BY DAN VALENTI There’s dumb. There’s dumber. There’s dumbest. And there’s Seth Rogovoy. Yesterday, The Planet got wind of Rogovoy’s twittering from the jury box. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Conor Berry of the Berkshire Eagle, who covered the trial, disputes that Rogovoy was twittering from the jury box itself, as in literally. The Planet agrees and never […]
BY DAN VALENTI This is a campaign year, and in the City of Pittsfield, it promises to be wild, wooly, wet, and wanting. Wild because several would-be incumbents are now lame ducks (Ruberto, Lee, Lothrop), wooly because the hair will fly as campaigns have become more caustic each year, wet because voters will again get […]
BY DAN VALENTI The local banking scene can always be used as a thermometer of an area’s economic health, a separate question from a region’s economic development. As we can see in Berkshire County, particularly Pittsfield, the local banks are strong while economic development, as measured by a shrinking tax rate, is weak. So what […]
BY DAN VALENTI Welcome back from Super Sunday, and greetings from Day 1 of the rest of your week. Today we present an assortment of news and views culled from confabs with our various spies, agents, confreres, and partners in truth, justice, and The Planetary way. The Planet has a “community newsroom,” with news hounds […]
BY DAN VALENTI As this site manages growth, we shall carefully watch “hours in versus benefits derived” (HvB). That’s what a systems analyst (and acquaintance) told The Planet about the future (What, you were expecting Nostradamus, already?). She took me through the math of HvB, a buzz-wordy management tool, not because we needed it but […]
BY DAN VALENTI Part 2 of a Two-part Series Up, down, and in between, many have made much of The Planet’s recent analyses and criticisms of the Berkshire Eagle, dubbed by this site as the Boring Broadsheet. Be clear. Our concern takes the form of tough love. Growing up in Pittsfield in the 50s and […]
BY DAN VALENTI In Septmber 1995 Denver-based Media News Group purchased the storied Berkshire Eagle from the Miller family. A bad combination of a faulty real estate purchase and switch over to color presses left the Millers deep in debt. They had leveraged almost $18 million at a time when the market was going south. […]
BY DAN VALENTI In my weekly op-ed column this week for the Pittsfield Gazette, I shall be writing about the Berkshire Eagle. I shall comment on its sad descending from winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 to its present-day toothlessness, a situation prompted by an out-of-state chain ownership that cares nothing about Pittsfield, Mass., except […]
BY DAN VALENTI The Mayor Responds The Planet heeds Mayor Jimmy Ruberto’s call to let the DPW land deal “cool down,” since the project has “taken on a life of its own.” First, though, we share the mayor’s comments on Patrick Sheehan, sent to The Planet this afternoon. Dan: “Sorry for the delay. (1) It […]
BY DAN VALENTI How these things start is often a source of amusement and always one of conjecture, but it has gotten around that Media News Group has inquired into the purchase of this website. The Planet is not for sale, though everything has its price. We can categorically state that no one from the […]
BY DAN VALENTI As always on The Planet, a ton of “stuff” is in the works. Let me knock off some of them in rapid fashion. Oxymoron — We learned today that Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Airhead) is on the House “Intelligence” committee, another sign that Armageddon is nigh. One of Bach Baby’s GOP colleagues, who […]
BY DAN VALENTI The Planet has enjoyed record days of traffic this week, and we thank readers for sampling the soup and, many, coming back for more. The Planet is building gravitas and momentum, far ahead of our admittedly conservative business plan. The question of advertising is for down the road somewhere. For the moment, […]
BY DAN VALENTI It is not so much a triumph for The Planet as a victory of the bedraggled taxpayers over the robber-baron politicians who would commit evil in their name. The Planet did show what a enterprise journalism can accomplish. In this case, our fearless, muck-racking efforts saved Pittsfield taxpayers at least $4 million […]
BY DAN VALENTI People of Pittsfield, rejoice! The Planet just saved you $4 million. Sweeter than that is Jonathan Lothrop crediting The Planet for the save. The fattened Ward 5 councilor told the public last night that he thought they had the deal sewn up, but the cat got out of the bag. He means […]
BY DAN VALENTI Lost in all the early election talk yesterday (there’s more later in this post) was the story of PCBs on the site the city of Pittsfield wants to buy to relocate the DPW. THE CITY MUST NOT BUY THIS PROPERTY! The Planet has talked to several former employees of GE’s defunct Power […]
BY DAN VALENTI The political fallout from Jimmy Ruberto’s decision not to run for mayor in 2011 won’t be felt until later this year, in May, when nomination papers become available. These papers are as every bit mind altering as substance within the papers used to roll and smoke mother nature. The euphoria produces in […]
