October 4, 2022
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I have followed my native hometown's Pittsfield politics for decades of my 47-year-old life. The reason why people say Pittsfield politics is because unlike most communities who operate in the 21st century, Pittsfield politics still operates like the 1950s era Godfather movies with the 4 families who ran NYC's Mafia businesses. Pittsfield is stuck in the past because the Good Old Boys - most of whom don't even actually live in Pittsfield anymore - still feel like they have to run the show.
Unfortunately for me, I experienced it all fist had prior to, during and after my dad, Bob, was a Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000). The thing that really surprised me was that when people who lived outside of the Pittsfield area asked Luciforo what was really going on, Nuciforo lied to them by saying that he hopes everything will work out for me in my life, while Luciforo tried to put me in the late Berkshire County Sheriff Carmen Massimiano's Pittsfield jail during the Spring of 1998 and Summer of 1998, which was after Nuciforo filed multiple state "ethics" complaints against my dad to try to destroy my dad's career and make my dad resign his elected position.
I read Ward 2 Pittsfield City Council Charles Ivar Kronick's letter to the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) on your blog. My thoughts about it are that Charles Kronick may not (fully) realize how Pittsfield politics is run. The group of provincial political insiders want all of the power, and there is no better way to have it all by fully controlling the city's spending. Matt Kerwood is a puppet of the Good Old Boys, and he will try to pull the wool over the eyes of Charles Kronick and others like him by saying that the city needs Matt Kerwood's financial expertise, which is a joke given the real state of Pittsfield's finances.
The proverbial 4 families who still run Pittsfield politics like it is still the 1950s act differently outside of Pittsfield, which means they know damn well that they are no good. I hope that Charles Kronick understands how the game is played in Pittsfield politics so that he won't be the next guy in a long line of good men and women to be persecuted by the Good Old Boys.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
To the editor: In the Sept. 27 City Council meeting, the mayor nominated Finance Director Matthew Kerwood to the Board of Assessors.
The conflict of interests in this appointment is evident, but what this appointment indicates is that the mayor and the appointee Kerwood both are engaging in profoundly poor judgment. The appointee currently oversees the city’s finance, treasurer’s and tax departments. Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 41, Section 24 prohibits assessors from serving as tax collectors. Beyond the law, there are best practices that state that financial, tax and treasurer are always separated. It is not that one person cannot perform all functions; it is generally that one ought not do so.
The separation of financial oversight, which is virtually mandated in private business, logically extends to governance of property owners and taxpayers generally. That director Kerwood is currently directing finance and treasury is an artifact that dates back to the prior administration and does not originate from him or the mayor. However, the mayor’s decision to now further conflate oversight of the tax department with the Board of Assessors is a terrible abuse of common sense, legal sense and financial sense. The problem now unfortunately extends to the appointee, Kerwood.
Charles Kronick, Pittsfield
The writer represents Ward 2 on the Pittsfield City Council
-----
October 9, 2022
Predictable Pittsfield politics is my absolute favorite political theater to follow. Pittsfield taxpayers pay top dollar for the city's Level 5 public school district no one wants to send their kids to, including Trippy Country Buffet, along with inner-city Pittsfield's decades of high per capita violent crime, along with the city's notorious political corruption.
BeaCON Hill politics only does DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers of Western Massachusetts. The Berkshire delegation are all useless backbenchers who all get paid 6-figure public pay plus perks for doing nothing but rubber-stamping Boston's financial shell games that systemically underfund local government and public education.
Swamp politics is about wealthy Members of U.S. Congress endlessly mortgaging our country's future for the sole benefit of the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites, while the rest of us have to pound sand as we watch the middle-class systematically get decimated over the past 50 years. The U.S. national debt recently surpassed the $31 trillion mark. Where did all of the federal dollars go to? We are paying hundreds of dollars more every month for the same items we paid for just one year ago. It obviously did NOT go to us!
Global politics is the world calling out the so-called Green New Dealers such as Joe Biden and John Kerry for their two decades old vote for George W. Bush's invasion of oil-rich Iraq, but now Joe Biden is dealing with the Russian dictator Putin threatening a nuclear weapons war over his invasion of Ukraine, along with China's dictator Xi's threat to invade Taiwan. Why was it O.K. for Joe Biden to vote for the U.S.' invasion of Iraq, but it is not O.K. for Putin to invade Ukraine, nor is it not O.K. for Xi to invade Taiwan? Joe Biden should explain his hypocrisy to the world.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 11, 2022
On Thursday, October 13th, 2022, Mayor Linda Tyer will host a public forum with a public panel of experts to address Pittsfield's homelessness crisis. Please let us all know what the mayor and her panel of experts said at this upcoming event. How did Pittsfield go from a working-class community of over 60,000 residents in the mid-20th Century era to an economically distressed and very unequal community of around 40,000 residents in the 2020s? Who won and who lost during this transition period? Who were the failed Pittsfield politicians who put the city into the proverbial ditch? Is it a slap in the face of the low to moderate income people who live in Pittsfield to have Mayor Linda Tyer hosting this upcoming public forum on homelessness when she lives in a mansion in an exclusive Gated Community neighborhood within a few feet of the Hancock border past Berkshire Community College? Is this another publicity stunt?
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 14, 2022
Pittsfield politics sad legacy of failed leadership:
* Over $41 million in Biden Buck$ given exclusively to Mayor Linda Tyer, who managed the financial windfall in secret and then spent the Biden Buck$ by filling the coffers of the special interests she has long favored
* Matt Kerwood's secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Fund$ and Creative Public Accounting schemes (Cooks the Books!)
* Annual fiscal year municipal budgets always increasing local spending by 5 percent every year going back 40 years (which was the start of the flawed Proposition 2.5 state law)
* Hundreds of millions of public dollars in municipal debts and other liabilities that will never be paid off in our lifetimes (Is Pittsfield really financially insolvent?; Answer: YES!)
* Level 5 public school district that charges its taxpayers top dollar for rock bottom results
* Marijuana cultivation buildings stinking up residential neighborhoods with no action taken by Mayor Linda Tyer
* A homelessness crisis that is making distressed dangerous downtown Pittsfield a place most people hope to avoid even worse than ever (if that is even possible)
* The still polluted 24-year-old PEDA debacle that has millions of dollars of always growing liabilities
* Pittsfield always being in the top ten cities in Massachusetts for violent crime, according to the FBI's annual reports
* London, NYC, & L.A. museums and upscale art galleries showing arts exhibits of Pittsfield (MA) that is billed as "A City in Decay"
* Pittsfield's failed "Ruberto Renaissance" arts mecca that was sarcastically compared to Paris, London, NYC and L.A. (only to be derided by these famous cities)
* Mayor Linda Tyer living in a mansion in a Gated Community, while she passes record high annual municipal budget that are crushing the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski household who are dealing with severe economic inequality in a distressed polluted postindustrial city
* The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle)'s favorable coverage of the failed political establishment that has ruled Pittsfield politics despite the decades of population loss and the lost living wage jobs that are not coming back, (Neutron) Jack (Welch), in our lifetimes
* Generations of systemic political corruption in state and local government that shuts out the common people from having a voice in their government
* Hell would freeze over if Jon Melle's political letters were published in the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle), if Jon Melle was ever able to find and retain a living wage job in Pittsfield, and if Jon Melle's political emails weren't blocked by the corrupt career politicians who only want everyone to kiss their dirty behinds out of fear of retribution
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 16, 2022
What would Mayor Linda Tyer and Matt Kerwood do with $75,653.... for room and board at SU? That number is just chump change to Pittsfield politics! My guess is that the lovely Linda would put more of her plungers on Nothing on North (Street). My guess is that Kufflinks would shuffle around a few thousand dollars in his secretive municipal accounts every couple of business days to put a cut of the stash in one or more of his secretive Slush Fund$. The irony is that the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family could only dream about having $75,653 to spend and save instead of piss away. It must be nice to be SU, Mayor Linda Tyer and Creative Public Accountant Matt Kerwood because $75,653 is not a real number to them until one multiplies the financial figure by at least a factor of 100. Lastly, in the Swamp, one would have to multiply the financial figure by at least a factor of 10,000,000 to be seen as a real number, which would probably be pissed away in less than one month.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 21, 2022
We live in an era of severe economic inequality that we have not experienced since the 1920s. Pittsfield is one of the most economically unequal metro areas in the state of Massachusetts, as well as the nation. There are little to no living wage jobs in postindustrial Pittsfield. Mayor Linda Tyer lives in a mansion in a Gated Community within a few feet of the Hancock border. Meanwhile, inner-city Pittsfield has multigenerational poverty households, which the Boston Federal Reserve did a grant-funded program study on a few years ago. None of the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites give a damn about America's Rust Belt flyover metro areas such as Pittsfield. There are huge swaths of our country that are in severe economic distress just like Pittsfield. The homelessness crisis, the panhandling crisis, and the housing crisis are all the outcome of the 21st Century's failed political leadership. Whatever happened to the elites investing in the people and the communities that the people in need of help call home? Whatever happened to being a good man or a good woman and helping those who need the money the most? Joe Biden has spent well over $10 trillion federal dollars per year, but the poor, low- and moderate-income people are worse off than before January 21st, 2021. Where did all of the Biden Buck's money really go? Why is Beacon Hill still sitting on billions upon billions of dollars in surplus state cash without passing an economic stimulus and economic development bill with tax relief for Senior Citizens, Veterans, and so on? Why is Matt Kerwood sitting on his secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Fund$ without helping the people in Pittsfield who need the money the most? It all makes me very frustrated, but I understand that nothing will ever change unless we stop voting for the same corrupt career politicians over and over again.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 22, 2022
PITTSFIELD Politics Top Ten list of failed leadership:
1. Having a Level 5 public school district that charges its taxpayers top dollar for rock bottom results.
2. Always being a top ten city for violent crime in Massachusetts.
3. Having a combined municipal operating and capital fiscal year 2023 budget of well over $200 million without any concern for the predicted 2023 economic recession.
4. A Homelessness crisis, a panhandling crisis, and an affordable housing crisis (with Mayor Linda Tyer living in a mansion in a Gated Community within a few feet of the Hancock border).
5. A continued loss in population and living wage jobs (a shrinking tax base); How about that Rolodex, Jimmy Ruberto? I believe it was last sighted on the bottom of Silver Lake.
6. Marijuana cultivation odors stinking up residential neighborhoods without any action taken by City Hall.
7. A one political (Democratic) Party system that only serves the elites' special interests, while the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski have to pound sand.
8. The 24-year-old polluted PEDA debacle that has millions of dollars in always increasing debts and other liabilities. Why is PEDA still in existence at this point in time when it is clearly a financial failure? Who will end up paying for PEDA's multimillion-dollar debts?
9. Pittsfield's hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal public debts and other liabilities that are hidden from the taxpaying public via Matt Kerwood's Creative Accounting schemes of Mayor Linda Tyer's secretive and excessive multimillion-dollar Slush Fund$ and the questionable audits of Kufflink's Cooked Books.
10. The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) always praising Pittsfield politics' failed leadership that put Pittsfield into the proverbial ditch over the past 40 years.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
October 23, 2022
China is the world's second largest economy behind the USA. China is the world's largest polluter of greenhouse gas emissions; the USA is number two. Combined, China and the USA account for a little less than 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Both China and the USA have massive militaries, which combined pollutes more greenhouse gas emissions than most of all of the world's other countries combined.
Hunter Biden allegedly money laundered somewhere around one billion U.S. Dollars from China (to fund the big guy Joe Biden, Hunter's crack cocaine and alcohol addictions, as well as Hunter's sex addiction to strippers and sex workers). Hunter's father Joe Biden is sarcastically called Joe Xiden.
While Joe Xiden fights with the world's dictators (that is enriching the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites), China is buying a lot of cheap oil and natural gas supplies from the world's energy rich dictators, while millions of households in Europe are at risk of tragically freezing to death this upcoming Winter of 2022/2023. In the USA, millions of households will go into debt heating their homes this upcoming Winter. Both MBS and Putin shafted Joe Xiden by having OPEC cut its oil and natural gas supplies prior to the upcoming Winter. (Don't you see what is going on here? The world's dictators are telling Joe Xiden that if he is going to get his cut of the loot, then they will get their cut of the loot, too.)
Joe Xiden, billionaire John Forbes Kerry, Maryland Markey, and the other wealthy and powerful Swamp Democrat elites will still be spewing their HOT AIR about the Green New Deal nonsense, which belies the USA's status as the number one exporter of arms sales to the world - (the military industrial complex is the largest polluter of greenhouse gas emissions out there). (It would be like a heavy smoker telling you not to smoke.)
The only thing that will save our country from Joe Xiden will be the November 8th, 2022, midterm elections that will stop Joe Xiden from spending the federal government into financial oblivion, while we are all paying for his mismanagement.
Mayor Linda Tyer should stop already with her record high municipal budgets because there is a predicted economic recession in 2023. When Joe Biden will no longer be able to spend well over $10 trillion federal dollars per year anymore in 2023, which means that federal aid to Pittsfield will dry up, and Pittsfield politics will have to live within its means or go bankrupt in 2023 or shortly thereafter.
I do not like how secretive Mayor Linda Tyer is with Pittsfield's municipal finances. The taxpayers have a right to know about Matt Kerwood's Creative Accounting - Cooks the Books - schemes, multimillion-dollar Slush Fund$, hundreds of millions of dollars in public debts and other liabilities, and why Pittsfield always raises its spending by 5 percent every fiscal year over the past 40 years, which was when the flawed Proposition 2.5 state law went into effect.
Pittsfield's tax base has been shrinking over the past 50 years, while Pittsfield's spending has been increasing to record high levels, which is taking place in a distressed and severely economically unequal city. I wouldn't want to pay top dollar to Mayor Linda Tyer in return for Pittsfield's Level 5 public school district, violent crime-filled inner-city streets, the heavily indebted polluted PEDA debacle, and Pittsfield's China-like one political (Democratic) party system of provincial political corruption.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 1, 2022
I agree with blogger Dan Valenti that Mayor Linda Tyer has not produced change for the better in predictable Pittsfield politics, but how is that not surprising? It has been decades after decades of provincial politicians with their barstools, aberrations, rolodexes, Montello's part-time mayor, and the secretive secretary of vibrant and dynamic Gated Communities. I, myself, would not want to pay for a mayor who drives a Lexus luxury car to City Hall to and from her mansion in her elitist Gated Community neighborhood within a few feet from the Hancock border who now charges the Kapanski family over $200 million per fiscal year in return for Pittsfield's Level 5 public school district, Pittsfield always being in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime, the heavily indebted PEDA debacle, a dangerous downtown called "Social Services Alley" with dozens of empty storefronts, and the economically distressed inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street called "The Ring of Poverty", a corrupt state and local group of insider politicians who do nothing but DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers, the systemic suppression of citizen activism through retribution, and decades of losses in population and living wage jobs - a shrinking tax base - with record high municipal spending - the worst of both worlds - that always increases by 5 percent per fiscal year over the past 40 years, which was the start of the flawed Proposition 2.5 state law.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 9, 2022
I wonder which one is the worst debacle in Pittsfield politics? Is it the PEDA debacle that is still very polluted and has millions of dollars in always growing debts and other liabilities as the years pass us all by? Is it Jimmy Ruberto's Rolodex that legend says is at the rock bottom of Silver Lake? Is it Jimmy Ruberto's failed downtown Renaissance that he made the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski pay for? Is it Nuciforo's carte blanche to stink up residential neighborhoods with his pot growing odors? Is it Pittsfield's Level 5 public school district that over 650 students opt out of each and every academic year? Is it Mayor Linda Tyer's over $200 million Pickleball budget that takes no account of the predicted upcoming economic recession in 2023? Is it Matt Kerwood's secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Funds that should belong in local taxpayers' pockets. Is it Pittsfield politics always increasing municipal spending by 5 percent each and every fiscal year going back the last 40 years, which was the beginning of the flawed Proposition 2.5 state law? Is it Pittsfield always being in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime, according to the FBI's annual reports going back decades? Is it dangerous downtown Pittsfield's daily shootings, the over 1,000 gang members living in inner-city Pittsfield neighborhoods, and the dozens of empty storefronts on North Street? Is it upscale art galleries and museums in London, U.K., NYC and L.A. hosting visual art exhibits of postindustrial Pittsfield which they entitle: "Pittsfield: A City in Decay"?
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 12, 2022
I asked Matt "Kufflinks" Kerwood for financial advice. I asked Mayor Linda Tyer's financial genius: If I won the big lottery jackpot worth tens of millions of dollars, should I put more money into one of his multimillion-dollar Slush Fund$ or in the blackhole we all know as the polluted PEDA debacle with its always growing larger multimillion-dollar debts and other liabilities? Matt "Kufflinks" Kerwood told me that if I really want to lose millions of dollars, I should bottle up Nuciforo's pot growing odors that blanket Pittsfield's residential neighborhoods and sell Nuciforo's waste in a bottle on PEDA's Site 9, along with GE's industrial chemicals called PCBs, along with marketing Pittsfield's Level 5 public school district, along with selling people mansions in Mayor Linda Tyer's Gated Community as a bait and switch scheme to sell rooms at the Pittsfield YMCA, and finally, that I could add millions of dollars to the "Free Cash" account in Pittsfield's $200 million Pickleball budget. I told Matt "Kufflinks" Kerwood that when I win the lottery, I will use my winnings so that I may be just like the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski taxpaying family and contribute to his cause of financially screwing over the public. Matt "Kufflinks" Kerwood told me that I wouldn't meet that goal until I allowed him to "Cook the Books" so that I would go from a lottery jackpot winner to having millions of dollars in debts and other liabilities. I asked him, how would someone like Jon Melle (me) be able to pay off millions of dollars in debts and other liabilities? He told me that I would not be able to do so, but that I could go swimming in Silver Lake with no clothes on in the middle of the night. Lastly, I said to Matt "Kufflinks" Kerwood that he has earned his title of "Creative Public Accountant", and that makes the lovely Linda proud.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 18, 2022
In Pittsfield politics, one has to be a Democrat to be elected. But over the years/decades, there have been many state and local elected officials who only say that they are Democrats to get elected, but their respective public records are Republican. So many of them have used elected office as a steppingstone to a more lucrative career in the public sector. Some of the "All in the Family" for generations on end Mafia-like elected officials in Pittsfield politics do not even live in Pittsfield anymore, but they still use Pittsfield politics for their own ends. Mayor Linda Tyer is not from Pittsfield, but she aligned herself with the Good Old Boys and Girls political network to advance her career in Pittsfield politics. Other than possibly a few other good men and women in Pittsfield politics, the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield have no real representation in state and local government. To be clear, the word Democracy in Pittsfield politics is met with retribution.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 19, 2022
Hello Patrick Fennell,
Agreed. There are probably a few well-meaning career politicians among all of the corrupt career politicians out there. I support Charles Ivar Kronick in Pittsfield politics, as well as Joe Kelly Levasseur in Manchester (NH) politics because they always look out for the people and taxpayers. I like them, too, because they have told me that they don't agree with my conclusions in my political writings and blog posts. I support Mary E. Carey of Amherst (Mass.), who is my favorite journalist and blogger EVER! I support blogger Dan Valenti's advocacy for the little guy who he calls the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. I support Alan Chartock's work at WAMC Northeast public radio along with his political columns. I support the first woman Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington and her progressive political ideals. Andrea Harrington graduated from Taconic High School in 1993; I graduated from Pittsfield High School in 1993, too. I support you, Patrick Fennell, because you care about politics, the people and the taxpayers so much that you speak out against all of the political corruption in Berkshire County, Boston, the Swamp and beyond. All of the people I support have very different political views, but I admire them because their hearts are in the right place.
