterful, and the general sense of ineptness that hangs over official business like a PCB cloud.

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TWO INTO ONE DON’T GO … OR DOES IT?

Another local issue that has emerged is discussion to eliminate one state representative from Pittsfield by combining the two legislative districts, including the Third with 12 of 14 Pittsfield precincts, into one district. The matter will be brought up tomorrow at the city council meeting.

First reaction, which is not always the best, would caution THE PLANET against this move. All things being equal, why is it good to take away a representative? Isn’t is best for the city to have two advocates in Boston instead of one?

Perhaps all things are equal. Perhaps proponents of this measure have a strong case. We keep an open mind, but we have many red flags that will have to be lowered.

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WE’RE NOT AFTER A PULITZER; WE ONLY WANT TO KEEP THE PLAYING FIELD LEVEL FOR WE THE PEOPLE ON THE “GEPIT” ISSUE

We are not after a Pulitzer Prize, which someone said to us this weekend. The comment was tinged with sarcasm over our coverage of the GE-PCB issue, which we contend is the single most important issue facing the city.

In light of the residual toxins that GE has left throughout the city, we do not consider the matter closed. We do not accept the Consent Decree as the last word. As THE PLANET has pointed out, the decree has provisions for re-addressing issues originally NOT addressed at all or satisfactorily. We never said repoeners would be easy, but when is something worthwhile “easy”?

The GE-Pittsfield Industrial Toxin issue (GEPIT)  can be divided into two parts:

(1) Re-addressing Pittsfield, especially Hill 78 and Silver Lake.

(2) Deciding on what to do about the Rest of the River (to Long Island Sound).

No media outlet has provided the in-depth coverage of this website. No media outlet has provided for a full range of public commentary. No media outlet has made sure the GEPIT discussion remains current. THE PLANET serves We The People.

In that vein, we bring you another guest commentary.

‘REST OF VIVER DOESN’T SPEAK FOR ALL OF US IN WARD 4’

By CHARLES CIANFARINI

Special to PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

The meeting at Lenox Town Hall by the state on Oct. 12 about their plan for the Rest of the River offered insight into the thinking of the group named Ward 4 Rest of River Watch. First of all, their name is a misrepresentation of Ward 4 in the City of Pittsfield. Their group should be named People Who Have Homes Next To The River.

They do not represent everyone who lives in Ward 4, since I live there and have a different viewpoint.

During the comment period, some members of that group spoke about watching a beaver chewing on a tree branch, having their grandchildren sled in the winter on a hill near the riverbank and about being inconvenienced by the potential remediation process of removing PCBs from the river.

While no one WANTS to go through this process of remediation if it could be avoided, the fact remains that PCBs are harmful to health and must be removed from the river. Much of the discussion was about the cancer risk of PCBs, but PCBs cause many other health problems.

PCBs are known hormone disrupters and continuing studies are showing they may cause infertility, affect infants in utero which result in learning disabilities and a lowering of IQ abilities and also may offer other diseases an easier pathway into our bodies. Because PCBs alter the main body systems (immune, hormone, enzyme and nervous) they affect a large number of our organs and functions, often at very low exposure levels. Here is a link to learn more: http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/tsd/pcbs/pubs/effects.htm

It was obvious that many from that group in attendance were more concerned about the “bother” of the remediation work than about health effects, even though I am sure that there were people in the audience whose families have suffered from health effects, very possibly from PCB and river toxins exposure.

There was even mention of property values being adversely affected by the work of cleaning the river. This  is one of their major concerns and it is an understandable reaction, although they may be reacting to fear rather than knowledge.

Just look at the hundreds of properties in Pittsfield that have been remediated and you find that their values are as high as other properties in their neighborhoods. Compare that to the low value of the property on Longview Terrace that GE purchased due to the extensive contamination and turned into a fenced off “pocket park” in that residential neighborhood. Wouldn’t these people along the river rather have their property values be protected by being next to a remediated river rather than one that is contaminated with PCBs and other toxins and where they will always be under the threat of flooding and having more PCBs on their property and potentially in their homes?

There were two high water events on the river within 10 days of each other late this summer that resulted in flooding along the river. It was reported that these types of events which previously were termed 100 year events could be expected to be 25-year events instead. So that threat is real.

But let’s take the opposite possibility of extended drought in the area where we could have extremely low water levels in the river. Then the danger to the population of the Berkshires and especially those closest to the river is breathing in the airborne PCBs attached to dust emanating from the dry river banks and riverbeds. Our only real protection is removing these toxins now.

Part of the rationalization of not removing PCBs and other contamination from the river bed and banks, relates to the natural river processes which cause a river to meander, erode and change its course over time. The premise is that you do not want to remove the current banks and restore them with any type of armoring which would prevent the future natural evolution of the river. Yet that process was already answered at the EPA Charette earlier this year in Lenox, where river restoration experts showed how you rebuild the banks without the rip-rap type of armoring that was needed in the first two miles. The remediated river will still be able to evolve as nature intended.

The homeowners and business owners along the river will try to use this argument of “keeping the river natural”, not for the sake of the river but so they will not be inconvenienced. What would they say though if river flooding continued to threaten their homes and businesses – would they say that the river should be left to its natural processes or would they DEMAND that the government (state and federal) change the natural flow of the river to protect their property.

I know that remediation may not be something to look forward to, because from personal experience as a property owner, my property was remediated in 1998. GE paid contractors took a minimum of a foot of soil from the entire property, right up to the foundation of the house and the two houses adjacent had excavation to levels at least 8 feet deep including one section where you could no longer see the top of the dump truck being loaded in the center of the hole. We all survived this process and were better for it. Some houses there have sold for prices that were unimaginable in the past. Remediation works and not only protects property values, but increases them.

While it is obvious the Ward 4 Rest of River Watch are focused only on themselves and their immediate “nuisance” with the river cleanup process, it is sad that they  cannot look past the short term disruption for the greater need to have a clean, remediated and restored river for all.

We thank Charles Cianfarini for this post. THE PLANET encourage comments from all qualified writers on all relevant issues.

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WITH APLOMB AND LEFTOVERS, WE SAY,

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLE.”

LOVE TO ALL.