BY DAN VALENTI

Looks like Jay and El Chipo are the protected Coop boys with some decent arguments to cover their asses. May didn’t take a deal to make it all go away, so it looks like the mayor-elect is going to get thrown to the wolves. Barry and Co. may have rigged the election to get em in, but it’s going to be a shitfest ahead. good luck, Pittsfield!

Gender fluid? Is that what Monica got all over her blue dress?

Dan, in response to gazing at Gaza. How many people did the US kill after 911? Unfortunately to try to eliminate cowardly savages (Hamas) who hide behind innocent civilians, there are more casualties. They need to be exterminated.

It appears most public-school systems have taken the same philosophies of most US colleges and have become nothing more than liberal activist training grounds.

The old school 3 R’s have been replaced by the new school 3 R’s: rioting, reverse racism, and (social media) ratings.

Woke college students CELEBRATE Hamas attacks on Israel https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f633.svg – YouTube

HS teachers are just trying to play catch up with collegiate counterparts, like Kindergarden. Why teach the subject matter, when you can discuss the hate of Trump, “climate change,” or your math teachers dating life and/or their sexual proclivities.

Good, Healthy subjects to talk to juvenile children about, huh Kindergarden?

Who cares if Juan, Tremaine, or Mecedes, can read or write? Check out their TikTok video. They prove that they can sure dance their a$$ off in the middle of an Algebra class.

They might not churn out doctors, lawyers, or future generations of gainfully employed adults, but the Picklefield Public Scohol system, puts out top-notch social media influencers.

Maybe they can get a piece of Flat’s $340,000 ARPA handout to social media influencers to “love Picklefield.”

Influencers, Journalists Invited to ‘Love Pittsfield’ / iBerkshires.com – The Berkshires online guide to events, news and Berkshire County community information.

McNasty Marchetti
Muffin Man Pete white
Cone head Kavey

Hear Ye!
What this Michigan man says about democracy after town ousts entire local government | Fox News

November 11, 2023

Happy Veterans Day. The Berkshire Eagle’s editorial essentially calls for rebuilding Pittsfield’s Middle-Class families. Economics 101 in public management is to use the city’s limited resources to invest in people – the community’s most valuable resource – and the community itself. It is not just to grow the tax base for the sake of raising municipal spending, but it is a nice thing when the people return the favor of being invested in by investing in the community.

It is old as economics itself: How to rebuild and maintain the middle class? The answer is that the career politicians vote for and fund: Housing, Healthcare, Public Education, Transportation, support businesses that pay employees a full-time living wage with benefits, teach everyone Financial Literacy (such as the state lottery is really voluntary regressive taxation), support policies that favor realistic pension plans, offer unemployment, workman’s compensation and disability income and programs, teach unskilled workers how to be skilled professionals, call out politicians who do not invest in people and communities, demand a government that is equitable and efficient and effective and accessible and open and transparent as possible, that does not giveaway millions or billions of dollar per fiscal year in tax breaks to the wealthy financial, corporate and ruling elites (see: greedy registered lobbyist Dan Bosley on Beacon Hill), while systemically underfunding government and public education funding, and the like.

North Street in downtown Pittsfield has many empty storefronts, many social services agencies – as North Street is sarcastically called “Social Services Alley”, too few businesses, and it is surrounded by the sarcastically called “The Ring of Poverty” impoverished and distressed neighborhoods. Pittsfield is always listed in the top 10 cities/population for violent crime in Massachusetts. Pittsfield’s public school district has Level 5 public schools, which is the WORST rating. In return for all of this, Pittsfield politics spends an excessive $205.6 million operating fiscal year 2024 municipal budget. All of this combined is the OPPOSITE of Economic Development! No rational middle-class family or small business is going to choose to relocate to Pittsfield given these sad realities.