The following are the corrupt career politicians I do NOT support:
1. Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior aka Luciforo! This 4-foot-tall piece of crap persecuted me since I was 20 years old during the Spring of 1996 when my dad, Bob, successfully campaigned for Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000). Luciforo filed multiple state "ethics" complaints to multiple Massachusetts state agencies against my father from the Fall of 1997 to the Spring of 1998. Luciforo tried to jail me from the Spring of 1998 through the Summer of 1998. Luciforo allegedly illegally violated Massachusetts state "ethics" laws for 7 to 8 years from 1999 to 2006 when he double dipped as a Pittsfield State Senator who chaired the State Senate Finance Committee in Boston while also working as a Corporate Attorney for a Boston Law Firm named "Berman and Dowell" whereby he served as legal counsel for Boston area big banks and insurance companies. Luciforo had to step down from his elected position as a Pittsfield State Senator because of his unethical and allegedly illegal corrupt political career. In 2006, Luciforo strong-armed two woman named Sharon Henault and former one-term Pittsfield Mayor Sara Hathaway out of the state government election for Pittsfield Registrar of Deeds, where he served in his no show plum sinecure for the next six years from 2007 to 2012, while he plotted to oust then U.S. Congressman John W. Olver from his elected position in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2012, Olver retired due to redistricting, which left Luciforo to run against PAC Man Richie Neal, who defeated Luciforo by 40 percentage points in that year of 2012 primary election. Five years later in 2017, Luciforo started his marijuana business which he named "Berkshire Roots". The Boston Globe ran news stories and editorials about how Luciforo used his political connections in both Pittsfield and Boston to receive permits to sell his marijuana products to the public. Nuciforo's "Berkshire Roots" pot growing buildings on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield stink up residential neighborhoods with his pot growing odors, which Mayor Linda Tyer does nothing about despite the public outcry from residential taxpaying residents. To this day (November 19th, 2022), Luciforo still has a law office in Boston's Financial District. I have said over and over again that Nuciforo should have been disbarred and sent to prison for his allegedly illegal double dipping, but since he is not Martha Stewart or Elizabeth Holmes, Luciforo goes uncharged and unchecked. It may have something to do with his billionaire political friend John Forbes Kerry, who during his 2004 presidential campaign had Nuciforo wear a matching tuxedo with him at an elitist fundraiser with the wealthy financial elites.
2. Smitty Pignatelli aka Shitty Pigpen. Smitty Pignatelli writes lofty op-eds in Western Massachusetts newspapers, but his real public record over the past 20 years in Boston has been anything but lofty. Since 2003, Smitty Pignatelli has openly spoke out and voted against Sunshine Laws rules reforms. Smitty Pignatelli believes that Beacon Hill lawmakers should operate behind closed doors. I told Smitty Pignatelli that if the people and news media were allowed to review Boston's cooked books then we would have a voice in state government instead of being lied to over and over again by the corrupt career politicians in Boston. Smitty Pignatelli voted for his own 40 percent legislative pay raise in early-2017, which cost state taxpayers over $18 million. Smitty Pignatelli has happily accepted countless public pay raises plus public perks, which have cost state taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Smitty Pignatelli - along with Maryland Markey - supports GE's proposal to put a third leaky landfill full of industrial chemical waste called PCBs inside of a watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee over the outcry of the people who live in Lee and Lenoxdale. Smitty Pignatelli voted for two Speakers of the State House named Tom Finneran and Sal DiMasi, who later became Convicted Felons. Smitty Pignatelli blocks all of my political emails because he doesn't want me to tell him that when he writes his op-eds about Berkshire County's economically unequal and distressed economy with decades of population loss and the loss of hundreds of living wage jobs and businesses, he should look at himself in the proverbial mirror because he has been a State Representative for a very long time now.
3. Daniel E. Bosley aka the bureaucrat aka the greedy lobbyist. Dan Bosley served as a State Representative in Boston for 24 years, and he is a greedy lobbyist in Boston and beyond. Daniel Bosley sponsored the secretive rider called "The Bosley Amendment" many years ago on Beacon Hill that would have given Boston area big businesses billions of dollars in state tax breaks, which would have created a huge state budget deficit back then, but his inequitable legislation was quickly defeated back then. Dan Bosley did not support then Governor Deval Patrick's casino gambling legislation because Dan Bosley wanted to protect the state lottery's bottom line. Of course, the Massachusetts State Lottery is a multibillion-dollar per year (voluntary) regressive taxation operation that allows Beacon Hill lawmakers to give away billions of dollars in state tax breaks to wealthy Boston area big businesses so they can all enrich themselves at the public trough, while the working class gets screwed over. Just like Smitty Pignatelli, Daniel Bosley voted for Tom Finneran and Sal DiMasi for Speakers of the State House many years ago. I read on the blogs that Dan Bosley is said to collect two Massachusetts state pensions, plus public perks, plus his 6-figure per year salary as a registered lobbyist. Beacon Hill lawmakers should pass a state law that says that state taxpayers may cut out the middleman and pay their state taxes directly to Dan Bosley instead of to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It would be the most efficient way for Daniel Bosley to get his greedy hands on more of the loot from the state taxpayers.
4. Frank Guinta. When I lived in Manchester (NH) for 4 years from early-2005 to early-2009, I watched Frank Guinta be elected the mayor there for two terms. He could not even pass a budget without the Board of Alderman rewriting the municipal budget. He neglected the public schools to the point where there was public outcry from the parents and students. In 2010, he successfully ran for U.S. Congress whereby the NH Union Leader later called him "A Goddamned Liar" because he illegally used somewhere around $381,000 of his parents' retirement money to illegally fund his political campaign. When he successfully ran for U.S. Congress, Frank Guinta criticized one of his Republican Party candidate opponents for being a registered lobbyist. After he was defeated by Carol Shea-Porter in 2016, Frank Guinta became, and he still is, a registered lobbyist on K Street.
5. Jimmy Ruberto. I believe the worst decision I ever made in politics was supporting James M. Ruberto for Mayor of Pittsfield in 2003. He ended up being a snake oil salesman on steroids. Jimmy Ruberto promised the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield everything, but he delivered nothing during his eight years as mayor from 2004 - 2011. While he was the mayor during the 2008 recession, which was the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression in the 1930s, Mayor Jimmy Ruberto never stopped taxing and spending the working-class residents out of their homes. The so-called Ruberto Renaissance of dangerous downtown Pittsfield was a total failure that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Despite all of the public money Jimmy Ruberto spent as Pittsfield's mayor, he never owned a home in Pittsfield, nor did he ever rent an apartment in Pittsfield. He lived in his mother Edith's home the whole time, while his real home was in Naples, Florida, where he would go to for weeks at a time during his tenure as mayor. A few years ago, Jimmy Ruberto purchased a $490,000 condo in upscale Lenox, but his full-time residence is in Florida. Jimmy Ruberto still writes his useless Pittsfield politics letters to the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) from Naples, Florida.
6. Peter J. Larkin aka Lobbyist Larkin. Peter Larkin was a Pittsfield State Representative who said he was a Democrat, but he was really a Republican. Peter Larkin sold Pittsfield down the toilet by doing GE's bidding that made Pittsfield into GE's toxic waste dump. Peter Larkin has cashed in as a registered lobbyist for GE and other big businesses to the tune of millions of dollars. Peter Larkin is also married to a Medical Doctor who works in Worcester, and when he was a Pittsfield State Representative, Peter Larkin submitted allegedly fraudulent forms for travel per diem pay because he did not really live in Pittsfield back then. Peter Larkin voted for Tom Finneran for Speaker of the State House. Peter Larkin sponsored abstinence only sex education in public schools. When I wrote to Peter Larkin about the issue, he never responded. Peter Larkin yelled at me when I asked him to sign my nomination papers for Berkshire-based State Senator in early-2004 before I dropped out of the election back then. Dan Bosley and Smitty Pignatelli also refused to sign my nomination papers back then, too.
7. Bill Clinton. He is a twice over convicted Felon. He turned the Oval Office into the Oral Orifice. He has 26 flight logs on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet to pedo-island. He settled a sexual harassment lawsuit with Paula Jones because when he was a Governor, he had his pants down in front of her whereby he expected Paula Jones to give him a blow job. Bill Clinton should never have run for U.S. President. It upsets me that only Ghislaine Maxwell sits in a country club-like prison in Florida, while the likes of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew of the U.K., and an estimated 215 rich and powerful men go uncharged for the rape, sexual abuse and exploitation of woman as young as 14 years old.
8. Donald Trump. He had neo-Nazis work for his presidential campaigns and in his presidential administration. He did not condemn the hate march in Charlottesville, Virgina. He incited the insurrection on Capitol Hill. He is the racist leader of the White Nationalist Movement in the USA, which is also happening in Europe 100 years after Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1920s. He uses racist and sexist language to build his political base of bigots. He divided our nation with toxic politics. I will NEVER support Donald Trump in politics!
9. Joe Biden. His son Hunter Biden allegedly illegally money laundered over $1.2 billion from China, along with millions of dollars from Ukraine and Russia. Joe Biden and Hunter Biden ran a pay to play influence scheme that will lead to Joe Biden's impeachment in 2023, but he will not be convicted in the U.S. Senate just like Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump (x2). Hunter Biden is a recovering crack cocaine addict and alcoholic. Hunter Biden paid a lot of money to strippers and sex works. A young woman stripper who is somewhere around half of Hunter Biden's age had a baby girl that was fathered by Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden says that he has no memory of his young woman sexual partner. Hunter Biden lied to a Judge by saying he wasn't the father of the baby girl, but a court-ordered paternity test proved otherwise, and now Hunter Biden is making retroactive child support payments. Hunter Biden has at least 5 children by at least 3 women. Hunter Biden is still under federal legal investigation for his alleged criminal activities. Hunter Biden's connection to his father, the sitting U.S. President Joe Biden, will lead to scandal in 2023. Yet, Joe Biden openly says that he is proud of his last surviving son, Hunter Biden. If that is Joe Biden's judgment, then our country is in for a lot of hurt and trouble ahead.
10. Mike Pence. For years, I have received countless political emails from homosexual public advocacy and women public advocacy political organization saying that Mike Pence's conservative religious political views are a direct threat to their wellbeing. Mike Pence belongs in an evangelical Church instead of in the federal government. Unlike Mike Pence, I believe that there should be a wall in between Church and State. Furthermore, there are millions of people in the USA who are Jewish, Muslim and other religious faiths, along with people who are not religious, who have a voice in their government that is very different that how Mike Pence sees things in politics. If Mike Pence practiced what he preached, then he should have spoken out about Donald Trump being married three times, openly cheating on all three of his wives, having fathered a baby girl named Tiffany out-of-wedlock, along with other Republican Party leaders such as Newt Gingrich being an adulterer who was married three times, too.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
November 26, 2022
Hello Alan Chartock,
I agree with your unfavorable view of Donald Trump in U.S. politics. To be brief: Donald Trump is a political bully. Where I have differences with your view is with your claim that the Democratic Party is the political party of the Have Nots, while the Republican Party is the political party of the Haves.
It has been about 50 years now - just about as long as Joe Biden has been in the Swamp - that the U.S. Government and Wall Street (and K Street) has systemically decimated the U.S. middle class to create the largest wealth inequality ratios in about 100 years' time. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are directly responsible for supply side economics and the financial shell games that have given nearly all of the income gains to the wealthy few since the 1970s.
Look at your State Representative Smitty Pignatelli as an illustration of inequitable public policies on the state level in Massachusetts politics. Smitty is nothing more than a rubber stamp vote for Boston's corrupt and secretive State House leaders, who giveaway a little less than $18 billion per fiscal year in state tax breaks to Boston area big businesses, which enriches the ruling, corporate and financial elites at the public trough while the rest of us have to pound sand.
What is wrong with this picture? Where you, Alan Chartock, live in Great Barrington, Beacon Hill lawmakers for a long time have systemically underfunded public education state aid (by over $1 billion per fiscal year), local aid, and other forms of state aid that makes your local taxes increase a lot higher than necessary. When someone such as I write about these matters to Smitty Pignatelli, he blocks my political emails, and then he seems to mock me by writing one of his lofty yet phony op-eds how he goes to Boston (for the past 20 years and counting) and fights for the people and taxpayer of Berkshire County and points east. If I wanted someone fighting for my economic and financial interests, I would not want it to be Smitty Pignatelli because he would give me back a fraction of what I am paying for in state government.
Your U.S. House of Representative Richie Neal (aka PAC Man) is even worse than Smitty Pignatelli. PAC Man Richie Neal only represents K Street corporate lobbyist firms, especially insurance companies, in the Swamp, which has nothing to do with Great Barrington and all of the other municipalities in his geographically large Western Massachusetts Congressional District. PAC Man Richie Neal has been in the Swamp for over three decades, which is even longer than Smitty has been in Boston. The point I am making is that Smitty and Richie alike do nothing for the middle class but make all of us pound sand.
In my many years of studies, I found that the way to wealth going back hundreds of years is through (elite) education and (elite) family marriages, which has nothing to do with work, owning a business, winning the large state lottery jackpot or going to a Las Vegas casino and winning big, and so on. To be clear, the way to wealth has nothing to do with a working-class man pulling himself up by the bootstraps.
However, the way into the diminishing middle class has many components: Affordable Housing, Affordable Healthcare (Insurance), Adequate public education, learning to be financially literate and independent, having access to living wage jobs, having access to savings and investment accounts for one's financially secure retirement, having access to public transportation, living in safe communities with safe streets, electing politicians who will fight for the commoners' interests in government, having a voice in one's government without fear of retribution, living in a livable environment free of unhealthy industrial chemical waste, communities investing in their most valuable resource: The people and taxpayers who live there, opposing the corruption and greed of career politicians, greedy lobbyists, the vested interests (such as big public labor unions), and the special interests (such as out-of-town multimillionaires), and rewarding the people and taxpayers who invest in their communities with moderate taxation in return for quality infrastructure, and so on.
As an aside, most Have Nots fall into our country's always growing larger underclass, which gives the elites more and more power as the years passes us by. The bigger the underclass equals the more money and power for the ruling, corporate and financial elites, which means the steady loss of our nation's democratic values and institutions.
When I write to politicians about public policy matters, most of them block my political emails to them. The ones that do not do so never reply to me unless it is a generic form letter. When my dad was a politician in Berkshire County in the late-1990s and we went to Beacon Hill to testify about county government to the state lawmakers in Boston, they looked annoyed at us when we spoke to them for less than three minutes apiece. You, Alan Chartock, would not believe the amount of retribution that my dad and I received from the political elites since the Spring of 1996 when my dad began to give his campaign speeches to the people and taxpayers in Berkshire County. Or maybe you are not surprised at all? I don't know.
Politicians spend 90% of their time raising money and the other 10% of the time doing DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers they represent in government. I wish it was a different story, but at the end of the day, politicians are not helping the Have Nots live a middle-class life.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Melle
-----
Alan Chartock’s The Capitol Connection: "Is America willing to put Trump back in office?"
By Alan Chartock, The Saratogian, November 25, 2022
Donald Trump is just a despicable, dangerous man. We know that he has tried to game the system for years.
Many people believe that Trump is all about personal enrichment and that is just bad for this country.
What terrifies me, and so many of you, is that despite all his failings, Trump still has a very large part of the populace behind him. Maybe when he runs the next time, he won’t win. I just don’t see how he can after the disgrace of two impeachments. He has already announced that he is running, and we know, unbelievably, that lots of Americans will vote for him.
What we can’t know is how many votes he will get.
I have always believed that the split between the rich and the poor in this country is no more than a continuation of the Civil War. There are still many very smart people who believe that the south could and should have won that conflict. Many believe Trump has enough Americans behind him to win. I just don’t see that. He really can’t win. With all that we know of the character and chicanery of the man, I can’t fathom why people will cast a ballot that, if successful, would make him the leader of the free world.
Nonetheless, an awful lot of people will actually cast a ballot for this miserable, corrupt human being.
What is it that will make so many of your friends and neighbors cast a ballot for a Trump? I keep thinking about that. Maybe it is the traditional battle between the haves and the have nots. There are a lot of would be Trumps in this country. When your kid is attacked by a bully in school, he is being attacked by someone who will grow up to be a Trump. I’m sorry, but when I see his miserable face on television my sense of revulsion is so pronounced that I have to question how a low life like Trump can rise to his present stature (or lack thereof).
Think about all the bullies you knew as a kid. If you read Archie comics, you had to really dislike the rich bully who was always on Archie’s case. Yet people still love the guy.
We like to think of this country as fair and equitable. So many of our films show our soldiers in the world wars fighting for the freedom of mankind. The word “democracy” fits so well into our national self-image. The word democracy implies that we can arrive at an understanding of sharing and dividing equally. That’s why the Democratic Party has always been the party of the have nots and The Republicans have always been the rich kids in the Archie comics.
We all understand that most Americans are addicted to at least the possibility of getting rich.
Socialism is a dirty word in this country. The idea that everyone would share equally even if they didn’t work to get there is an anathema to our American belief system. If your job involves picking up trash, you don’t get the respect that you deserve for your hard work. You should get that respect, but you don’t. The people who have the most are often the most respected. There was this guy on Fire Island where I grew up who had a great big yacht.
He owned blocks of real estate and surrounded his property with inlaid brick paving, as if to declare, “MINE!” Many of us don’t hold contempt in our hearts for the rich people, but that’s not to say we didn’t have the hope that maybe someday we, too, would have a big house and a yacht.
We live in a funny country. That’s why Trump still has a chance to win.
-----
November 27, 2022
Hello Alan Chartock,
Someone replied to my political email to you by writing to me the following: "Mr. Chartock has some chutzpah criticizing people such as Trump. Mario Cuomo was right to disassociate completely from the man."
I do not know the history you and the late Mario Cuomo share, but I do remember your radio program called "Mario and me" from many years ago now. My reply to the aforementioned email is that I am happy that you write political op-eds criticizing politicians such as Donald Trump, including his third run for U.S. President in 2024. I wish that you wrote even more political op-eds criticizing even more corrupt career politicians.
At times, I have become frustrated with your political writings, Alan Chartock. I was very upset when you wrote that Nuciforo was a person you liked many years ago, especially after I wrote to you many times over about Nuciforo's dirty and mean-spirited politics. I dislike it when you write glowing words about Smitty Pignatelli, who didn't allow WAMC's Josh Landes to interview him prior to the November 8th, 2022, state election. Did you ever ask Smitty Pignatelli why he thinks he is too good to be interviewed by your public radio station? Do you think that Smitty Pignatelli is so great of a man and career politician in Boston that he doesn't have time to comment to your news journalist Josh Landes about his 9th reelection campaign? What kinds of issues and questions was Smitty Pignatelli dodging by hiding in his proverbial basement prior to election day?
