BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

First of Two Parts

(FOrTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JUNE 8, 2026) — You have to go back to the Civic Authority debacle to come up with a more blatant example of Bitchfield’s political graft that exceeds the city’s refusal to publish the $155,000 taxpayer-funded “independent” report on the Pittsfield High School scandals.

In this two-part series, THE PLANET enlightens those who weren’t around in 2000. It provides context.

Those who lived through the Civic Authority scheme remember what it’s like to have government steamroll its citizens in favor of a select few in cahoots with The Suits. The conspiracy involved the administration of Gerry Doyle and the local daily that used to be known as the Berkshire Eagle. It was barroom politics intersecting with a already-failing daily rag.

Three elements came into play:

• Pittsfield had lost its MLB-affiliated professional baseball team.
  • To solve this, the city proposed building a new stadium.
    • A consultant’s study examined almost 20 potential sites. Miraculously, it selected the parcel on Center Street where CVS not stands.
• The daily newspaper then known as the Berkshire Eagle, in another amazing coincidence, owned that very parcel of land, which had been contaminated by previous commercial occupancies.
  • In a “courageous” editorial stance, the Eagle published story after story about how ideal the site would be, conveniently not disclosing its ownership position.
    • The newspaper then had a feisty columnist called Dan Valenti, who fearlessly in his column “City Limits” defied management and wrote about how disastrous the plan would be.
• That’s because of mayor Gerry Doyle, who wanted to expand his power beyond the will of voters and the needs of citizens.
  • To do this, he proposed creating the so-called Civic Authority, which would have unlimited power, including eminent domain rights.
    • The Civic Authority would consist of seven “community leaders,” with the mayor having appointing authority over a majority of five seats, all stooges, making it beyond the reach of voters.

———- ooo ———-

In short, the Eagle and the city conspired to used the baseball park as an excuse for the former to dump a polluted site it couldn’t sell and for the latter to receive nearly limitless, and “legal,” power. Of course, the parties put the plot together in secret. They might have gotten away with it, except for a feisty talk show host named Dan Valenti, who broke the story live on the air on his daily soiree titled The Dan Valenti Show on WBRK AM & FM. The Suits didn’t count on Valenti having sources in every city hall office and a bushel load in the Eagle newsroom.

One of THE PLANET‘s  city hall sources tipped us off of an extremely unusual move made by the city council. The council, working in tandem with Doyle, approved the enabling legislation. Over a sleepy weekend, under cover of darkness, council president Tom Hickey gave the Civic Authority bill to our feckless state legislators to advance the legislation through the State House in Boston in the form of a Home Rule Petition.

That Monday morning, Valentine his radio show disclosed the sleazy move. Next thing you know, citizens — led by Dave Potts, just an ordinary guy who came out of nowhere, and Ann Leaf, who had a home on South Center Street — revolted.

The all-powerful Civic Authority backers, using the tantalizing prospect of a new stadium as bait, were caught off guard. They expected to pulverize any opposition. Instead, they awakened, for the first and last time in Bitchfield’s post-modern history, to citizens saying “No!” They forced a special election.

The Suits poured lots of money into a sophisticated marketing campaign to sway the vote. This included buying blocks of time on The Dan Valenti Show. A high-profile double agent, who publicly identified with The Suits but secretly served as THE PLANET‘s conduit to inside information, told us that they intended to compromise Valenti, expecting him to resign or give way to a tamable guest host rather than accepting sponsorship for “the stadium.”

They were wrong. We aired the commercials and gave them our very best “Art Fern” sell, confident that the editorial portion of the show would speak the truth.

Our callers, running 9-to-1 opposed to the Civic Authority legislation, deluged the call-in lines, giving fuel and sustenance to the grass-roots efforts of the Potts-Leaf initiative. And wouldn’t you know — come the day of the special selection, Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski prevailed. They sent The Suits down to a stunning loss. For a brief moment, citizens and taxpayers had reclaimed ownership of their government.

PART TWO ON WEDNESDAY.

——————————————————————-

“We should give city government over to the monkeys. They will only steal bananas” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

Copyright (c) 2026 By Dan Valenti, PLANET VALENTI and EUROPOLIS MANAGEMENT. All rights reserved. The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. Those who leave comments own all the responsibilities that are or can be attached to those comments, be they rhetorical, semantic, or legal. Such commentators remain solely responsible for what they post and shall be and remain solely accountable for their words. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in, but not limited to, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. We serve as a marketplace of ideas, without prejudice and available to all. All users of this site — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice and their use of/participation in this site. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.