The proposed restoration of the over 100-year-old Wahconah Park comes with a steep price tag: an estimated $30 million! I believe that Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Happy Endings), Becket State Senator Paul Mark (D-Rubber Stamp), PAC Man Richie Neal (D-K Street), Maryland Markey (D-Chevy Chase), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Joe Biden) could request state and federal funds to assist the city in this worthy endevour. The next Mayor of Pittsfield could take Governor Maura Healey to a baseball game in Pittsfield next Summer 2024.

I went to a baseball game at Wahconah Park when Mike Dukakis was the Governor of Massachusetts many years ago now, and after the announcer told us of his attendance at the Pittsfield baseball game, some people clapped, while others rudely booed. Years later, I saw Superman – Christopher Reeve – attending a baseball game at Wahconah Park. It was sad to see Superman – Christopher Reeve – in a wheelchair, but we all loved that Superman was a resident of Williamstown in the beautiful Berkshires back then. The Iron Horse – Lou Gehrig – played minor league baseball at Wahconah Park a very long time ago now.

Lastly, I believe that Mayor Linda Tyer is the best Mayor of Pittsfield in my lifetime of 48 years – if not EVER. She is a great public manager, and she has received praises from state and local officials throughout Massachusetts. She is nobody’s fool when it comes to financial management. My mother knew Linda Tyer when they worked in the Lenox public school district over 20 years ago. She told me that Linda Tyer did a great job back then, and that everyone admired her professional work in Lenox. I have been a supporter of Linda Tyer in Pittsfield politics for the last 20 years. She is a politician who believes in many of the same beliefs that I, myself, believe in, including supporting Human Rights, Investing in People and the Community, having compassion for the poor people and neighborhoods, having strong financial management skills, and doing well by the City of Pittsfield.

Jon Melle

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Our Opinion: “The most-pressing issues facing Pittsfield’s reshaped leadership”
The Berkshire Eagle, Editorial, November 11, 2023

Following Tuesday’s municipal election, Pittsfield’s leadership landscape will soon shift considerably. In addition to the mayor’s office, five of 11 City Council seats — including half of the four at-large seats — will see turnover when city leaders are sworn in early next year.

They will have to hit the ground running to address the many issues that matter most to Pittsfield residents, which include long-lingering concerns that have and will elude cheap and easy answers. These are the issues that we see as the most-pressing based on our assessment of the state of the city as well as the perspectives of hundreds of readers who wrote letters to the editor during the election about what they wanted to see. We’ll continue to focus in and raise questions on these issues down the line, but and foster the priorities pronounced during campaign season.

North Street
There are many perspectives about precisely what North Street should look like, but the common theme is that the city can do better by its once-thriving downtown center. While the exact conditions of the GE heydays likely won’t return anytime soon, what are the best ways to not only nurture new life in empty storefronts but support extant downtown business-owners who too often feel their concerns are overlooked by city leadership?

And what is the plan to resolve the knotty issue of traffic flow and bike lanes? While there are plenty of folks with a reductive view in either direction — rip up North Street to make it exactly as it was vs. leave the confusing bike lanes as they are and ignore the growing complaints — we urge city leaders to get both creative and practical in finding a solution. No option will please everyone, and the sudden and apparently underthought redesign a couple years ago needlessly polarized this issue for many. City leaders must envision an evolution of North Street’s formulation that promotes safe transit on four, two and zero wheels while limiting headaches for downtown visitors and businesses alike. Easier said than done, but leaving it as is for much longer is only going to promote discontent and derision in a downtown that Pittsfield needs to flourish.

Public safety
There was much debate, particularly in the mayoral race, about exactly what posture the Pittsfield Police Department should take on North Street and other areas where residents and visitors alike have reported feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. Even if all parties agreed on precisely what that posture should be, what gets less oxygen are the necessary questions about how to pay for some ambitious plans to beef up PPD staffing, particularly on North Street and other spots with heavy foot traffic, given the department’s current staffing and budgetary restraints.