Then there is the Swamp. PAC Man Richie Neal is the ultimate corporate Democrat who only serves K Street lobbyist firms in the Swamp, which have nothing whatsoever to do with is large geographical Western Massachusetts-based Congressional District. Did you ever ask PAC Man Richie Neal why he is so beholden to K Street, especially insurance companies? Ed Markey lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which is a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C. Maryland Markey ran on the Green New Deal in 2020 to win reelection to the U.S. Senate. But in mostly rural Berkshire County, Maryland Markey - along with Smitty Pignatelli - sided with the big polluter GE and its flawed proposal to put a leaky landfill full of industrial chemical toxic waste called PCBs inside of a watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee, Massachusetts. The people loudly objected, but the career politicians all complied with GE. Elizabeth Warren says she is in the Swamp to fight for Main Street over Wall Street, yet she supports Joe Biden, who took in more campaign donations from Wall Street and K Street than any other candidate in U.S. history.
I am sure that where you work in Albany, New York, there are plenty of fish to fry in New York State and Swamp politics, too. Governor Kathy Hochul and her family have cashed in on the New York State taxpayers for years to the tune of many millions of dollars. I read news articles from NYC to upstate New York to Western New York's native American tribes who own three casinos whereby many politicians, businesspeople, and taxpayers all say that she is the biggest scam artist in the history of New York State, which is really saying something! Some news articles that I have read even have politicians and others saying that she is an administrative thief of public state and related escrow funds, and that she should be prosecuted and sent to prison for it. Why aren't you writing political op-eds about this alleged fraudster where you work in Albany, NY?
Like you, I will never support Donald Trump in American politics. In fact, I agree with you when you write unfavorable political op-eds about Donald Trump. I am thankful that you openly criticize this failure of a man and president. The point I am making here is that I wish that you would openly criticize all of the other stinky fish in the Swamp and beyond, too.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
December 9, 2022
Hello Dave Bubriski,
I know all too well that you dislike Linda Tyer as much as I dislike Luciforo in Pittsfield politics. I have read your comments over the years, and you have made some valid points. I remember reading that then Pittsfield Mayor Jimmy Ruberto openly stated that his so-called Renaissance, which failed, would take place by building around the poor people and neighborhoods that surrounded inner-city Pittsfield. My point was that Mayor Linda Tyer actually did some positive things for the poor and the distressed neighborhoods in Pittsfield. Please do NOT take my praises of Mayor Linda Tyer as anything against you personally. I guess if you wrote a comment praising Luciforo, then I would have written a similar email to you that you sent to me tonight. I have written and posted my disagreements with Mayor Linda Tyer's leadership over the years, especially her record setting excessively high municipal spending and budgets. I really dislike her secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Funds. However, on the whole, Mayor Linda Tyer is very impressive because she is very intelligent when it comes to public management.
Best wishes,
Jon Melle
-----
December 10, 2022
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I received a second of two negative - on a political level only - reply about my favorable review of Mayor Linda Tyer tenure in Pittsfield politics. This second reply played on my calling Pittsfield's Pot King the sarcastic name "Luciforo" by the emailer comparing Linda to the Lucifer.
I believe the two people who replied to me unfavorably both made valid points about Mayor Linda Tyer's public record. What I was trying to write about her is that she actually understands what is going in state and local government, which is unusual for Pittsfield. I studied state and local government during my graduate studies at U Mass Amherst from the Fall of 1997 to the Spring of 1999. Furthermore, my dad, Bob, served as a Berkshire County Commissioner for 3.5 years from 1997 to mid-2000. Due to my background, I understand what is happening on Beacon Hill all the way west to Pittsfield politics.
When I read about Mayor Linda Tyer, she pointed out that Boston should be increasing its state aid to realistic financial figures to Pittsfield and the dozens of other cities throughout Massachusetts. She also leads the state's dozens of Mayors throughout Massachusetts. Everyone who is interviewed about Linda Tyer says she knows what she is going in local government throughout all of Massachusetts. This is unusual for a politician from Pittsfield and Berkshire County because most of them are idiots - or at the least pretend to act like fools in state and local government. Mayor Linda Tyer is the first local politician in a long time who is nobody's fool, which is a big compliment to her high level of intelligence.
To illustrate, Beacon Hill lawmakers play a whole lot of financial shell games in Boston that only benefit themselves and their wealthy campaign donors and backers. For example, the Massachusetts State Lottery makes a complete and total mockery of Pittsfield because it is a form of (voluntary) regressive taxation that records multibillion-dollar annual profits that the corrupt career politicians in Boston use to giveaway a little less than $18 billion per fiscal year in state tax breaks to their Boston area big businesses that don't exist anywhere near Pittsfield. Former North Adams State Representative Dan Bosley used to point out that the state lottery gives municipalities and public-school districts millions of dollars in state aid, but what he doesn't point out is that Beacon Hill would be able to give a lot more in state aid without the lottery due to the billions in state tax giveaways to Boston area special interests that do not benefit Pittsfield.
To be clear, the state lottery gives Pittsfield and the low to moderate income people who live there pennies back on the dollar. The lottery is a scam on so many levels that it would make the Empire State Building look like a miniature building, but it helps greed-balls such as Dan Bosley, so we get to place more sucker's bets on scratch tickets and numbers games than ever before.
To illustrate, Beacon Hill is still sitting on billions of dollars in state surplus dollars. This past Summer of 2022, Governor Charlie Baker stated that the state is sitting on more surplus dollars than at any point in time in the over 400 years of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Beacon Hill lawmakers are still on their 5-monthslong taxpayer-funded vacation while the state is derelict in its duty to meet the needs of the people during these cold late-Fall and upcoming Winter months - I suppose we may freeze to death if we cannot pay to heat our homes.
Beacon Hill lawmakers only act when they benefit by enriching themselves and their wealthy campaign donors and backers at the public trough. Otherwise, they do nothing most of the time - except DISSERVICES!
I never said that Linda Tyer is perfect. All I am writing about is that she has impressed me on many levels because she understands what is going on from Boston points west to Pittsfield, which is an unusual surprise that I am very impressed with.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
December 16, 2022
In reply to my copying and pasting the New Hampshire Union Leader's editorial about the increase in serious auto accidents from impaired drivers high on marijuana, Dave Bubriski emailed me the following: "What happened to the pot revenue that was supposed to bail Pittsfield out? Guess it turned into cleptocurrency!"
The NH Union Leader pointed out that the most prevalent substance found in injured drivers in serious auto accidents was not alcohol but THC, the active ingredient found in marijuana. Traffic deaths have increased substantially in recent years due to impaired drivers having THC in their blood.
Back to Pittsfield's Pot King - Luciforo - and the city's Pot Windfall, I wouldn't trust either Nuciforo or Pittsfield politics to make responsible public safety and financial decisions when it comes to the predatory pot industry in Pittsfield that is stinking up residential neighborhoods around Dalton Avenue's Berkshire Roots pot growing facilities.
Let us not forget that in 2006, then Pittsfield State Senator Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior had to step down from his elected position in Boston because he was allegedly illegally double dipping as the Chairman of the Massachusetts State Senate Finance Committee while at the same time working as a private Corporate Attorney for the Boston Law Firm Berman and Dowell serving Boston's big banks and insurance companies from 1999 to 2006. Let us not forget that Nuciforo strong-armed two women - Sharon Henault and Sara Hathaway - out of the 2006 state government election for Pittsfield Registrar of Deeds whereby he spent the next 6 years (2007 - 2012) plotting to oust Congressman John W. Olver from his elected position, but due to redistricting in 2012, Olver did not run for reelection in 2012, which led to Nuciforo trying to oust PAC Man Richie Neal from Congress, but Nuciforo was called a Fringe Politician by the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) and Nuciforo went on to lose to Congressman Neal by 40 points in 2012. Let us not forget that Nuciforo used his political connections in both Pittsfield and Boston alike to be one of the first ones to receive his marijuana permits over everyone else, and he has been cashing in on the predatory marijuana industry since 2017. Nuciforo still has a law office in Boston's Financial District, too.
I have long said and written that Luciforo is corrupt and that he should have been convicted by a state or federal court of law for using the state government for his own allegedly illegal ends and that he should have been disbarred from being an Attorney and that he should have been sent to state prison for his allegedly illegal double dipping as a corrupt Massachusetts State Senator. Nuciforo has no business owning Berkshire Roots because I believe that he should have been a long ago Convicted Felon and disgraced politician, but somehow Nuciforo was able to get away with it all. Unbelievable!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
December 17, 2022
It would not surprise me if all of the Pittsfield leaders have a stake in Berkshire Roots, but I do not know the inside scoop on Nuciforo's Pittsfield Pot Kingdom. All of the information I have on Luciforo is from my negative experiences with Pittsfield's 4-foot-tall piece of crap in the form of a man, as well as the news stories and editorials about Nuciforo from Pittsfield points east to Boston. For many years of my adult life of 47 years, I have spoken out, written and blogged about the spoiled son (of a bitch) of Pittsfield royal family. Nuciforo's late father was a Pittsfield State Senator and then a Probate and Family Court Judge. Nuciforo's late aunt was Pittsfield's first woman Mayor of Pittsfield (Sara Hathaway is the second; Linda Tyer is the third woman to sit on her fat ass in the corner office in Pittsfield City Hall). Nuciforo's uncle Tom Wojtkowski was a Pittsfield State Representative many years ago. Like Luciforo, most of his family were lawyers and politicians in Pittsfield. Luciforo used his family name and connections to serve as a Pittsfield State Senator for 10 years from 1997 - 2006. Most of the people who lived in Pittsfield whom I had spoken with many years ago disliked him, but they feared him due to Pittsfield politics use of retribution. Luciforo persecuted me - Jon Melle - since the Spring of 1996 when I was only 20 years old, and he even tried to secretly have the Pittsfield Police Department arrest and jail me during the Spring of 1998 when I was 22 years old after Nuciforo secretly filed multiple state "ethics" complaints against my dad, Bob, who was an elected Berkshire County Commissioner back then. Similar to then Pittsfield State Representative Peter J. Larkin, Luciforo did not live in Pittsfield, but rather, Luciforo lived in Boston the entire time from when I first met him during the Spring of 1996 through the upcoming Winter of 2022/2023. Luciforo has a reputation of being mean-spirited, and he is well known to mockingly laughs at the people he hurts in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A lot of people over the years have been turned off by Luciforo's evil methods of doing business in Pittsfield politics. When Luciforo ran against PAC Man Richie Neal in 2012, the Springfield Republican published an editorial that stated the Nuciforo is mean-spirited. What the Hell did Luciforo think he would accomplish by mistreating so many people? When I explain what he put me and my family through during and after my dad, Bob, was an elected Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000), the response I often receive is that while the unusual events in my life happened within the context of politics, that it was not politics, but rather, it was mean-spirited and unfair, and that someone such as myself should never have experienced all of what happened. I strongly believe that Luciforo should have been disbarred for his allegedly illegal double dipping in Boston from 1999 - 2006, as well as been a long ago Convicted Felon for his corruption on Beacon Hill and Boston's Financial District's big banks and insurance companies. Luciforo should be a disgraced politician, but instead, he is raking in millions of dollars as a state-legal/federally-illegal drug dealer of pot. Moreover, Luciforo still has a law office in Boston's Financial District. How does someone so corrupt and mean-spirited get away with so much? Lastly, when I have acid reflux or bodily pain, I associated my unpleasant feelings with Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior because he is a disgusting man who was, is and always will be a big pain in the ASS!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
December 17, 2022
Someone asked me if Mayor Linda Tyer's third husband Barry Clairmont, who is a multimillionaire Certified Public Accountant, is partners in Luciforo's Berkshire Roots pot plant on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. My answer is that I do not know the answer to that question, but it is probable that Barry Clairmont has business partnerships with political insiders such as Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior.
While I praised Mayor Linda Tyer over the past nearly 20 years for her political views, managerial skills and leadership abilities, I disagree with her living in a mansion in a Gated Community full of elitist multimillionaires because she is sending the wrong message to the people of Pittsfield, which is an economically distressed and very unequal postindustrial city. But at the end of the day, we all have to take the good with the bad in life.
If there is a politician whom I aspire to being like, it would be Linda Tyer because she stands for everything that I believe in when it comes to government and politics. I am impressed with Linda Tyer on many levels. Pittsfield is fortunate to have Linda Tyer as its Mayor!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
December 17, 2022
Happy Holidays, Erin Leahy at Act on Mass,
I hope that you and your loved ones will have a very Happy Holiday Season. I look forward to your next Saturday Scoop political email about Beacon Hill politics on January 7th, 2023. A new state legislative session will begin a few weeks from now with the first elected woman Governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey. When I was a student at Pittsfield High School 30 years ago, Jane Swift was my Berkshire County State Senator, and she later became a Lieutenant Governor and then an Acting Governor of Massachusetts one decade later. In between, my dad, Bob, was an elected Berkshire County Commissioner from 1997 - mid-2000.
My predictions for Beacon Hill politics in 2023 are that the 200 State Legislators will happily receive up to three state legislative public pay raises plus public perks. Most of these corrupt career politicians in Boston will happily make over $100,000 per year in public pay plus perks. Governor Maura Healey will propose her long awaited economic development legislation that will spend billions of state dollars on infrastructure along with special interest-backed pork barrel projects. Beacon Hill lawmakers will propose its fiscal year 2024 state budget that will giveaway well over $18 billion in state tax breaks per fiscal year to Boston's big businesses who contribute big bucks to the state politicians' campaign coffers. The state budget will be passed after the July 1st, 2023, deadline. Beacon Hill Officials will continue to operate in secrecy to get away with being corrupt so that they are able to continue to "Cook the Books" to enrich themselves and their wealthy donors at the public trough. Most of the Beacon Hill lawmakers will happily serve as rubber stamps for the top-down State House leadership. The people and taxpayers of Massachusetts will continue to get screwed over by the corrupt career politicians in Boston. Greedy lobbyists such as Dan Bosley will shakedown Beacon Hill lawmakers for more (voluntary) regressive taxation profits from scams such as the state lottery to give the wealthy elites even more millions/billions in state tax breaks and giveaways. Beacon Hill lawmakers such as Smitty Pignatelli will write more of his phony op-eds about how he is fighting for the people in Boston. True progressive politicians such as Andrea Harrington will be disingenuously criticized for all of the problems in Berkshire County and beyond. When someone such as I - Jon Melle - writes and blogs about the political events in 2023, the corrupt career politicians and news media will continue to block and blacklist me from airing my political letters and op-eds. Lastly, Erin Leahy at Act on Mass will continue to fight the good fights in Boston, and we will all support her public advocacy work and look forward to her many political emails about Beacon Hill politics.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Melle
-----
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Jonathan,
The sun is setting at 4:13pm, yuletide carols are in the air, and the race to firm up New Year’s Eve plans is on. This can only mean one thing: we’re approaching the very last days of the 192nd legislative session.
The legislature has mere days left to pass bills before gaveling in the new session on 1/6, and they’ve given no indication that they plan on taking last minute action on any of the bills Baker vetoed, like the 5-year prison construction moratorium or no-cost calls for loved ones of incarcerated individuals.
Yes, it’s infuriating to see the legislature do so little with their incredible power, especially with so much on the line. But this past session is also a testament to how, with concerted organizing and pressure, we can win progressive victories. That’s how we passed (and defended on the ballot!) the Work and Family Mobility Act, banning child marriage, and the Fair Share Amendment, the result of grassroots campaigns that spanned years or even decades.
Let me be clear: you should not have to organize for 20 years to get the MA legislature to implement immigrant protections that 16 other states plus Puerto Rico and D.C. already have. That’s exactly why we so desperately need to reform the state house to combat the culture of careerism and inaction that has made our state government so much slower and more conservative than the people it serves.
But hey, we’re working on it. In the meantime, the path forward for progressive victories is clear: organize, organize, organize. The state house doesn’t pass bold change willingly. We must make it clear that we won’t accept anything less.
Here’s to more calls and emails to reps, grassroots lobby meetings, letters to the editor, petitions, phonebanks, and every other act of democracy in 2023. May your canvasses be merry and bright!
For the last time in 2022, let’s dive in.
State House Scoop
Green Line Extension Medford branch opens
Great news for Somervillians and transit-enthusiasts alike: the Medford branch of the long-awaited MBTA Green Line Extension project opened this past Monday. Hoards of excited commuters, families, students, and elected officials awoke bright and early to hop on the first ride at 5am. But Monday’s revelry was tempered by a harsh and present reality: landlords have been using the added transit stops as an excuse to jack up rents in Somerville, already suffering an affordable housing crisis. As one housing activist noted, the same communities that stand to benefit the most from public transportation are the ones who will likely be priced out because of it. Hopefully the housing crisis will be addressed quicker than the construction of the Green Line extension, which was first pitched a century ago.
Two razor-thin state rep races called for Democrats
5 weeks and two recounts later, two general election state rep races were finally called this week. Democrat Margaret Scarsdale beat her Republican opponent Andrew Shepherd by just seven votes to become the next representative for the 1st Middlesex district. And seven votes looks like a landslide compared to the nail-biter in the 2nd Essex where Democrat Kristin Kassner beat incumbent Republican Lenny Mira by a single vote. It hardly needs to be said but I’ll say it anyway: your vote makes a big difference, and volunteering makes a huge difference. It’s conceivable that if Kassner had one fewer canvassing shifts, she wouldn’t have gotten that one extra vote.
New police recertification process aimed at accountability recertified officers with confirmed history of violence
In response to police brutality and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the Massachusetts legislature passed a sweeping police reform bill that same year. Shockingly (read: not shockingly) the bill was passed largely in secret and was opposed by many racial justice advocates for not going nearly far enough. One provision created a new commission to establish police certification standards that would hold abusive and violent officers accountable. Sounds pretty good, right?
This past week, the first batch of recertifications were released to the public. Among the list of re-certified officers were 18 who had undergone internal investigations, 10 of whom had complaints sustained for “use of force,” “conduct unbecoming” and “[non-]conformance to laws.” Several of the recertified officers had repeated complaints, including Boston Captain John Danilecki, a man once called “the avatar of cop violence in Boston” by the Globe. Created in the name of “police reform,” this commission didn’t even decertify police officers who are known to be violent and abusive. This is another very tangible consequence of passing bills behind closed doors and without the input of the people most impacted by policy.
Legislator farewell speeches
As is tradition on Beacon Hill, lawmakers who won’t be returning for the next session made farewell speeches on the floor this week. Among the speeches were some powerful statements rebuking the status quo on Beacon hill; Rep. Tami Gouveia reiterated her support for the State House staffer’s union and called out the legislature’s failure to act on same day registration and no-cost calls. Sen. Sonia Chang Diaz spoke bravely about the tradeoff she made between pursuing a landmark education funding bill and loyalty to Senate leadership–a decision that she said cost her "political safety, a committee chairmanship, my position in leadership, probably many thousands of dollars in pension benefits.”
In addition to stirring remarks about power and public service were some bizarre pieces of Beacon Hill lore. Rep. Paul Tucker, for example, used his farewell speech to tell a wacky anecdote about the time he went to a legislator's conference in Arkansas with his colleague Rep. Joseph McGonagle. I won’t spoil it for you, but to answer your question: yes, it involves lawn flamingos.
Take Action
Transparency Captain Training: Monday 12/19 @7:00PM
Want to hold a grassroots lobby meeting to ask your rep for their support for public committee votes? Join our Transparency Captain training to get everything you need to have an effective lobby meeting and participate in The People's House campaign for transparency and accountability on Beacon Hill! Sign up here:
RSVP FOR THE TRAINING >>
Letter to the Editor ("LTE") workshop Tuesday 1/3 @6:00pm
Learn how to use the power of the pen for democracy! Join our Letter to the Editor workshop to learn how to write an effective LTE or opinion piece in support of making committee votes public. With the rules vote likely to take place in January, there's no better time to use your voice!
