By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, MAY 6 ,2014) — Faced with fourth and 26 from its own 15, the city council’s Ordinance and Rules committee punted, unanimously tabling Mayor Dan Bianchi‘s controversial request for a managerial and exempt pay raise. Good call. They got off a booming, deep […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary —————————————————— HOUSE AD: Tune to Access Pittsfield, PCTV, Channel 16, this coming Thursday, beginning at 7 p.m. Are you ready for PLANET VALENTI TELEVISION: PVTV? Well you better be, because it’s coming your way that night, live and in poison. We shall be taking your phone calls, […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, MAY 2-4, 2014) — The “hits” just keep piling up, as the inept mayor continues to run roughshod over due process. The appointment of Monterosso and Berkowitz Sabourin … an FY15 budget that approached $150 million … staff jumping the sinking ship […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2014) — Welcome to May Day, everyone, and that would seem to be an appropriate message for taxpayers and ordinary citizens to send as The Suits and Special Interests continue to team up against them. Only one outlet stands for The […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary LATE, LATE WORD: DON’T TELL ANYONE, BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW! The Boring Broadsheet is caught once again asleep, so THE PLANET shall break it. A meeting is scheduled today at at 10 a.m. city hall that could decide the fate of William Monterosso, the embattled […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014) — It was the redoubtable Joe Pinhead, one of THE PLANET‘s most astute, formidable, and scrupulous correspondents, who pointed out the supreme irony. On the night our Right Honorable Good Friends of the Pittsfield City Council unanimously approved Mayor Dan […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2014) — Soon, we may have an exciting announcement for all the readers and inhabitants of THE PLANET. Stay tuned. The substance of this announcement is still in the talking phase, with syllables exchanged and field trips made. It is that […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 25-27, 2014) — What happens when The Empty Suit subsumes Lady Light Weight? No, this is not a question for Albert Einstein or anyone connected with quantum physics. You need not consult the theologians or the philosophers. Rather, it is a matter more for the […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014) — First off, gang, after hearing from and consulting various authorities (city clerk’s office, former council president Kevin Sherman, self-appointed parliamentarians, and an attorney or two) it’s still very much an unanswered question THE PLANET raised (what, you think The […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014) — As you likely know by now, councilor Lisa Tully of Ward 1 changed her vote on the bus borrowing measure, which passed on an 8-2-1 vote. At the end of this column, we shall publish the statement Tully sent THE […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary ADD 1: We are posting this a half hour before tonight’s city council meeting is gaveled to order. We just got a phone call from a source who says he heard from another party who talked to Ward 1 councilor Lisa Tully. It’s third-hand, but the sources […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2018) — Hey, it’s Patriot’s Day, that lame excuse the Commonwealth uses to give public employees a paid day off courtesy of taxpayers. Let’s see. Working up a rough heading on that, we take the state’s $37 billion budget. THE PLANET conservatively […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, EASTER WEEKEND, APRIL 18-20, 2014) — In honor of Good Friday, there will be no “regular” edition of THE PLANET. Instead, we will present a brief look ahead to next week. May we take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a Happy […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014) — Tuesday, we ventured to city hall to see who would fess up to the apparent mess created at Berkshire Works by the necessarily enforced suspension, with pay, of Mayor Dan Bianchi‘s chosen one, the fair-haired William Monterosso. First, let’s […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2014) — THE PLANET continues now with one of the most important stories affecting Pittsfield at this time: the vote on school buses. Millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake. Interestingly, it’s been a story both distorted and underreported by the […]
By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014) — What’s going on at Berkshire Works? Sources there and elsewhere say the “new” executive director, on the job for less than three months, is already on leave — with pay, of course. The charges? Multiple allegations of sexual harassment. […]