Beyond that, though, combating the many systemic issues that give rise to public safety concerns will require more than just balancing police patrol numbers. We already expect a lot from our police — some might argue too much, in fact. We not only task them with the tough and dangerous job of fighting and preventing crime, but often rely on them as first responders to those struggling with stubborn social problems that can lead to crime or safety concerns: addiction, mental health extremis, housing insecurity, economic desperation.

By all means, let’s stop panhandling in Pittsfield, but treat it like the symptom it is. Feed people. House people. Pay people a living wage. Fund and fully staff addiction, mental health and social service programs.

As a thoughtful op-ed from city faith leaders recently underscored, it’s both understandable and easy to complain about pervasive symptoms like aggressive panhandling. It’s far harder but all the more necessary to diagnose and treat the social ills that give rise to those symptoms. Pittsfield leaders must determine how to not only apply band-aids to the symptoms but treat these diseases at their sources with the budgetary resources it has. That will require both a careful balance of principles and practicality as well as an eye for collaborative opportunities with like-minded nonprofit, regional, state and federal partners.

Economic development
Like many of its post-industrial peers, Pittsfield is hungry for economic growth and transformation. There have been some modest to major success stories in recent years that suggest a path forward, and the current administration’s record and groundwork is worth heeding — for both its wins and losses. Mayor Linda Tyer’s administration, including the so-called red carpet team meant to court new business, can reasonably point to some successes in plugging Pittsfield as a place for burgeoning tech business — attracting firms like Electro Magnetic Applications, presiding over the opening of the Berkshire Innovation Center and seeing expansion at companies like Pittsfield Plastics Engineering and General Dynamics. That ambition must be tempered with realistic and sustainable goals, however, as unfortunately demonstrated by the unceremonious shuttering of the Wayfair call center three years after its celebrated opening.

What’s clear, though, is that Pittsfield needs to boost its tax base if the lofty promises of campaign season are to survive budgetary reality. A common theme from voters — in this or any city — is that they want more out of their public services (such as more headway on the city’s considerable deferred maintenance backlog) while mitigating tax and fee hikes for residents. Anyone who’s taken Economics 101 will tell you the only way to accomplish both of those things is to broaden the tax base. Pittsfield has made some progress here, but it must build on it now.

Wahconah Park
While this issue is more specific than the others, it’s a pivotal one to the spirit and vitality of Pittsfield. Thanks to the work of the Wahconah Park Restoration Committee, plans to put some long overdue shine on this historic diamond are slowly but surely coming along. And they come with the prospect of a steep price tag: an estimated $30 million. The restoration committee this week voted to send a feasibility study for the renovation plan to both the current mayor as well as Mayor-elect Peter Marchetti.

A new and revitalized Wahconah Park is one step closer to fruition. There are, however, still miles to go before any construction can start.

Mr. Marchetti during his campaign was careful to both recognize the importance of Wahconah Park’s future as well as keep his eye on the ball of other big-budget items that demand the city’s attention, from grappling with deferred maintenance to paying for an overdue new police station. The Wahconah Park Restoration Committee has done much good work gathering consensus and forwarding a plan to preserve this ballpark for generations of baseball-lovers to come. But forwarding an eight-figure project is a very different matter than financing that $30 million project in a city with an annual budget of $200 million. Balancing the sustainable future of Wahconah Park with budgetary responsibility will be a tall order, and this field of dreams in the heart of Pittsfield needs city leaders to step up to the plate and bring this one home safely.

This is neither an exhaustive list of all the issues facing Pittsfield nor a prescription for easy answers on all the matters highlighted here. But the problems and potential in Pittsfield need action sooner than later, which will require some momentum to be built up in this critical transition period. We will be watching closely as Mayor-elect Marchetti picks the pivotal members of his administration, particularly the role of finance director. And with the results in hand from a nonbinding referendum showing Pittsfield voters’ strong support for maintaining the city’s residency requirement for public safety chiefs, the stage is set for what should be a swift but thoughtful process of hiring a new police chief. We urge the mayor-elect and councilors-elect to be transparent with their constituents about their plans and process for tackling these myriad issues.

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