RSVP FOR THE LTE WORKSHOP >>
That was a long one, thanks for sticking it out all the way to the end! There will be no Scoop for the next two weeks; I'll be too busy drinking eggnog and getting my charcuterie boards juuust right. I'll be back in your inbox on 1/7.
I hope your holiday season is filled to the brim with loved ones and delicious food.
Until next year,
Erin Leahy
Executive Director, Act on Mass
-----
December 18, 2022
The news article below is misinformed. I read the Boston newspapers about Beacon Hill politics, and they clearly write that Beacon Hill lawmakers only "work" (part-time) three days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday - when they are in formal legislative session, which is not very often. When they are in formal legislative session, Beacon Hill lawmakers only meet for minutes up to a few hours at a time.
In April of 2021, the Boston Globe reported that that Beacon Hill lawmakers giveaway a little less than $18 billion per fiscal year in state tax breaks to their wealthy campaign donors who are mostly in the Boston area. What is wrong with that picture if you are Representative John Barrett III who lives the farthest from the Boston State House of any delegate to Beacon Hill? The answer is that Barrett's mostly rural state legislative district that borders Vermont and New York State receives no economic and financial benefits because the big businesses in and around Boston do not exist in Northern Berkshire County.
I read about the regional divides in Massachusetts politics. Some regions receive a lot more economic and financial benefits from Beacon Hill lawmakers than other regions of the Commonwealth. Western Massachusetts Beacon Hill lawmakers are nothing more than rubber stamp backbenchers to Boston's secretive and corrupt State House leaders. Stan Rosenberg, Dan Bosley, Peter Larkin, and the like, all became high paid registered GREEDY lobbyists on Beacon Hill, which is on top of their state public pensions plus perks. Luciforo became Pittsfield's Pot King by cashing in on his Beacon Hill and Pittsfield politics connections.
What do corrupt career politicians do? The answer is that they spend 90% of their time raising money and the other 10% of the time doing DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers they represent in elected office. I would NOT feel too sorry for the corrupt career politicians in Western Massachusetts because they are a lot better off than most of the people they represent - do DISSERVICES to - in Western Massachusetts!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
"Western Massachusetts lawmakers talk long commutes to Boston, progress made on bridging the digital divide"
By Jazmyn Gray, Boston University Statehouse Program via The Berkshire Eagle, December 18, 2022
The sun hasn’t even risen yet, and — chances are — state Rep. Paul Mark, D-Becket, is en route to the Massachusetts Statehouse, where he’ll work until long after the sun has set.
A minimum two-and-a-half hours one-way, Mark’s commutes to Beacon Hill can be long — the days in office even longer — but the incoming state senator knows how important it is to be present. The Statehouse is where relationships are built, where the usually scattered group of lawmakers come together to get things done on behalf of their constituents across the commonwealth.
“It's an issue of being accessible,” he said. “It's a challenge that our colleagues who are within, say, 50 miles of Boston just don't deal with in the same way.”
So he drives — more than 100 miles on the road, making it to Boston just in time for his 9 a.m. meeting.
Western Massachusetts-based legislators have long struggled to visit, access and legislate from a capital that is firmly planted in one of the easternmost parts of the state. While the pandemic laid local concerns about access bare for constituents and legislators alike, many of our lawmakers are still battling to have their challenges recognized and addressed.
Just a few towns over, state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, grapples with the cost of living six hours round-trip from the building where she works. The office expense stipend granted to legislators who reside more than 50 miles away from the Statehouse doesn’t even come close to covering her total travel expenses.
“Distance matters,” she said. “It’s expensive to be a far-away rep.”
But, like Mark, Farley-Bouvier believes that it’s important to be present, representing her district. So she drives.
In another part of western Massachusetts, state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, tries his best to balance being a new parent with his duties at Beacon Hill, knowing that any time he goes into Boston that might be the only activity he does that day.
“If you make me choose between being in my district and being in Boston, I’m always going to choose being in my district,” he said. “The real toll is if you’re in Boston a lot — and I try to be — one of the main downsides is that you’re away from your district more often. You can’t go to an event. You have to miss something.”
But he drives, “being in the room” whenever he can, not caring whether the Legislature is in formal session or not.
Even state Rep. Jake Oliveira, D-Ludlow, who identifies himself as the western Massachusetts legislator with the easiest commute, expects to spend at least an hour and a half on the turnpike to Boston without traffic.
“I always use this point,” he said. “It’s easier to get to three other state capitals than it is to get to my own with traffic. Albany, N.Y., Hartford, Conn., and Providence, R.I.”
Even so, he regularly drives.
Next session, Mark and Oliveira will move to the upper chamber. As a state senator, Mark will represent an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. But he doesn’t let the prospect of having to commute among the 57 communities he represents, in addition to the Statehouse, faze him. After all, he’s already taken on one of the most challenging commutes from western Massachusetts, putting an annual average of 60,000 miles on his car as a state representative.
“You don't ever want one of your constituents to think, ‘The person that works for us in Boston, we can't ever get ahold of them,’” Mark said.
So he drives. And, to him, the commutes are worth it — especially given the hoops he used to jump through in order to attend virtual meetings at the height of the pandemic.
A former resident of Peru, one of 46 towns with completed projects by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s Last Mile Program, Mark recalls the time he spent as the only legislator without access to cellphone service or high-speed, broadband internet at home.
“It was tough,” he said, “You know, you don’t see it, especially in Boston. So when people were talking about things, they would think it was strange, and I would have to explain to them: ‘No, I don't have the internet.’”
He lived in one of the 53 Massachusetts last mile towns identified by the MBI as lacking the basic infrastructure necessary to support broadband. So, Mark said, he was limited for years in only having access to the internet through a satellite dish service that capped speeds and monthly usage.
“It was really bad,” he said. “It was way behind what everyone else was doing.”
Then, just after the pandemic started, Mark’s home in Peru finally got the infrastructure it needed to run high-speed internet. But not before Beacon Hill was forced online.
Without internet or cellphone service at home at the start of lockdown in 2020, Mark said, he would get in his car before a virtual meeting and drive until he knew his phone wouldn’t drop the Zoom call.
“So I'd be sitting in the car and it would be weird because everyone else is on video,” he said. “And I would have to make sure I told people every time that I'm not on video because I'm in my car.”
From a parking lot at a Hinsdale elementary school closed for Covid to a pitstop after running errands in Pittsfield, Mark’s chosen locations for his car-turned-legislative-office had only one requirement: Reliable service, which, ask any western Massachusetts resident, can be challenging to find all on its own.
Take, for example, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s event last week. Held in a western Massachusetts town, the event highlighting the Last Mile Program’s progress in bringing broadband to the commonwealth’s most underserved areas hosted legions of local legislators. But it ironically ran into a telecommunications access issue of its own when visitors couldn’t get cellphone service.
State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, who attended the event outside her district, said she didn’t realize there was a problem at first. But, as she was driving back toward her district, she said, a flurry of messages came in. The missed texts and emails warned her about a “major crisis” at her legislative office.
“Cell reception at this point is just really critical. Everyone expects you to be available at a moment’s notice — I think we want to be available at a moment’s notice — but that can make it really challenging,” she said. “Once I left, I was able to get on it, but our delay is really problematic.”
This dark side of the digital divide stretches across western Massachusetts to affect both local constituents and legislators. While some officials, like Mark, have no choice but to tackle the issues facing them and their constituencies in real-time, others, state like Rep. John Barrett III, D-North Adams, are thinking long-term about ways the Legislature can help close the gaps.
“Everybody used to be worried about the new highways coming here to Berkshire County, going back years and years,” he said. “We finally realized that we have to be on that information highway — we have to be in the high-speed lane. And I think that's just critical. That's really been our focus.”
Last month, the commonwealth took new steps toward alleviating some of these inequities by allocating $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to digital equity activities. The recently passed Economic Development package also included funds for some of the unique issues facing western Massachusetts residents — including $75 million to support broadband infrastructure and internet access — while the government promised $275 million earlier this summer to the long-awaited east-west commuter rail project.
Sabadosa said these funds are just the beginning in a long list of wins for western Massachusetts, proving that the challenges of working as a rural legislator are ultimately worth the satisfaction of helping your community get the help it needs.
“I hope [the challenges don’t] discourage people from running for office,” she said. “It really is a wonderful thing to do.”
Just take it from Mark, who worked as a telephone lineman before entering the Legislature.
In 2004, he remembers, he would go to work splicing fiber optics for “ultra-high fast service” in Woburn, thinking “it would be cool” if he could access the same thing at his rural home. More than 18 years later, the senator-elect is getting his wish.
With his recent move to Becket, another recently completed last mile town, Mark said he can finally expect to have the same, stable access he helped establish in eastern Massachusetts all those years ago. At home, he no longer has to worry about dropped calls or limited internet service. His car doesn’t have to double as his office. He can finally turn his camera on in Zoom meetings.
Mark said the issue of access remains top-of-mind for local communities and the rural legislators who represent them, championing an equitable distribution of resources statewide.
“I think our perspective made a difference and has an impact,” he said. “It's taken a lot longer than I think people want, but we have been getting there. And I think we're almost where we need to be.”
And that, he said, is why he drives. Making it to Boston just in time for his 9 a.m. meeting.
-----
December 23, 2022
To the Editor of the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle):
Ryan Salame blew the proverbial whistle against FTX, but that doesn't mean he did so in good faith to protect the cryptocurrency investors who lost an estimated $8 billion. Whistleblowers often do so to cover their own behinds, get revenge against others, to advance their own interests, and the like.
The other issue that bothers me is that Pittsfield's Pot King named Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior (aka "Luciforo") has been a very controversial figure in both Berkshire County and Boston for a very long time, which I have written and blogged about for many years. Why does "Luciforo" always get a pass, while so many others get the Dirty Bird's screws turned on them?
I still read the blogs and letters to the editor in Berkshire County, and many people are very upset with "Luciforo" on many different levels, including yours truly. In closing, it seems to me that the Dirty Bird almost always protects "Luciforo", while everyone else gets the Eagle's knife twisted in their backs!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
January 2, 2023
I read Alan Chartock's column in the Berkshire Edge online newspaper about the two political parties being a fantasy. For the most part, he is right about the ruling elites being in bed with the financial and corporate elites. I would add that some politicians use partisanship to gain power, but they are not really interested in being either a Democrat or a Republican. To illustrate, Peter J. Larkin was a Democrat when he was a Pittsfield (Mass.) State Representative many years ago, but he always did the bidding of GE. One cannot be more Republican than that! To illustrate, Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr. was a Democrat when he was a Pittsfield (Mass.) State Senator many years ago, but he was always in bed with Boston's big banks and insurance companies. Even the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) wrote that Nuciforo is a fiscal conservative. In New Hampshire, it is the opposite with politicians running as Republicans because that is where the power is in the Granite State. When John Lynch was Governor of New Hampshire many years ago, he was a Democrat that a lot of Republicans supported because he was a fiscal conservative. The point I am making is that politicians go where the money and power is even if it means running a Democrat in Massachusetts or a Republican in New Hampshire.
I am interested in Erin Leahy at Act on Mass' statewide campaign in Massachusetts to oust all of the corrupt career Democratic Party politicians on Beacon Hill in 2024. One of the things that interests me about it is that I predict that she may see some of the challengers say they are Democrats who support her organization's progressive agenda and push for Sunshine Laws on Beacon Hill, but once they would be in elected office in Boston, they may end up being corrupt career politicians themselves. It never ends when it comes to politics and politicians.
In closing, I jokingly asked my fellow Veterans how you know when a politician is NOT lying? I was going to say when his lips are not moving, but one of the Veterans shouted, when he is dead. We all laughed, but the way things are going lately is not very funny at all.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
Letter: "Can Pittsfield's pot tax windfalls soothe taxpayers' sting?"
The Berkshire Eagle, January 6, 2023
To the editor: When I picked up my Eagle today, I was happy to learn that Lenox has reaped such a great reward from “tourist taxes,” which will help stabilize the rate of their property tax increases.
When I received my mail later in the day and was shocked at the Pittsfield tax increase, I couldn’t help but wonder (again) where our pot revenue was being spent. We are not on the tourist trail, but it seems we are becoming famous for our many pot establishments.
Is there some way, mayor and City Council, that we could defray our taxes via pot?
Jeanne Bresnehan, Pittsfield
-----
January 8, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
While I agree with Ward 2 Pittsfield (Massachusetts) City Councilor Charles Ivar Kronick's posts on Planet Valenti, I believe that he should be asking Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley Bouvier and Berkshire State Senator Paul Mark about Beacon Hill's multibillion-dollar Slush Fund that is well over $7 billion to provide the city with increased state aid and municipal tax relief. There are so many financially constrained municipalities and public-school districts throughout Massachusetts, while Beacon Hill lawmakers are rolling in the dough at the highest level in the over 400-year history of Massachusetts.
Kronick posted on your blog that Pittsfield's OPEB unfunded liabilities total an estimated $337,000,000. Pittsfield also has over $100,000,000 in public debts. Pittsfield's municipal taxes and fees are already excessively high. Other than public bankruptcy, what is the city's plan to address its troubled municipal finances? It has been 40 years since the flawed and outdated Proposition 2.5 state law, which led Pittsfield to always raise its yearly municipal spending by 5% per fiscal year. Why doesn't Kronick write to Rep. Farley-Bouvier and Senator Paul Mark to overhaul Prop. 2.5 to help the city be able to better manage its budget?
Over the past 50 years, Pittsfield has experienced the economic pain and realities of population loss and the loss of thousands of living wage jobs for its working-class residents, which led to a long shrinking municipal tax base. Neutron Jack Welch, who lived in Pittsfield for less than two decades many years ago, dropped one of his infamous GE neutron bombs on Pittsfield many decades ago. Instead of Pittsfield politics adapting to its postindustrial decay, the Good Old Boys blamed GE and its billionaire CEO Jack Welch for Pittsfield's decades of failures of leadership that put Pittsfield into the proverbial ditch.
I believe that anyone who spoke out about the Good Old Boys - who are the Godfather movie-like 4 families who run the city but don't even live in Pittsfield anymore - wasteful municipal management and excessive spending that has crushed the local taxpayers who live in Pittsfield were targets of their retribution. I feel like Pittsfield politics is not even rational anymore! Godfather Jimmy Ruberto lives in Naples, Florida. The Devil's Advocate Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior (aka Luciforo) always lived in Boston even when he was a Pittsfield State Senator from 1997 - 2006. The late Gerry Doyle lives on an afterlife version of a bar stool. Remo Del Gallo lives in Peter Arlos' afterlife version of Pittsfield City Hall.
In her speech on Park Square at the Four Freedom Coalition's protest of Donald Trump and the January 6th, 2021, insurrection of Capitol Hill, I found it odd that Tricia Farley Bouvier spoke about her attending Bill Clinton's inauguration speech 30 years ago. While she denounced Trump, Bill Clinton is a twice convicted Felon for Perjury and Suborning Perjury from his many years of sexual misconduct. Bill Clinton has 26 flight logs on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet to pedo-island where minor women as young as 14-years-old were sexually abused, exploited and raped. Shouldn't have Tricia Farley-Bouvier been denouncing Bill Clinton instead of telling us that she attended Bill Clinton's inauguration speech 30 years ago?
Tricia Farley Bouvier spent her first decade in Boston accomplishing and doing nothing whatsoever. Her first legislative accomplishment is her legislation giving undocumented immigrants Massachusetts Driver's Licenses. She was a major force behind the Berkshire Museum selling its historic artwork, including two paintings donated by Norman Rockwell himself, for tens of millions of dollars. She voted for the controversial 40% 2017 state legislators' own pay raise that cost state taxpayers over $18 million. She voted for casino gambling, which is really (voluntary) regressive taxation, while the state is sitting over well over $7 billion instead of helping the underclass, working class and middle-class families in Massachusetts. She backed the new Taconic High School without a referendum to allow the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield to weigh in on the municipal tax increase it caused. She sent her own children to the Lenox public school district, despite her representing Pittsfield in Boston. She wrote op-eds in Boston and Pittsfield newspapers arguing for increasing state taxes to fully fund public services and education without mentioning that Beacon Hill lawmakers always giveaway a little less than $18 billion per fiscal year in state tax breaks to big businesses in and around Boston that don't exist in Western Massachusetts. Despite her 2011 candidate promise to support Sunshine Laws on Beacon Hill, she has voted against them ever since. She is called Tricia "Country Buffet" because she went nuts after the Old Country Buffet closed in Pittsfield. Tricia Farley Bouvier gives Smitty Pignatelli, who has been in Boston for a little over 20 years, a run for his money for doing nothing but DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers of Massachusetts!
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
January 13, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
Sarcasm: I received an unhappy Friday telephone call from Kufflinks today about my open political email letter to you along with my blog post on Planet Valenti. Matt Kerwood told me that Pittsfield's over $17 million in "free cash" is a blessing, and that his secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Funds are a better investment in the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield than them having the money in their personal pocketbooks and wallets. Kufflinks told me that the Senior Citizens and retirees in Pittsfield should be sending him "Thank You Notes" for them giving Pittsfield politics more and more of their fixed income payments. Lastly, Matt Kerwood said that he is a better financial manager than Warren Buffett because Kufflinks produces huge public sector cash surpluses and huge secretive Slush Funds, while old Warren Buffett does so in the private sector.
What are your thoughts on my sarcastic political email to you about Kufflinks robbing Peter and Paul to pay the lovely Linda?
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
January 13, 2023
Hello, blogger Dan Valenti,
.... Once Upon a Time.... There was an economically distressed postindustrial city in Western Massachusetts in Berkshire County named Pittsfield that was run by the Godfather movies-like 4 families: Gerry "Barstool" Doyle, Jimmy "Rolodex" Ruberto, Remo "Good Old Boy" Del Gallo, and Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior a.k.a. "Luciforo". The Good Old Boys are from interrelated provincial families who served in Pittsfield politics for generations. Barstool since passed away in his early-60s. Remo since passed away in his mid-90s. Rolodex never owned a home or rented an apartment in Pittsfield, yet he served as the worst Mayor of Pittsfield for 8 years from 2004 to 2011, while his real home was and still is in Naples, Florida. Luciforo always lived in Boston as an elected official in Pittsfield going back to 1997, and he still lives in Boston in 2023, yet he runs his Pittsfield Pot Kingdom on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield to the dismay of the abutting neighborhoods in Pittsfield who complain about his pot growing pollution that stinks up their homes.
People who lived in Pittsfield say that it was a nice small city during the post-WW2 era until GE closed its operation sometime in the early-1990s. The Good Old Boys were always dabbling in Pittsfield politics going back generations, but there were effective checks and balances on them from dominating the city and region's poisoned politics with their infamous use of retribution. Over the past 30 years or so, the Good Old Boys became the only game in Pittsfield. They expect everyone to kiss their dirty behinds and tell them how great they are for putting Pittsfield into the proverbial ditch while they themselves do well. If one tells them that Pittsfield's "Level 5" public school district is overpriced, its social services downtown is dangerous and surrounded by impoverished neighborhoods, its crime statistics are always in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts each year going back decades, its taxes, fees, spending, debts and other public liabilities are excessively high, its state and local one (Democratic) Party political establishment is useless, and so on, then he or she is told by them that they must "Hate Pittsfield". To be clear, the Good Old Boys never once looked at themselves in the proverbial mirror, but they lash out at anyone who tells them to do so.
This past week, senior citizens spoke at the open mic to the Pittsfield City Council with several City Council members absent, along with Mayor Linda Tyer being absent, about their financial hardships caused by Pittsfield's excessively high tax bills and fees. Ward 2 City Councilor Charles Ivar Kronick questioned Pittsfield's Creative Accountant Matt Kerwood about a resident who lost their property and home to the city. Matt Kerwood's predictable answers is that he would have to look up the information and that he doesn't know the answers. Pittsfield residents have to wait until January 24th, 2023, to receive an explanation for the recent winter storm debacle that caused a little less than 6 dozen automobile accidents and related injuries that did not occur in nearby towns.
There could be effective checks and balances on Pittsfield politics, but the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) backs up the state and local corrupt career politicians and secretive bureaucrats such as Matt Kerwood because they are in line with the Dirty Bird's agenda. Blogger Dan Valenti, who is in his early-70s, writes and blogs about Pittsfield politics and he allows the people and taxpayers to comment about how mismanaged, corrupt and secretive things are in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I wish that blogger Dan Valenti would write and post more about Smitty Pignatelli, Tricia Farley Bouvier, John Barrett III, Paul Mark, along with PAC Man Richie Neal, Ed "Maryland" Markey, and Elizabeth Warren, who is not living in Main Street USA, and who fully supports Joe Biden, who took in more money from Wall Street than any other politician in U.S. history. WAMC's Josh Landes' coverage of Pittsfield politics and the beautiful Berkshires does a good service for his readers because he illustrates how the people feel about the failed political establishment.
I myself, whose native hometown is Pittsfield, Massachusetts, feels that the state and local government "Cooks the Books" to protect the interests of the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites, while the rest of us pound sand in disgust. I believe that Pittsfield politics is predictable in a negative way, and that the city is excessively taxing the people who live there and beyond in return for DISSERVICES, such as its "Level 5" Public School District. My own experiences with state and local politics in Pittsfield and beyond to Boston when my dad was a Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000) and many years afterwards is that the last thing any of the corrupt career politicians want to do is talk to someone such as myself - Jon Melle - because I am not a greedy lobbyist or wealthy campaign donor who will enrich them at the public trough. When I spoke with the corrupt career politicians as a then young man many years ago, they looked annoyed with me. I felt they only wanted to hear people tell them how wonderful they are in state and local government when the opposite was true.
I thought that we lived in a democracy where people and taxpayers have a voice in their state and local government, but that is not the case in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I thought that the role of a state and local politician was to educate, invest in, and communicate with the people and taxpayers, but that is not the case in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Most communities are proud that they put the 1950s era of the Godfather movies-like 5 families in the trash bin of history, but in Pittsfield politics, it is the worst of both worlds with the living legacies of the late-Barstool, the late-Remo, Rolodex Ruberto from Naples, Florida, and Luciforo from Boston. When I read Planet Valenti's blog posts and comments, it is clear that Mayor Linda Tyer and mayoral candidates Peter Marchetti, who is the City Council President, and John Krol, who is a former City Councilor, are all clones of Rolodex Ruberto, who is a failed Mayor who sold the people his snake oil.
It is not even rational anymore in Pittsfield politics. Jimmy Ruberto never lived in Pittsfield. Rolodex Ruberto lives in Naples, Florida. His snake oil sales pitch failed. Why does this old man hold so much power in a city he never invested in himself? Luciforo always lived in Boston, and when he was a Pittsfield State Senator from 1997 - 2006, he was in the pocket of Boston's big banks and insurance companies, which led to him having to step down from the post. Luciforo's status as Pittsfield's Pot King is for this soon to be 59-year-old man to rake in millions of dollars for himself for his upcoming retirement, which won't be in Pittsfield. The late-barstool Mayor sold Pittsfield's polluted environment to the Devil for 30 pieces of silver, lost millions of city dollars that are unaccounted for to this day, and sent the city government into state receivership. The late-Mayor Remo was a city Democrat operator since at least the mid-1960s, and he is one of the Founders of the no good Good Old Boys club in Pittsfield politics.
When is Pittsfield going to move into the 21st Century? When will the people tell Rolodex Ruberto to retire in Naples, Florida, and leave Pittsfield politics behind? It is NOT the 1950s anymore! Pittsfield should move forward already. The Good Old Boys put Pittsfield into the proverbial ditch. I hope that Pittsfield will change for the better in my lifetime, but I will not be holding my breath for that to ever happen. The corrupt career politicians in Pittsfield should stop telling us that we must "Hate Pittsfield" for speaking out against their failed leadership. We live in a free country, and Pittsfield is not an island anymore because we have social media, blogs, and the online data to back up our arguments that Pittsfield politics has become a public DISSERVICE.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
January 15, 2023
Hello Boston Globe Editors,
Sarcasm: I am so surprised that the corrupt career politicians and greedy lobbyists who make their living off of state taxpayers on Beacon Hill are dishonest. Sarcasm: I thought that when Beacon Hill lawmakers conduct the state's legislative business, they are honest, govern under Sunshine Laws, and work to meet the needs of the people and taxpayers whom they represent under Boston's shiny Golden Dome. Sarcasm: I thought that former Massachusetts State House Speakers Tom Finneran and Sal DiMasi, both of whom later became Convicted Felons, were exceptions to the rule.
Once again, I must inquire about former Pittsfield State Senator Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior's (a.k.a. Luciforo) alleged illegal double dipping as the then Chair of the State Senate Finance Committee many years ago who also worked as a corporate Attorney for the Boston Law Firm Berman and Dowell serving big banks and insurance companies from 1999 - 2006, according to the Globe's own reporting and published news articles. In 2023, Nuciforo still has a law office in Boston's Financial District. From 2017 - the present time in 2023, Nuciforo used his political connections in Pittsfield and Boston alike to cofound and co-own Berkshire Roots, which is a multimillion-dollar marijuana company. How is it O.K. for Nuciforo to have done all of those allegedly illegal things and go onto rake in millions of dollars for himself in the process, but it is not O.K. for Convicted Felon Sal DiMasi to make a paltry $60,000 per year as a registered lobbyist on Beacon Hill?
I read the Globe's news articles over the years about the growing number of greedy lobbyists on Beacon Hill, and most of them make a 6-figure salary, while some make a 7-figure salary to legally bribe all of the corrupt career politicians in Boston.
Sal DiMasi did his time, while Nuciforo only had to step down as a Pittsfield State Senator in 2006. Nuciforo then strong-armed two women candidates - Sharon Henault and Sara Hathaway - out of a 2006 state election to unilaterally anoint himself as the Pittsfield Registrar of Deeds from 2007 to 2012, while he spent the next 6 years - 2006 to 2012 - plotting to oust the U.S. Congressman John W. Olver in 2012, but Nuciforo ended up tanking against PAC Man Richie Neal by 40 points in 2012. Nuciforo was able to practice law as a sleazy Attorney who defended sleazy insurance companies and their sleazy salesman who robbed little old ladies out of their life savings. Nuciforo is able to rake in millions of dollars as a legal drug dealer of marijuana products.
The immoral of the story is that if you are a politically connected weasel such as Nuciforo, then Beacon Hill, Boston and Pittsfield will reward you with millions of dollars, but if you do your time like Sal DiMasi did, then the Editors of The Boston Globe will criticize you and the entire political system for a sickly old man making $60,000 as a registered lobbyist on Beacon Hill in 2022. The other irony is that former Governor Charlie Baker is making $60,000 per week to watch young adults play college sports, which is on top of his public pension plus perks and his personal wealth. $60,000 must be the buzz word of this month.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
A Boston Globe Editorial
"LAWMAKERS: CLOSE THE FELON-AS-LOBBYIST LOOPHOLE"
SAL DIMASI’S CASE SHOWS THE NEED FOR REFORM.
By The Editorial Board, January 15, 2023
Oh those strict constructionists on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Their recent decision in a case involving former House speaker and convicted felon Sal DiMasi has the effect of rendering federal public-corruption convictions a ho-hum matter when it comes to lobbying in Massachusetts.
Convicted on seven such charges in 2011, DiMasi was sentenced to eight years in prison but paroled after five for medical reasons under the federal government’s compassionate release program, which is intended for prisoners who are elderly and have served much of their sentence or who have terminal health conditions.
This newspaper supported compassionate-release consideration for DiMasi, who reportedly suffered from throat and prostate cancer.
But however difficult DiMasi’s medical problems may have been to cope with in prison, they haven’t kept him from returning to the scene of his crimes — and as a lobbyist, no less. Rather than being spurned on Beacon Hill, he has generally been accorded a jail-fellow-well-met reception, Beacon Hill chumminess apparently trumping disgust over a powerful legislative leader pocketing thousands of dollars in kickback in exchange for rigging a state contract for a software company. When House members were sworn in for new terms on Wednesday, DiMasi was there in the chamber.
But DiMasi’s relatively new role as a lobbyist has been met with an appropriate frown from Secretary of State William Galvin, whose office oversees the laws, rules, and regulations that apply to lobbyists. Galvin had denied DiMasi the right to lobby based on a state ethics statute, passed in the aftermath of DiMasi’s 2009 indictment, that banned those with public corruption convictions from lobbying for a period of 10 years.
DiMasi declined to wait out that period. Instead, he tried to register as a lobbyist in 2019.
As pertains strictly to DiMasi, the state’s decade-long ban has ceased to matter, since the 10-year penalty period expired in 2021. (In 2022, DiMasi reported almost $60,000 in lobbying income from five clients: the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, two health care clients, and organizations that serve veterans and the homeless.)
Still, the SJC nevertheless ruled on the legal dispute in the case — and sided with the felonious former speaker. Why? Because though the state statute listed state corruption laws as triggering the automatic ban, it didn’t mention federal ones.
Galvin intends to file legislation to expand the state law so it would cover relevant federal public-corruption convictions of the sort that got DiMasi and his close pal, former lobbyist Richard McDonough, sent to federal prison. Interestingly, a federal judge overseeing McDonough’s parole concluded he had lied about having a substance abuse problem, probably so he could participate in a recovery program that reduced his sentence by a year.
This really should be a no-brainer for the Legislature. Serious corruption is serious corruption, regardless of whether prosecuted at the state or federal level. That’s all the more true for this reason: It’s usually federal prosecutors who develop and pursue these kinds of corruption cases, since they have stronger anti-corruption tools. Why? One reason is that the Massachusetts House has resisted strengthening the investigative tools that state prosecutors have at their disposal.
Such a revised law should also extend the period during which someone who has been convicted on felony corruption charges is automatically banned from lobbying. At a minimum, 20 years seems like a more appropriate period. Otherwise, a sticky-fingered felon like DiMasi can serve the typical federal sentence and still reappear on Beacon Hill to take advantage of his (or her) longtime relationships.
Such a lengthened exclusion would not apply to DiMasi himself. But it would take precedence going forward.
In an era of one-party rule on Beacon Hill, this matter will be a test for Massachusetts Democrats, given that fixing the law would be seen as a slap at the former speaker. But it is important both symbolically and substantively. Declining to fix the law would signal the Legislature is not serious about signaling a no-tolerance policy for public corruption. Governor Maura Healey and Attorney General-elect Andrea Campbell should also lend their vocal support to Galvin’s effort.
Those who take their oaths of office more seriously than DiMasi did his should move expeditiously to ensure that when it comes to former felons becoming lobbyists, DiMasi’s history doesn’t repeat itself — at least not for a 20-year exclusionary period.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board.
-----
January 21, 2023
Re: Thomas F. Birmingham, former state Senate president, dies at 73
Hello Boston Globe,
I am sorry to read about the passing of Tom Birmingham. In 2002, I met him, along with the famous Robert Reich, when they were running for Governor of Massachusetts in the Democratic Party. When I shook Robert Reich's hand, I said to him that I support his progressive politics of investing in the people and communities throughout Massachusetts. When I met Tom Birmingham, I wished him good luck in his campaign, but then Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior (aka Luciforo) saw me talking with his favored candidate for Governor and after Luciforo came over, they walked away from me. Good old Luciforo, who always puts himself before everyone else in politics, which in later years led to him being called a "Fringe Politician".
Anyways, I always enjoyed reading Tom Birmingham's op-eds in The Boston Globe over the years. As well, I always enjoyed listening to and watching Robert Reich on TV over the years.
Later in 2002, Democrat candidate for Governor Shannon O'Brien faced off against the very wealthy Republican candidate for Governor, Willard Mitt Romney, who always had offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, with Mitt Romney buying the Massachusetts Governor's Office from Utah, where he is a current U.S. Senator. I always wondered why Mitt Romney ran for U.S. President in 2012 when he had offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, which is as bad as Donald Trump's secretive tax returns.
In the news yesterday, Friday, 1/20/2023, I read that Joe Biden and his sketch-ball Hall of Shame son Hunter Biden made history for being the first father and son to have Special Counsels investigating them at the same time over the past 46 presidential administrations.
I went out for a late-morning breakfast with my 78-year-old dad, Bob, this snowy Saturday, 1/21/2023, and I asked him about the two Special Counsel investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden. I asked, what if the two of them were/are in cahoots together as partners in alleged crime(s)? I said it may be best for the country if Joe Biden resigned, but my dad disagreed with me, but then my dad said that Joe Biden should not run for a second term next year in 2024. I don't want either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to run for U.S. President in 2024. I hope for two new presidential candidates in 2024.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 6, 2023
Someone responded to my political email about the Massachusetts State Lottery's new $50 scratch ticket that will go on sale starting tomorrow - Tuesday, February 7th, 2023 - by the person writing to me that most people use their limited financial spending on lottery tickets because they lost hope in gaining wealth due to their distressed economic circumstances. The person wrote to me that the state's selling of lottery tickets are profiting from people's own despair.
My response is that a low- to moderate-income person who is facing limited financial constraints and personal debts is not going to attain wealth in the first place. A person feeling despair should instead learn how to manage their personal finances to manage their personal debts and their financial constraints. Such a person is further disadvantaging themselves by purchasing lottery tickets and playing lottery games. The lottery's average payout is only a small fraction of each dollar paid in. The average person does not beat the odds by gambling their money on the hopes of attaining wealth. If they do beat the odds, it is a very rare occurrence.
We common people are really just a numbers game to the financial, corporate and ruling elites, who use all of us to play inequitable financial shell games for the elites to enrich themselves at our expense. Financial studies on gambling found that the limited financial spending by commoners' households over a period of 30 years equals an average of $250,000 per said household in profit for the lottery, casinos, racetracks, card rooms, slot machines, and so on. If the average household didn't fall for the bait and switch "get rich" gambling schemes, then they would have the average savings of $250,000 over a 30 year term by not gambling their money away. Moreover, when a common person wins by gambling their limited money, it is likened to a cash advance that will be lost on top of other gambling losses when they continue to gamble as time goes by.
On the weekends, I enjoy going to a local diner in my town in New Hampshire where I sit with a sweet old man who is in his early-80s who I eat brunch with on the stools at the counter. He likes to talk to me about financial matters and people in the news. He tells me all about Vanguard's founder the late-Jack Bogle who sold his company's mutual funds to common people, which Jack Bogle owned himself to show his investors that he stood behind his financial products. While I am not invested in the stock and bond markets myself, I tell him that I am still a "Bogle-head" who believes that it is important for business and government to invest in the people for a strong middle-class. I said that I watch a lot of financial shows on TV and I have studied and followed financial matters for many years, and that I used to watch and listen to Jack Bogle when he did TV interviews.
I also told my elderly friend who I enjoy seeing at the local diner that I know that Warren Buffett made most of his fortune after the age of 60, and that the way he became a billionaire was through the power of compounding as his investments rolled over and grew from a small snowball to an avalanche. Unlike the multibillionaire Warren Buffett, most people make the most money during their working years, and as they age, they become poorer and sometimes elderly people run out of money other than their monthly Social Security checks. Over a 30 year period, gambling entities take an average of $250,000 from average households who lose that portion of their wealth, and then when those commoner-households enter old age, they become poorer as time goes by. Warren Buffett:Great wealth after the age 60::Common gambling household:Little to no wealth after 60!
Beacon Hill lawmakers' 50-year support for the state lottery are playing the people they represent by doing DISSERVICES to instead of investing in for FOOLS! Beacon Hill lawmakers are mocking distressed "Gateway" cities and regions of Massachusetts by always growing the Massachusetts State Lottery to a multibillion-dollar per fiscal year gambling industry. Beacon Hill lawmakers use the lottery and other (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes to giveaway a little less than $18 billion per fiscal year to their wealthy campaign donors in and around Boston, while leaving the rest of us with the bill. Some registered lobbyists on Beacon Hill earn a 7-figure per year salary from big businesses to legally bribe the fictional State Representative Sellout Shakedown to give away even more state tax giveaways for the special interests.
In Boston and North Adams, the fictional State Representative Sellout Shakedown's cousin is Daniel E. Bosley who hopes to increases his greedy registered lobbyist salary from 6-figures per year to 7-figures per year, which would be on top of Daniel Bosley's state pension(s) plus perks. Many years ago, then North Adams State Representative Dan Bosley sponsored his secretive same day "Bosley Amendment" which would have given away billions of dollars in state tax breaks to wealthy corporations and blown a huge hole in the state budget back then. Even the fictional Rep. Sellout Shakedown was surprised by "The Bosley Amendment" back then, and it was defeated on the same day it was secretly introduced by then Rep. Dan Bosley.
Moreover, when then Governor Deval Patrick supported casino gambling, it was then Rep. Dan Bosley who opposed casino gambling because then Rep. Dan Bosley wanted to protect the lottery's bottom line.
Of course, the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) published greedy registered lobbyist Daniel Bosley's letter last Fall 2022 criticizing then Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington's public record, but Hell would freeze over if the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) ever published one of my many letters criticizing Daniel Bosley's public record and his greed-ball record as a registered lobbyist on Beacon Hill (and beyond). The same goes for Pittsfield's "legal" drug dealing Pot King, then State Senator Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior, who was an alleged illegal double dipper when he chaired the Massachusetts State Senate Finance Committee back in 2005 while he also worked as a Corporate Attorney for the Boston law firm Berman and Dowell from 1999 - 2006 whereby Luciforo served as legal counsel for Boston's big banks and insurance companies, which led to the demise of his disgraced political career many years ago. No mention of that scandal in the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) either. But the least of the corruption in state and local politics was then D.A. Andrea Harrington.
Does anyone understand what the new record setting $50 scratch ticket going on sale on Tuesday, February 7th, 2023, really mean in terms of what Beacon Hill lawmakers stand for in Massachusetts state government? It means that they are playing us for fools, while they are the ones getting rich while we are getting poorer with their inequitable (voluntary) regressive schemes.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 10, 2023
Is blogger Dan Valenti really saying that Pittsfield politics' barstool, aberration, rolodex-renaissance, Montello, and vibrant-dynamic taglines didn't work? I thought that PEDA was supposed to attract Fortune 500 companies to Pittsfield instead of PEDA's millions of dollars in always growing financial liabilities for GE's former postindustrial polluted properties. I thought that Pittsfield's Level 5 public school system was supposed to send the city's youth to prestigious institutions of higher education instead of to the underclass. I thought that inner-city Pittsfield's over-hyped arts district was supposed to rival London, Paris, NYC, and L.A. instead of being home to over 1,000 gangs who sell drugs and even worse to the local people. I thought that City Hall was supposed to invest in the city's most valuable resource: the People and their residential neighborhoods instead of letting Luciforo's Dalton Avenue pot growing buildings stink up half of the city. I thought that Pittsfield's public finances was supposed to favor the 5 decades-long shrinking middle class taxpayers instead of producing huge amounts of so-called "Free Cash" and secretive multimillion-dollar Slush Funds via Kufflink's "Cooked Books". I thought that state and local politics would be run by politicians who didn't answer to failed and disgraced former politicians who live in Naples, Florida (Jimmy Ruberto) or Boston (Nuciforo). I thought that Pittsfield politics was supposed to change from its corrupt and insider's only "Good Old Boys" notorious past to the "Brooklyn of the Berkshires" tagline of the 21st century. I guess that I thought wrong!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 13, 2023
You, as a Veteran yourself, can go on blaming me for being a disabled Veteran, but please stop blaming former Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington's 4 years in elected office for Pittsfield always being in the 10 ten cities in Massachusetts for violent crime, according to the FBI's annual reports, that go back decades. Pittsfield has over 1,000 gang members living in its inner-city neighborhoods. The low- to moderate-income residents are afraid of the violence, drugs, prostitution, and the like, and I read their letters to the editor over the years, and they said they don't have enough money to live somewhere else. When I was a youth growing up in Pittsfield in the 1980s and 1990s, I hoped that I wouldn't end up living in inner-city Pittsfield. Now that I am 47.5 years old, I am thankful that I live in a nice little town west of Nashua, NH. My wish came true that I didn't have to deal with it in Pittsfield like so many distressed people I observed many years ago. Lastly, I am sure that the greedy career Ambulance chasing, Divorce Attorney who after 18 years of seeking his plum elected position of Berkshire County District Attorney, Tim Shugrue, is NOT going to change much for the better in Pittsfield with his tough on shoplifting policies. Like all of the other useless career politicians, D.A. Tim Shugrue doesn't really give a shit about Pittsfield being a shithole!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 17, 2023
The 24.5-year-old PEDA debacle is still very polluted with GE's PCBs, and it is still accumulating millions of dollars in always growing larger financial liabilities that will never be paid off. Why did Pittsfield ever agree to this fiasco in the first place? Why is Pittsfield still pouring money into this black hole of waste? It should have always been a Superfund site!
North Street hosts somewhere around two dozen empty storefronts. Dangerous downtown Pittsfield is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley" by day and "The Shooting Gallery" after hours with the over 1,000 gang members who live in inner-city Pittsfield. North Street's bike lanes is yet another gimmick by Pittsfield politics since the days of the so-called Jimmy Ruberto Renaissance that critics sarcastically wrote rivaled London, Paris, NYC, and L.A.'s arts and cultural centers. Instead, it ended up rivaling London, Paris, NYC, and L.A.'s homeless shelters and distressed streets where the remnants of Jimmy Ruberto's Rolodex can be found, while the old snake oil salesman and conman himself lives in Naples, Florida.
Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley Bouvier's priority of decriminalizing sex work may put Pittsfield's out-of-work people to work in the fictional "Happy Endings Massage Parlor" that could be located next to Luciforo's Pot Kingdom on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield. Why not put a strip club, liquor store, a lottery outlet, a tobacco outlet, and a would-be casino there, too?
Pittsfield could market itself as the "Unholy Trinity" city for one to act out one's unhealthy sexual fantasies, the place for alcoholics and druggies, and the place for compulsive gamblers. It would attract more of the always growing underclass population to the city.
Why is Pittsfield so F*#k'd up? Pittsfield's Level 5 public school district going back decades with over 650 students per academic year who choice out to neighboring public school districts and charter schools, Allendale Elementary School abutting GE's leaky capped toxic waste dump named "Hill 78", a top 10 city in Massachusetts for violent crime every year going back decades with a reputation for being friendly to gang members, excessive taxation for substandard municipal services, a one political (Dem.) party monopoly on power that rules through the use of retribution, 50 years of population loss and the loss of thousands of living wage jobs, Jimmy Ruberto's useless Rolodex and failed Renaissance, the Berkshire Museum selling off its historic artwork for tens of millions of dollars, Luciforo's pot growing buildings stinking up residential neighborhoods, and on and on....
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 20, 2023
I support Mayor Linda Tyer in Pittsfield politics. I have written that Donald Trump has three wives, too. I have written that Donald Trump is overweight, too. I have written that John Forbes Kerry, Donald Trump and most likely Nancy Pelosi are billionaires, too. What is my stance on Mayor Linda Tyer? My answer is that overall, she did a great job publicly managing Pittsfield politics since the beginning of 2016. She is very intelligent, and it showed in her news media interviews and public advocacy for the 47 distressed and unequal cities throughout Massachusetts. What is my stance on Tricia Farley-Bouvier? My answer is that she is out in left field with her recently proudly passing a state law to give illegal immigrants Driver's Licenses and her saying that her number one legislative priority on Beacon Hill in 2023 - 2024 is to decriminalize sex work, but a Happy Endings Massage Parlor or two would (wood) bring a lot of joyful stimulation to all of the perverts who live in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The next Mayor of Pittsfield can put all of the old and new sinful businesses next to Luciforo's Pot Kingdom on Dalton Avenue. He or she can name the would-be newly created business district: "Luciforo's District of Sin"!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
February 23, 2023
Mayor Linda Tyer's third husband, the multimillionaire CPA Barry Clairmont, is suing former City Councilor and candidate for Mayor Melissa (Mason) Mazzeo for defamation of his character and he is seeking compensatory damages, emotional distress and reputational damages because Melissa never apologized to the sitting Mayor's third husband over a claim that the state government found her complaint against him to be baseless that prior to the 2019 general election: "Barry Clairmont had unauthorized access to ballots inside of City Hall". A pretrial hearing is scheduled to take place on March 27th, 2023, pending Judge Agostini's decision on the motion for summary judgment. Melissa requested that Barry's lawsuit against her be dismissed.
My thoughts about this case are: "Welcome to the club, Barry Clairmont!" In 2020, Alex Morse was subject to a homophobic smear campaign by his own State Democratic Party Officials in Boston, which unfairly benefited K Street corporate lobbyist firms' - especially insurance companies PAC Man - Richie Neal's reelection campaign to his 1,000th term in the Swamp. Unlike Barry, Alex Morse did not sue the political hacks for dragging his name through the mud prior to the 2020 primary election that Alex Morse lost to the ultimate corporate Congressman from Springfield, Massachusetts.
While I am not allowed to write about the Hell I went through as a then young man prior to, during and after my dad was a Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000), none of the people in Pittsfield politics and beyond to Boston who conspiratorially hurt me over and over again ever once apologized to me. In closing, you, Barry, are being a big baby about something that happened to you over 3 years ago, and your wife won her reelection campaign to boot. Please drop the lawsuit because you are the one who is defaming your own character, Barry Clairmont!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
April 2, 2023
What case is the worst one:
1. Donald Trump's alleged hush money payment to a porn star?
2. Hunter Biden bringing the half of his age mother of his unwanted 4-year-old girl to an upcoming bench trial on July 24th, 2023, over his monthly child support payments?
3. The ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, and then Putin responding in kind by escalating the threat of nuclear war against the West?
4. Mayor Linda Tyer's third husband Barry Clairmont suing Melissa Mazzeo because she accused him of corruption in Pittsfield politics and Melissa Mazzeo not agreeing to apologize to him over the most trivial of matters from over 3 years ago?
Please let us not forget that Bill Clinton, who is a Democrat, is a twice Convicted Felon for perjuring himself in Paula Jones' Sexual Harassment case against him whereby he ended up settling the civil case with her because he had his penis exposed to her wanting her to give him a blowjob when she entered a room for a job interview when he was Governor of Arkansas. Bill Clinton's second Felony conviction was for Suborning Perjury for directing Monica Lewinsky to write a false legal Affidavit that they never had sex. In the end, Monica Lewinsky admitted to giving U.S. President Bill Clinton up to 9 blowjobs, including the sleazy Prez putting a cigar in her vagina and then smoking it while he was receiving Monica Lewinsky's blowjobs in the Oval Office, which was sarcastically called the "Oral Orifice".
Lastly, whether it was Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, the real issue here is "Moral Hypocrisy"! Over one-half of the Members of U.S. Congress were having sex love affairs with their staff during Bill Clinton's impeachment. Over one-half of the Members of U.S. Congress were settling sexual misconduct cases with hush money - NDAs - and running for reelection just like Donald Trump allegedly did with Stormy Daniels. In NYC, billionaire now former-Mayor Michael Bloomberg paid more hush money to his love interest ladies over the years/decades than there are floors on the Empire State Building, which ended up sinking his presidential campaign in 2020 and his disgraced political career.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
April 6, 2023
Hello Blogger Dan Valenti, you and anyone else out there who has read my political emails and blog commentary knows full well that I went through far worse than anyone else in the history of Pittsfield politics over the past 27 years, which started when my dad, Bob, began his campaign for Berkshire County Commissioner in the Spring of 1996 when I was only 20 years old. It amazes me that the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) wrote editorials about Boston's state Democratic committee's homophobic smear campaign against Alex Morse during the late-Summer months of 2020 when he ran against Richie Neal in the primary election. It amazes me that you, Dan Valenti, write about "Big Baby" Barry Clairmont's civil suit against Melissa Mazzeo for her alleging him being corrupt in Pittsfield politics. YET, you admonished me for writing about the Hell I was put through over the past 27 years of my life and onwards in Pittsfield politics by a disgraced former politician and Pot King who I am not allowed to write about on your blog. I feel that I - Jon Melle - do not count in this world! Nobody cares about how I feel about what happened to me in Pittsfield politics to Boston's Beacon Hill Statehouse. Please understand that I respect you as a journalist and blogger, that I enjoy reading your blog daily, and that you are and always will be a friend of my family. Thank you, Jon Melle
-----
April 7, 2023
Sarcasm: Once again, I wish to thank you for your support.
Not Sarcasm: I am happy that I live in Amherst, NH (for the past 19 years since the Spring 2004). FYI: The abuse from Pittsfield politics to Boston never stopped! It would be nice if it did. THE STORY OF MY LIFE, of course!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
April 7, 2023
Hello editors of the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle), and Blogger Dan Valenti:
Here are all of my questions for the candidates for the open elected position of Mayor of Pittsfield politics:
1. Pittsfield's municipal finances are unsustainable. Pittsfield currently has a fiscal year "Pickleball" budget of over $200 million. Pittsfield's municipal debts and other liabilities are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Pittsfield has been experiencing a shrinking middle class with significant losses in population and living wage jobs over the past 50 years. What are the candidates plans for a realistic municipal financial management system going forward?
2. The almost 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle has millions of dollars in always growing larger debts and other liabilities. The millions of public dollars being spent on it do not remediate the pollution. What are the candidates plans for PEDA going forward?
3. Allendale Elementary School abuts Hill 78, which is a "capped" leaky landfill full of GE's cancer-causing industrial chemicals called PCBs. What are the candidates plans with Hill 78 and Allendale Elementary School going forward?
4. Pittsfield is always in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime year-in year-out. What are the candidates plans for Pittsfield's dangerous inner-city streets that experience daily shootings by the over 1,000 gang members who call Pittsfield home?
5. Pittsfield's public schools have the worst rating by the state, which is Level 5. Over 650 Pittsfield students per academic year choice out of the city's failed public schools to neighboring public school districts and the like. What are the candidates plans to improve public education in Pittsfield?
6. The biggest question a municipality should answer is: Would the average middle-class family want to move here? How would the candidates answer this question?
7. North Street is home to 15 empty storefronts, it is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley", the distressed neighborhoods that surround North Street are sarcastically called "The Ring of Poverty", and many people avoid inner-city Pittsfield out of concern for their personal safety and peace of mind. How will the candidates change all of these socioeconomic problems for the better?
8. Miguel "Miggy" Estrella was shot to death in an encounter with the Pittsfield Police Department's Officers over one year ago. This late-young man had a well-known history with the police, including for mental illness, substance abuse and domestic calls. On the evening of the tragic event, he was self-cutting with a knife, he was high and/or intoxicated, and he was in an ongoing mental health crisis. But the PPD's Use of Force report stated that he was not a person in distress under law. Do the candidates believe that the PPD's determination that the suspect was not a person in distress under law is wrong? If so, how will they fix this grave injustice by the City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts?
9. The residential neighborhoods nearby Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr.'s Berkshire Roots pot growing buildings on Dalton Avenue have publicly complained about the unpleasant odors with no resolution from City Hall. How would you deal with Nuciforo's disregard for the residential neighborhoods who have to smell the unpleasant odors from his pot growing buildings?
10. Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier's number one (and only) state legislative priority for 2023 - 2024 on Beacon Hill is to pass a law decriminalizing prostitution. If she succeeds, would the candidates support "Happy Endings" Massage Parlors in Pittsfield?
11. The golden rule of Public Administration is to use the city's limited financial resources to Invest in People as the community's most valuable resource. How would the candidates invest in the people of Pittsfield?
12. What would the candidates do differently than Mayors: Sara "Aberration" Hathaway, Jimmy "Rolodex" Ruberto, Dan "Montello" Bianchi, and Linda "Gated Community" Tyer? Why?
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
Our Opinion: "As Pittsfield mayor's race revs up, we want to know which issues matter most to our readers"
The Berkshire Eagle, Editorial, April 7, 2023
With two campaign kickoffs in as many days, this week felt like the official launching point of the Pittsfield mayoral race. City Council President Peter Marchetti and former City Councilor John Krol are the only two formally announced candidates so far. That could change in the near future, but one thing is certain: With Mayor Linda Tyer forgoing another run, the road to November’s municipal elections will feature a contest of new visions for the top executive seat in the city at the heart of the Berkshires.
We look forward to what is hopefully a substantive airing of issues and ideas over the next several months so that the people of Pittsfield can head to the polls informed of their electoral choices. We have some priorities in mind — transparency, economic development, critical infrastructure upgrades just to name a few — but most importantly we want to serve our readership in this crucial project of local democracy and self-determination for our county’s largest community.
For Pittsfield voters, what do you want to see in your new mayor and which issues loom large for that choice? For the greater Pittsfield community, what is the lens through which you view this decision about the city’s future leadership?
We want to know. Send us your thoughts in a letter to the editor of no more than 250 words by noon on April 19. We’ll publish a range of responses that will help inform our coverage mission and shape the contours of the community conversation. Email them to letters@berkshireeagle.com with the subject line “Pittsfield mayoral.” We aren’t looking for endorsements or statements of candidate support — we anticipate plenty of those as the race nears its end. What we’re seeking here is your input on which issues should be at the center of this mayoral campaign.
These submissions will be exempt from our rule restricting writers to one letter per month, but please mind the smaller word limit so that we can process and publish as many as possible. We’ll give priority to Pittsfield residents, since they’ll be the ones voting for their new mayor and most impacted by the outcome, but we welcome perspectives from others who also have a stake in the city’s trajectory, from Pittsfield business owners who live elsewhere to those who commute to Pittsfield for work or education to advocates and community stakeholders who are invested in Pittsfield’s future.
Voting matters. Local democracy matters. The future of Pittsfield definitely matters, and it affects the entire Berkshire community.
Here is a chance to have your say in a way that strengthens the process and dialogue necessary to pursue those values.
We look forward to hearing from you.
-----
April 18, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I strongly disagree with your praise of Mayor Jimmy Ruberto (2004 - 2011), who you wrote served the City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts with "authenticity". You are correct that his costly efforts to revitalize downtown Pittsfield failed. People sarcastically wrote that "the Ruberto Renaissance" rivaled Paris, London, NYC and L.A.'s arts and cultural venues - more like their homeless shelters. Jimmy Ruberto spent millions of public dollars on downtown arts and cultural venues, while Pittsfield lost hundreds of living wage jobs and thousands of residents moved away.
You criticize Mayor Sara Hathaway turned schoolmarm who was fired from her public-school teaching position but reinstated after litigation. She deserves a lot of criticism, of course, but she was right in 2001 and again in 2003 that Jimmy Ruberto was a snake oil salesman. We should have listened to Sara Hathaway's warnings about Jimmy Ruberto back then. Moreover, many of Mayor Sara Hathaway's ideas and initiatives were coopted by Jimmy Ruberto back then.
Jimmy Ruberto used to say that he has a Rolodex that he would use to bring living wage jobs back to Pittsfield after GE pulled out of the city. His Rolodex only had Good Old Boys in it, such as the disgraced: Angelo Stracuzzi, Carmen Massimiano, Jr., and Andrea Nuciforo, Jr., and the like. While the worst economic recession since the Great Depression hit Pittsfield (and beyond) in 2008, Mayor Jimmy Ruberto still raised municipal taxes well above the rate of inflation. The only economic growth in Pittsfield during Mayor Jimmy Ruberto's eight year tenure was the City of Pittsfield's spending.
Mayor Jimmy Ruberto's failure on PEDA is consistent with Gerry Doyle, Sara Hathway, Dan Bianchi and Linda Tyer's failures. Polluted PEDA will turn 25 years old this upcoming Summer 2023, and it has millions of dollars in always growing debts and other liabilities. If Mayor Jimmy Ruberto was any good as a public manager, he would have shut down PEDA and turned it over to the federal government as a Superfund site. Why PEDA will turn 25 years old soon is beyond my comprehension of rational economics, but "this is Pittsfield".
Jimmy Ruberto never owned or rented a property to live in as a resident of Pittsfield. He retired from his job as a Plastics Salesman in Texas in 2001 and moved into his mother, Edith's, home in Pittsfield in 2001. Within two years, he put his mother, Edith, in a nursing home, and then he went onto oust Mayor Sara Hathaway in 2003. When he was the Mayor of Pittsfield, he really lived in his upscale condo in Naples, Florida, where he would go for weeks at a time. After his mother, Edith, and his wife, Ellen, passed away, Jimmy Ruberto ended up selling his mother's Pittsfield home, and he used the money to pay cash for an upscale condo in upper class Lenox, which is his second home.
Why am I frustrated by Jimmy Ruberto's legacy? The answer is because he put the financial burden of his failed leadership in Pittsfield on the (shrinking) middle-class taxpayers, who used their limited financial resources to invest in their properties and city, while he did NOT do the same. Mayor Jimmy Ruberto proved to be a snake oil salesman who promised to revitalize a distressed postindustrial city, but at the end of the day, he made Pittsfield even more distressed and expensive. My most despised memory of Mayor Jimmy Ruberto was when he had "Luciforo" swear him into his third term in early-2008. The best thing Jimmy Ruberto did for Pittsfield was move away from the city!
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
April 20, 2023
I respect you and always enjoy reading your posts, "ShirleyKnutz". But I feel that what you wrote to/about me, Jon Melle, was a cheap shot because a lot of people know full well what happened to my political family in Pittsfield politics to the Boston Statehouse due to the disgraced double dipper (Boston's Financial District) State Senator turned Pot King's 27 years of persecution. I am still trying to deal with my negative feelings towards politicians, especially in Pittsfield, Amherst (MA) where I attended UMass many years ago, and Boston's Statehouse, but I also have negative feelings about the Swamp. I dislike career politicians because they are only about the Almighty Dollar and Power, and I feel like common people, such as Have Nots like Jon Melle, and distressed cities like my native hometown of Pittsfield (MA), receive only DISSERVICES from the financial, corporate and ruling elites. Whatever happened to the government Investing in People? Moreover, I feel like the state lottery SCAM and other (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes mock both Jon Melle and Pittsfield alike because it allows the elites to profit off public inequities. To illustrate, there are registered lobbyists on Beacon Hill who make 7-figure salaries. In the Swamp, K Street is bragging about the lobbyist firms record earnings. Meanwhile, the common people and distressed cities - the Jon Melle's/Pittsfield's of the world - are paying well over $100 per week for the same goods and services than two to three years ago. Jon Melle never stood a chance in Pittsfield, and Pittsfield politics' Good Old Boys made life difficult for me. Jon Melle lives in New Hampshire, which is an openly financially conservative state, and I don't have to deal with Pittsfield politics anymore other than read about its downward spiral on Dan Valenti's blog.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
April 26, 2023
Hello Rinaldo,
I read your letter about your public advocacy petition for the Pittsfield Police Department to have a city ordinance that mandates that the police intervene in a life-threatening use of force situation. What I found was missing from your public advocacy was that when the PPD used deadly force against Miguel Estrella over one year ago, they wrote in their police report that he was not a person in distress under law. Miguel Estrella was intoxicated and/or high, he was self-cutting himself with a knife, the police were called twice, he had a well-known history of mental illness and substance abuse, and so on. How in the world does the PPD's Use of Force report stand when Miguel Estrella was, indeed, a person in distress under law? Please address the existing law(s) on the Use of Force, too, when you publicly advocate for new laws on the matter.
I believe that the PPD, Mayor Linda Tyer's administration and the Berkshire County District Attorney's Office acted illegally by affirming the PPD's Use of Force report in the shooting to death of Miguel Estrella because the police report states that he was not a person in distress under law. I request that you sue the city and D.A.'s Office on behalf of his family over this illegal action. It should not be allowed to stand!
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
"A new ConvenientMD urgent care clinic is opening on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield"
By Meg Britton-Mehlisch, The Berkshire Eagle, April 25, 2023
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that Andrea Nuciforo Jr. is representing the new clinic. A previous version misspelled the attorney's name.
PITTSFIELD — A New England urgent care company has set its sights on the shuttered MedExpress building on Dalton Avenue, offering new hope for additional access to quick medical care in Pittsfield.
ConvenientMD Urgent Care LLC received unanimous approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals last week to place their signs directing patients back to the building at 999 Dalton Ave. The Portsmouth, N.H., based company is promising to provide walk-in service to patients every day between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Andrea Nuciforo Jr., the attorney who represented ConvenientMD before the ZBA, told the body the company expects to be able to see somewhere between 40 and 60 patients each day during those operating hours for a wide variety of ailments.
A website for the clinic lists lab services, X-rays, minor surgical procedures, flu and COVID testing, youth sports and camp physical and electrocardiograms, known as EKGs, on the menu of care “coming soon to Pittsfield.”
The Berkshire Eagle reached out to Nuciforo’s firm for a comment on when ConvenientMD will be opening its doors to the public and has yet to receive a response. When the clinic does begin taking patients, the number of urgent care facilities available to Pittsfield residents will again sit at two.
The West Virginia-based MedExpress opened its Dalton Avenue clinic in 2016, the same year that Berkshire Health Systems opened its own acute care center on East Street. When MedExpress announced to patients in August that it had made the “difficult decision” to close, the BHS Urgent Care became the only urgent care clinic in the city.
Nuciforo described the business model of ConvenientMD as an upgrade from MedExpress. He said the company’s clinics can “provide about 75 percent of the medical matters and medical solutions that might be available in an emergency room,” while “most urgent cares, including MedExpress, can do about 30 to 35 percent.”
An informational packet provided to the ZBA says that the typical co-pay for ConvenientMD clinics are a fraction of the size of typical emergency room bills. ConvenientMD said its patients typically pay somewhere between $25 and $80 per visit while hospital emergency department co-pays are typically somewhere between $200 and $300.
The attorney said patients won’t just notice a difference in care but the general experience of visiting the urgent care center.
“It feels a lot more like a Marriott or a Hyatt than it does a pharmacy clinic,” Nuciforo said.
-----
May 5, 2023
I heard a rumor that Hunter Biden is planning to announce his candidacy for Mayor of Pittsfield politics soon. Hunter Biden will fit right in with all of the deadbeat dads, drug users, sex addicts, financial fraudsters, and being yet another spoiled brat career politician from a Democratic Party-political family. Also considering a run for the corner office are: a mystery man who once ran Pittsfield politics from Naples Florida, a Pot King and Attorney who lives in Boston, a big and jolly old Elf who has a white beard and wears a red suit with black boots who lives in the North Pole, an Easter Bunny who welcomes us into Spring every year, another famous Bunny who says, "What's Up Doc?", a mouse that can fly, another mouse who has big ears, an Underdog who shines shoes on his down time, the ghost of Jack Welch who will promise to manufacture neutron bombs and spread PCBs, the ghost of Gerry Doyle who will make Pittsfield the barstool capital of the world, and Jon Melle, who will swim across Silver Lake with Cliff Nilan to burn off the Teo's hotdogs and beer we ate for lunch.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
May 6, 2023
I shouldn't "make fun of an old man", but rather, I should write about the past 50 years of significant losses in population and living wage jobs, the late-barstool, aberration, rolodex, Mayor Montello, the vibrant Gated Community and dynamic Lexus luxury car secretary, candidate banker, candidate unemployed, and the fringe candidate with a history of legal troubles, groomed for Prez of City Council Pete White, the Level 5 schoolmarm on the "Scohol" Committee, Pittsfield's short and stinky Pot King, dangerous downtown's Social Service Alley with 15 empty storefronts, the "Ring of Poverty" distressed inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street, the almost 25-year-old heavily indebted and polluted PEDA debacle, the over $200 "Pickleball" municipal budget, hundreds of millions of dollars in public debts and other liabilities, the city's top 10 in violent crime status year-in and year out, the only economic growth is in the underclass, and Jon Melle's story of being persecuted in Pittsfield politics to the Boston Statehouse over the past 27 years by a disgraced former Pittsfield State Senator, who was caught being in bed with Boston's big banks and insurance companies, and his network of bullies. Now that - Pittsfield politics - is a topic for a good laugh because things couldn't get any worse, except in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, of course!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
May 16, 2023
Just don't say that Mayor Linda Tyer's 3rd husband shouldn't have been anywhere near ballots in City Hall during the 2019 election that his 2nd wife, Linda Tyer, won or else Barry Clairmont will sue you four years later for allegedly harming his reputation and thereby cutting into his CPA firm's profit margins without any proof of financial losses. Otherwise, go right ahead and knockout a grandmother or two, shoot up the inner-city streets of Pittsfield and beyond, say your only priority in Boston is to legalize "Happy Endings", stink up residential neighborhoods with a corrupt Pot growing Kingdom on Dalton Avenue, secretly spend over $41 million in "Biden Bucks" and then propose a record high $205.6 million fy2024 municipal budget, and when someone sarcastically calls Affirmative Action policies "DIE", call everyone a racist or a Marxist or a psycho....
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to write that most of the Founding Fathers owned Slaves, Abe Lincoln wanted to forcibly deport all black people from the U.S.A. after the end of the Civil War, as well as signed off on the executions of many Native Americans in the Minnesota Territory, racist and anti-Semitic eugenics, immigration and Jim Crow laws were the law of the land 100 years ago, FDR refused to sign a federal law outlawing the lynching of black people, the federal government continues to spend trillions of dollars on the military industrial complex that has killed millions upon millions of innocent people around the world since the end of WW2, the Pentagon is the single biggest polluter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and the only two real kinds of economic growth in the 21st Century are the huge underclass population and the powerful and wealthy financial, corporate and ruling elites who have turned the rigged system into their exclusive Country Club on their elitist Yacht, while the rest of us have to pay for 40-year high U.S. inflation and are looking at a predicted recession later this year of 2023 into 2024.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
May 17, 2023
I will turn 48 this Summer 2023, and all of my life I have witnessed Pittsfield politics shoot down proposal after proposal to revitalize downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts. No to the downtown Mall proposal. No to the new ballpark proposal. No to the pedestrian district proposal. No to the children's museum proposal. Over 50 years ago, downtown Pittsfield had a bustling business district, but then the Social Services Agencies took it over, along with the over one dozen empty storefronts on North Street that are surrounded by the "Ring of Poverty" inner-city distressed neighborhoods. The slum lords, scratch ticket buyers, nip bottle drinkers, over 1,000 gang members shooting their guns daily, corrupt career politicians, con men, pot kings, and so on, all won, while the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski middle-class family lost. Pittsfield is one of the most economically unequal metro cities in the state and nation with the sitting Mayor, Linda Tyer, living in a mansion in an elitist Gated Community within a few feet from the Hancock border. In 2024, Linda Tyer will be collecting her 6-figure city public pension plus perks, while city taxpayers will be paying for her $205.6 million fy2024 municipal budget in return for Pittsfield's Level 5 public schools.... Pittsfield profits off of the underclass, which I call "Perverse Incentives" compounded by a SCAM(S)!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
May 19, 2023
In response to Mr. Fritz's post: Too bad Valenti didn’t ban you for life from his blog. Waiting for Bosley, Nucifero & Guernsey to sue you for slander.
Blogger Dan Valenti and many posters have libeled and slandered Andrea Harrington, but when I write about the corrupt political establishment's public record and hypocritical letters to the editor, I read that "Bosley, ["Luciforo"] & Guernsey [should] sue [me] for slander".
Sarcasm: I thought that was the job of Mayor Linda Tyer's third husband, the multimillionaire CPA Barry Clairmont, who is suing Melissa Mazzeo for defamation of his character a little less than four years after the 2019 municipal election that his second wife, Linda Tyer, won.
Unlike Barry Clairmont, I never sued "Luciforo" or anyone else connected to his abusive and corrupt political network for defamation of my character and related alleged wrongdoings over the past 27 years of my adult life.
If the corrupt political establishment actually sued me for slander, it would be very interesting to me given all that I went through at their dirty hands in Pittsfield politics to the secretive Golden Dome on Beacon Hill.
Hell would freeze over before "Bosley, ["Luciforo"] & Guernsey" would write a letter to the editor criticizing the corrupt political establishment because then they would have to look at themselves in the proverbial mirror of self-reflection instead of only unfairly blaming the Andrea Harringtons and Jon Melles of the political world for participating freely in our government.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
June 1, 2023
In my studies, I found out that the path to wealth has nothing to do with hard work, achievement in one's career or small business, or being a financial genius like Matt Kerwood (sarcasm). Going back centuries, the path to wealth is elite education and marriage into a wealthy family whereby the husband and wife marry their wealthy estates together, which goes on generation after generation - the top 1 percent of wealthy households in the U.S.A.
To illustrate, Bill Weld was born with an $80 million trust fund, his family's legacy at Harvard goes back over 20 generations, and he is a member of Boston Brahmin's exclusive clubs. To illustrate, John Forbes Kerry was born with a trust fund that doubles Bill Weld's trust fund, he attended Yale University, and when he ran against George W. Bush in 2004, they were both members of Yales' Skull and Bones exclusive club, as was the late George H.W. Bush.
When I explain to people that billionaires such as Warren Buffett made most of his money after he turned 60 years old, the reply I receive is that the newer billionaires made most of their money as young adults in places such as China. I understand that times have changed when it comes to attaining great wealth.
What the deputy Superintendent's words mean is that most of us common families will never attain equal economic benefits from public education, but that has been the case for a very long time. For a long time, women and minorities have not attained the equitable income benefits as their white counterparts.
Pittsfield has families living in impoverished neighborhoods that send their children to Pittsfield's Level 5 public schools. This is a prime illustration of systemic inequality by race, gender and class. The last time I checked, over 650 students per academic year opted out of Pittsfield's Level 5 public schools to neighboring public school districts. There is a lot that is wrong with the Pittsfield Public School District. There is a lot that is wrong with our classist system.
Jon Melle
-----
June 7, 2023
The Mayor of Pittsfield politics manages and directs:
* Level 5 public schools that over 650 students per academic year opt out of to attend neighboring public-school districts
* Pittsfield always being in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime year-in and year-out, according to the FBI's annual reports
* A municipal budget that cost taxpayers over $205.6 million per fiscal year in return for "a shit sandwich"
* The soon to be 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle that has millions of dollars in always growing larger unfunded debts and other liabilities that will be paid off by Matt Kerwood winning the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots
* The city government sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal debts plus OPEB unfunded liabilities that will be paid off by Matt Kerwood asking Warren Buffett for a cool $1 billion in bailout funds
* North Street's sarcastically called "Social Services Alley" plus 15 empty storefronts that anyone who doesn't depend on social services and welfare programs avoids like the plague
* The sarcastically called "Ring of Poverty" inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street that over 1,000 gang members call home, while the residents try to dodge bullets and all of the other amenities that the underclass' underbelly brings to Pittsfield
* Allendale Elementary School abutting GE's Hill 78 capped "leaky landfill" full of PCBs, while Mayor Linda Tyer lives in a mansion in her elitist Gated Community within a few feet from the Hancock border
* State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier representing Pittsfield in Boston's corrupt Statehouse by making legalizing Happy Endings massage parlors her number one and only priority in 2023 - 2024
* State Senator Paul Mark being the perfect illustration of a rubber stamp for State Senate President Karen Spilka's legislative agenda
* PAC Man Richie Neal living on K Street in the Swamp, which, of course, has nothing to do with his mostly rural Western Massachusetts Congressional District
* I almost forgot to mention Luciforo's Pittsfield Pot Kingdom named "Berkshire Roots" that is the largest grower of marijuana plants in Berkshire County, which stinks up the neighborhoods that abut his Dalton Avenue pot shop
But at this time in next year 2024, Linda Tyer will be collecting her 6-figure city public pension plus perks, and she will retire with her multimillionaire CPA third husband Barry Clairmont, while the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski will continue to pound sand.
Jon Melle
-----
June 7, 2023
Chris Connell's questions hit the nail on its head. Pittsfield politics has become excessively expensive for the common taxpayers. The managerial pay raises in Mayor Linda Tyer's proposed fiscal year 2024 budget:
Budget Overview | Fiscal Year 2024 (cleargov.com)
.... are very high. The thing that bothers me the most about Pittsfield politics is that the leaders don't live like the commoners in the city. Mayor Linda Tyer lives in a mansion in an elitist Gated Community full of multimillionaires. Former Mayor Jimmy Ruberto always lived in Naples, Florida. Pittsfeld's Pot King Luciforo always lived in Boston. Chrome Dome Adam Hinds ended up living far away from his Berkshire-based state legislative district after he married his wealthy wife. In closing, there is a disconnect between the governors and governed in Pittsfield politics!
Jon Melle
-----
June 9, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I posted a link to a news story from MassLive about Food Insecurity being the greatest in Western Massachusetts on your blog, Planet Valenti, and the replies I read did, indeed, shock me. I thought I was doing a service to your readers by pointing out that the state government is doing disservices to the western region of the state. I thought that I was being compassionate to those who are most in need of government assistance programs. Instead, I was linked to Tricia Farley-Bouvier's support for illegal immigrants and her other uber liberal causes. I am upset by this. I am proud to support Linda Tyer, Andrea Harrington, and at times, Tricia Farley-Bouvier when her heart is in the right place. I am upset with Mayor Linda Tyer for not issuing a statement that Free Speech is a protected right after her third husband Barry Clairmont's retribution lawsuit against Melissa Mazzeo that stems from the 2019 mayoral election that his second wife, Linda Tyer, won. I view the multimillionaire CPA Barry Clairmont as being off base because many other people have suffered through smear campaigns, mean-spirited and vindictive politics, and being mistreated, including Jon Melle himself, and nobody has ever sued the mudslingers over it.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
June 28, 2023
Peter Marchetti said he would have to take a pay cut to serve as the next would-be Mayor. What is he really telling us? Answer: I, Peter Marchetti, want the 6-figure city public pension plus perks that Mayor Linda Tyer will collect over the next couple of decades of her life. How much money does Peter Marchetti make at the Pittsfield Cooperative Bank? What is the net difference between his current private sector salary and the $115,725 per fiscal year mayoral salary? Please post the unknown information.
John Krol said the rumors of him having a reputation of being unemployed are false. Instead of doing a hit-piece on Karen Kalinowsky, why doesn't blogger Dan Valenti request and then post John Krol's resume? If John Krol wins, he will make $115,725 per fiscal year in city public pay plus public perks. After two terms, he will be eligible collect the coveted 6-figure city public pension plus perks for life (30 years or so).
Craig Gaetani is in his mid-70s, and he is an advocate for the common residents and city taxpayers, but he is a one-man-band. It is impractical and difficult to stand alone against the political machine(s), vested and special interests, and fight windmills in futility.
Karen Kalinowsky is a retired Pittsfield Police Officer who opposes Mayor Linda Tyer, Peter Marchetti, and the mayor's 6 rubber stamp City Councilors. Observers say that Peter Marchetti mistreated her as a City Councilor. It is no secret that Pittsfield politics = RETRIBUTION on steroids and in spades! Small town politics with big fish who would be nobody in the real world is the story of my native hometown: Pittsfield, Massachusetts!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 2, 2023
Pittsfield politics has been and is totally predictable for the past 30 to 40 years now. Every fiscal year, the Mayor and City Council raise municipal taxes, fees and spending by at least 5 percent or more, they borrow at least ten million dollars or way more per fiscal year, the municipal debt load is over one hundred million dollars plus the hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded liabilities called OPEB debt, the 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle has millions of dollars in always increasing unfunded liabilities - the exact definition of INSANITY, the city's public schools are rated Level 5 with over 650 students per academic year opting out of Pittsfield's school district to attend neighboring public school district, Pittsfield is always in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime year-in and year-out, the state and local politicians use retribution against the citizens to retain their power, the city's one party political factions all report to the same Democratic Party bosses in Boston, the city spent millions of dollars on many failed businesses over the years, over the past 50 years, Pittsfield and the Berkshire region has lost many thousands of people to population loss, as well as many thousands of living wage jobs to the highly financialized postindustrial "rust belt" economy of the 21st century - the city's shrinking middle-class tax base, North Street currently has 15 empty storefronts in 2023, North Street is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley", the distressed inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street are sarcastically called "The Ring of Poverty", upscale art galleries and museums in London, England, NYC, and L.A. have long featured large artistic photographs of Pittsfield that were billed as: "Pittsfield: A City in Decay", there once was a sinking ship in the Coltsville Shopping Center parking lot that symbolized Pittsfield's downward spiral, the outgoing Mayor, Linda Tyer, lives in a mansion in an elitist Gated Community within a few feet from the Hancock border with her third husband, the multimillionaire CPA Barry Clairmont, who is suing Melissa Mazzeo for allegedly defaming his character over the 2019 mayoral election that his second wife, Linda Tyer, won, Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr.'s Pittsfield Pot Kingdom called "Berkshire Roots" on Dalton Avenue is the single largest grower of marijuana in Berkshire County that stinks up nearby residential neighborhoods with his firm's unpleasant pot growing odors, Jimmy Ruberto never owned his own home (he lived in his mother's Pittsfield home as a man who was in his 50s over 20 years ago), nor rented an apartment, in Pittsfield, but as Mayor, he spent tens of millions of public dollars on his failed downtown "Ruberto Renaissance" that sarcastically rivaled Paris, France, London, England, NYC, and L.A.'s arts and cultural venues - more like its homeless shelters, Tricia Farley-Bouvier's number one priority in Boston in 2023 - 2024 is to decriminalize prostitution, Paul Mark recently voted against affordable housing, Richard E. Neal rakes in millions of dollars per year from K Street's corporate lobbyist firms (which has nothing to do with his Western Massachusetts C.D.), the supposed Green New Dealer Ed Markey supports GE's plan to put a toxic waste leaky landfill inside of a watershed nearby the October Mountain aquifer in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee, Massachusetts, the supposed Main Street public advocate Elizabeth Warren supports Joe Biden, who takes in more money from Wall Street and K Street than any other politician in U.S. history. In summary, Pittsfield politics charges top dollar for rock bottom outcomes, and the people who live in Pittsfield have rock bottom politicians representing them in the government!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 4th, 2023
Sarcasm: I discussed the points that Ward 2 City Councilor Charles Ivar Kronick made at the June 30th, 2023, City Council special meeting over lunch with Mayor Linda Tyer and her number one bureaucrat "Cooks the Books" Matt Kerwood. I asked the outgoing Gated Community Mayor and Kufflinks if Pittsfield politics is financially unsustainable over the long term. They answered by saying that they are looking forward to cashing in on their respective 6-figure city public pensions plus perks over the next three decades of their Golden Years lives that will cost taxpayers an estimated $6 million to $7 million through the 2050s. I asked them why the 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle with its millions of dollars in always increasing unfunded liabilities still continues. They answered by saying that Pittsfield politics has perfected the fine art of always increasing its unfunded liabilities with Pittsfield's 50-year shrinking middle-class tax base due to severe losses in population, business, and living wage jobs. They illustrated their point by telling me that the single largest employer in Pittsfield is its big spending City Government and the Level 5 Public School District. Lastly, I asked them if they believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Unicorns, and the lies spoken by all of the secretive and corrupt career politicians in government. They answered by saying that Pittsfield politics is financially stable and solvent thanks to their 7.5 years of their public [dis]service[s] to the City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Then they made me pay for their lunches! I was not at all surprised, of course.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 5, 2023
Royal Hartigan's letter in the Dirty Bird (Eagle) concerning the Springside Park's mountain bike course most recent revised plan puts all of the financial burdens and financial risks on the city government. He wrote that the city's rising property taxes, rising sewer and water fees, and the city's homelessness crisis should be addressed before the City's Park Commission signing off on the New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA)'s revised plan that would threaten the park's wetlands, hydrology and other environmental damages.
This is very similar to what happened when PEDA came into existence 25 years ago during the Summer of 1998. GE put all of the millions of dollars in always growing unfunded liabilities of managing the polluted postindustrial Pittsfield so-called "business park" on the fictional commoner family named Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski in Pittsfield.
Pittsfield has Level 5 public schools. Pittsfield is always in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime year-in and year-out. Pittsfield's economy is described as "distressed" and over reliant on Social Services Agencies. Pittsfield's downtown has 15 empty storefronts in 2023. Pittsfield's operating budget is over $205.6 million. Pittsfield's municipal debts and OPEB unfunded liabilities are somewhere around $500 million and growing larger. Pittsfield politics is corrupt and the state and local career politicians practice retribution to retain power. Beacon Hill's SNOBS systemically mock Pittsfield with their (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes such as the state lottery SCAM. GE's capped PCBs leaky landfills are short-term solutions because capped toxic waste industrial chemicals dumps eventually fail over time. Pittsfield allows its POT KING "Luciforo" to stink up nearby residential neighborhoods with his unpleasant pot growing odors. When I describe my native hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to people I know here in Southern New Hampshire, they respond by saying that Pittsfield is part of the postindustrial "Rust Belt".
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 9, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
While I am an overall proud supporter of Mayor Linda Tyer, I disagree with her administration's secretive management of municipal financial accounts. The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle), blogger Dan Valenti, citizen activists, and Ward 2 Pittsfield City Councilor Charles Ivar Kronick all spoke out and wrote against Mayor Linda Tyer shutting out the public from her administration's secretive deliberations of how they would spend the city's ARPA funds (aka Biden Buck$) that amounted to over $41 million. Pittsfield politics' nine-day-old fiscal year 2024 municipal operating budget spends over $205.6 million in return for - "a shit sandwich" - Level 5 public schools, Pittsfield always being in the top 10 cities in Massachusetts for violent crime year-in and year-out, the 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle that has millions of dollars in always increasing unfunded liabilities, around one-hundred million dollars in municipal debts plus over $400 million in OPEB unfunded liabilities, a distressed downtown with 15 empty storefronts in 2023 that is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley" with the surrounding inner-city distressed neighborhoods sarcastically called "The Ring of Poverty", the one political (Democratic) party fighting provincial factions who both report to the same political bosses in Boston, State Rep. Tricia Farley Bouvier saying her only priority in 2023 - 2024 is to decriminalize sex workers, State Senator Paul Mark recently voting against affordable housing legislation, PAC Man Richie Neal only being interested in K Street corporate lobbyist firms that have nothing to do with his mostly rural Western Massachusetts-based Congressional District, the supposed Green New Dealer Ed Markey supporting GE's plan to put a PCBs-filled toxic waste capped leaky landfill inside of a watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee, Massachusetts, that is too close to the October Mountain aquifer, and the NOT living on or anywhere near Main Street USA Elizabeth Warren supporting Joe Biden, who takes in more money from Wall Street and K Street than any other politician in U.S. history.
To be clear: There is NOBODY in today's government representing the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski hard-working, taxpaying family who lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts! The government has become a big SCAM that is led by the fictional Massachusetts State Representative Sellout Shakedown who sells out the common people and taxpayers by shaking everyone down for the Almighty Dollar to enrich himself and his wealthy campaign donors at the public trough. On Beacon Hill, some registered lobbyists earn 7-figure salaries, which is outrageous. On K Street, the corporate lobbyist firms in the Swamp recently bragged about their record earnings during the Biden administration's spending binge. Economic inequality is at a 100 year high (which is when one hundred years ago Adolf Hitler began his rise to power in Germany). The middle-class family - the American Dream - of post-WW2 USA has become a 21st Century myth. This has to change NOW! The people and taxpayers must vote out all of the corrupt career politicians in the government and vote in new politicians who will vote to invest in people, communities and the middle-class by voting for affordable housing, universal healthcare insurance, Level 1 public schools, transportation that gets the working class to and from their residences, living wage jobs, realistic pension plans, and economic equity in all public policies.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 10, 2023
I love to follow Pittsfield politics. I love it when Mayor Linda Tyer calls Pittsfield "Vibrant and Dynamic". I love it when Matt Kerwood is confronted by Ward 2 City Councilor Charles Ivar Kronick over the city's municipal finances. I love it when Peter Marchetti calls the double-digit rate increases for the water and sewer enterprises "small" compared to previous years, and that he would have to take a pay cut as the next would-be Mayor, which pays $115,725 per fiscal year plus public perks that includes a city pension for life. I love it when John Krol promises to revitalize the downtown's distressed so-called business district, which, according to him, is NOT a questionable promise. I love it when Jimmy Ruberto publishes his letters from Lenox (Mass.) and Naples, Florida. I love it when people refer to Jimmy Ruberto's "Rolodex" as a symbol of Pittsfield's distressed economy. I love it when people say that the Ruberto Renaissance of downtown Pittsfield rivaled the arts and cultural venues of Paris, London, NYC, & L.A. I love it that three of the aforementioned world-famous cities displayed large artistic photos of the city that was billed as "Pittsfield: A City in Decay". I love it when Sara Hathaway once called violent crime in Pittsfield "an aberration". I love it when Tricia Farley Bouvier supports Happy Endings massage parlor friendly proposed state legislation in Boston. Who doesn't enjoy receiving a Happy Ending? I love it when Paul Mark votes against affordable housing legislation. I love it when Tricia and Paul vote themselves huge state legislative pay raises plus perks, and they also happily accept up to three state legislative pay raises every two years. I love it when all of the Fortune 500 companies compete for bids to do business on the polluted PEDA debacle sites - and that when I paste wings on pigs, they fly around the PEDA sites. I love it that Hill 78's capped PCBs-filled toxic waste leaky landfill abuts Allendale Elementary School. I love it that Pittsfield is famous for teen pregnancies doubling the statewide average, pregnant mothers who smoke cigarettes, high per capita welfare caseloads, social services agencies, not-for-profit agencies, marijuana businesses, alcohol and tobacco sales, lottery sales, and all of the other lovely things that attract small businesses and middle-class families to move to Pittsfield. I love it that over the past 50 years, Pittsfield has experienced severe losses in population and living wage jobs, while city municipal spending has gone exponentially higher. I love it that "Luciforo" boasts of his Pittsfield Pot Kingdom on Dalton Avenue being the single largest grower of marijuana in the Berkshires, while the nearby residential neighborhoods complain of "Berkshire Roots" unpleasant pot growing odors stinking up their private property. I love it that Beacon Hill's corrupt career politicians systemically mock Pittsfield and distressed "Gateway" cities similar to Pittsfield with the state's (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes such as the inequitable state lottery, as well as with underfunding state aid to local government and public education. I love it that Pittsfield's public schools are rated Level 5 by the state. In closing, I love it that Pittsfield charges taxpayers top dollar in return for "a shit sandwich"!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 12, 2023
I asked Peter Marchetti if he likes Pickleball. He replied that question is not for a Master Debater like himself.
I asked John Krol if he likes Pickleball. He replied that PEDA is not for vegetarians.
I asked Karen Kalinowsky if she likes Pickleball. She replied that bike lanes should not go through Pickleball courts.
I asked Craig Gaetani if he likes Pickleball. He replied that Pickleballs float in the water, but the PCBs have to be cleaned off and then put in a capped leaky landfill next to Allendale Elementary School.
I asked the Pittsfield City Clownsil candidates if they liked Pickleball. They told me that Pickleball doesn't belong in Pittsfield's Pot Kingdom on Dalton Avenue that puts the green bills into city coffers.
I asked the School Committee candidates if they liked Pickleball. They told me that anything that is not rated Level 5 does not concern them.
I asked Mayor Linda Tyer if she liked Pickleball. She said that Pickleball is vibrant and dynamic.
I asked Linda's 3rd husband Barry Clairmont if he liked Pickleball. He replied that the Pickleball defamed his character for saying he was in the Pickleball room prior to the big game.
I asked TFB if she liked Pickleball. She said that only if it has a Happy Ending.
I asked Paul Mark if he liked Pickleball. He said that only if it meets the approval of State Senate President Karen Spilka.
I asked Richie Neal if he like Pickleball. He said that if it is not on K Street in the Swamp, he could care less.
I asked Ed Markey if he liked Pickleball. He said that it is popular in his hometown of Chevy Chase, Maryland.
I asked Elizabeth Warren if she liked Pickleball. She said that she fully supports the nation's biggest Pickleball and his 2024 reelection.
I asked Joe Biden if he liked Pickleball. He said that he is proud of his Pickleball Junior son, Hunter.
There we have it on the favorability of Pickleball!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 16, 2023
Craig Gaetani is misguided about Pittsfield politics because the state government in Boston underfunds distressed "Gateway" cities such as Pittsfield. Moreover, the inequitable state government in Boston systemically mocks Pittsfield with its financial shell games, state tax giveaways to the state corrupt career politicians' wealthy campaign donors that don't exist in Pittsfield, and (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes such as the multibillion-dollar state lottery SCAM that really allows wealthy people and big businesses to pay less state taxes. Pittsfield has no real political representation in Boston and beyond to the Swamp, but I am sure that Craig Gaetani and blogger Dan Valenti know all of this all too well, of course.
I praise Craig Gaetani for being a voice for the Have Nots and common citizens of Pittsfield. He says that people need to show up and speak out at city meetings, but he omits that Pittsfield politics other name is RETRIBUTION! When a Have Not and/or common citizen shows up and speaks out, he or she faces mudslinging, vicious rumors, having their family members become vulnerable to harassment (institutional bullying), losing their job, being blacklisted from finding a new job, having false allegations made against them to the police, having to move away to a new locale, and on and on.
Craig Gaetani said that the largest employer in Pittsfield is the City of Pittsfield, the city and (Level 5) public school managers received pay raises of up to 8 percent on July 1st, 2023, the underclass, and low- to moderate-income residents are paying taxes to subsidize the city and public-school highly paid managerial employees, and that while Pittsfield's population went from being over 60,000 many years ago now to around 40,000 in 2023, Pittsfield's current municipal operating budget is over $205.6 million, Pittsfield has around $100 million in municipal debt plus over $400 million in OPEB unfunded liabilities, and so on.
Blogger Dan Valenti said that when it comes to constrained discretionary income, the people who pay local taxes in Pittsfield are the highest taxed residents in Massachusetts. Both Craig Gaetani and blogger Dan Valenti pointed that the managerial level city and public-school employees are retiring with 6-figure public pensions plus perks (for life).
Overall, I enjoyed listening to blogger Dan Valenti interview Craig Gaetani. He is a public advocate for the Have Nots and common people who live in Pittsfield.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 17, 2023
Chaz, You are right. Craig Gaetani is a voice for common sense. He is not Peter Marchetti saying, "One Pittsfield" (but what about the theoretical multiverse where there are infinite universes with infinite Pittsfields? Good grief!). He is not John Krol saying that every campaign promise that he is making is not questionable, including his grand promise to revitalize the inner city's many empty storefronts, social services agencies, parking kiosks, daily shootings, violent crime, and all of the other amenities that keep rational people away from North Street into a utopia whereby he pastes wings on pigs and watches them fly around Pittsfield. He is not Karen Kalinowsky who openly does not favor Mayor Linda Tyer and her half-dozen rubber stamp City Councilors and Level 5 School Committee members, which seems to really be a political strategy to win votes.
Craig Gaetani said he is wealthy, and he recently announced his candidacy for Ward 6 City Councilor. The aforementioned three "Pickleballs" running for Mayor stand to financially benefit from a would-be 6 figure mayoral city public pension plus perks. Peter Marchetti said he would have to take a pay cut to serve as Mayor, but that would-be 6-figure city public pension plus perks for life would more than compensate for his marginal loss in income. John Krol could serve two or more 4-year terms as Mayor and then retire with the coveted mayoral pension. Karen Kalinowsky already has a city pension as a retired Pittsfield Police Officer. She could greatly add to her existing city public pension plus perks with a would-be mayoral pension, which, in 2010, is what critics said Dan Bosley was really doing when he unsuccessfully ran for the excessively highly paid elected position of Berkshire County Sheriff.
Common sense tells me that Peter Marchetti, John Krol and Karen Kalinowsky stand to financially gain from being elected as the next would-be Mayor of Pittsfield politics. That spells a recipe for DISASTER for the common people, families and taxpayers!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 17, 2023
My hand is definitely not raised. Just as crime has become worse that is something clown shoes Shagrue and Bowler promised to change. Is the sheriff even around?.. More guns on the streets more junkies, more beggars. We have a newly elected Senator. Same crap NO jobs, No new Economic development for the city Nada!
New city council members same old infighting nothing gets done except spending on worthless endeavors.
So that brings us to the 3 running for Mayor. The only thing that will change is some plum positions for friends and family and a whole lotta of BS! This will be the lowest turnout in a Pittsfield election ever. Book it.
"John Dutton" post on PlanetValenti's blog.
-----
July 19, 2023
Pat: I will tell you what the retired Pittsfield Police Officer named Karen Kalinowsky really wants as the next would-be Mayor of Pittsfield politics. She wants to collect her city public pension plus perks and then double dip into the public trough by increasing her loot by making an additional $115,725 per fiscal year plus perks on top of her city pension. She wants to double her city pension after one or two 4-year terms as Mayor. How do I know this? The answer is that in 2010, then North Adams State Representative Dan Bosley retired from serving in the Boston State House for 24 years. In 2010, Dan Bosley unsuccessfully campaigned against Tom Bowler for the elected state government position of Berkshire County Sheriff, which pays between well over $100,000 to close to $200,000 per fiscal year plus state public perks. Dan Bosley wanted to collect his state pension and take home the loot as a would-be Sheriff, and then he wanted to double or possibly even triple or even quadruple his state pension after serving one to two terms as "The High Sheriff of Nottingham" - more like Boss Hogg. To corrupt career politicians, it is all about their public pay plus perks, including a lucrative city, state or federal public pension for life. Everything else that Karen Kalinowsky is promising is more HOT AIR in Pittsfield politics. She is a FRAUD! I see right through her propaganda and phony political strategy of blaming Mayor Linda Tyer and her 6 rubber stamp City Councilors for everything that is wrong in Pittsfield politics.
Jon Melle
-----
July 20, 2023
What is disgraceful is that the corrupt career politicians are making a lot more money than a majority of the people and taxpayers they serve in the government. Karen Kalinowsky stands to not only collect her current city pension, but if she is elected Mayor of Pittsfield in 2023, she will make $115,725 on top of still collecting her city pension. If she retires after serving as Mayor of Pittsfield years from now, taxpayers will pay around an estimated $4 million during her retirement years if she lives to an old age of around 85 or older. Adding up all of the taxpayer money she has, is and would be collecting, Karen Kalinowsky will cost taxpayers around $6 million over the course of her adult life if she is elected Mayor of Pittsfield. She is only one single person. Given my blind estimates, Karen Kalinowsky is hypocritically promising to lower municipal spending in Pittsfield without telling voters that she herself stands to financially benefit greatly off of the taxpayers. I stand by my language saying Karen Kalinowsky is a fraud.
In 2010, we saw a very similar scheme happen when Dan Bosley retired and collects his state pension, and unsuccessfully run for Berkshire County Sheriff in hopes of making a 6-figure state salary on top of collecting his state pension. Dan Bosley went onto be a greedy registered lobbyist on Beacon Hill and beyond. Sarcasm: He is a real advocate for the common people and taxpayer....and when Dan Bosley pastes wings on pigs, the winged pigs fly around the Golden Dome atop of the Boston Statehouse on Beacon Hill!
-----
July 20, 2023
"Some here call you a fraud, JM; I do not. Bad words to direct to a stranger."
- Charles Ivar Kronick's post on Planet Valenti's blog
My reply to that is to ask: Is one of those here (in Pittsfield, Massachusetts) the notorious Pittsfield Pot King who is sarcastically called "Luciforo"?
Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior is the biggest FRAUD of them all!
Ever since I first met "Luciforo" when I was only 20 years old during the Spring of 1996 when he started his campaign for Pittsfield State Senator and my dad, Bob, started his campaign for Berkshire County Commissioner back then, "Luciforo" persecuted me over the past over 27 years of my adult life by having his "Nuciforo network" conspiratorially bully me without "Luciforo" leaving behind his own fingerprints, leaving me to look like a then young man who behaved like a paranoid schizophrenic, but in reality, I was facing unusual events over many years because "Luciforo" had a mean-spirited, vindictive vendetta against my dad, Bob, whom "Luciforo" filed multiple state "ethics" complaints against from the Fall of 1997 to the Spring of 1998, and then in the Spring of 1998, "Luciforo" made false and hypocritical accusations against me to the Pittsfield Police Department that I was making "veiled" threats against him to try to have me arrested and jailed. "Luciforo" was the one bullying me, of course. "Luciforo" blacklisted me from finding and retaining employment in the beautiful Berkshires for many years of my then adult life. "Luciforo's" network of bullies spread vicious rumors against me all over Pittsfield. Enough about me: Jon Melle.
In 2006, "Luciforo" had to step down from the Massachusetts State Senate because he was allegedly illegally double dipping as the Chair of the State Senate Finance Committee while "Luciforo" also served as a corporate Attorney for Boston's big banks and insurance companies from 1999 to 2006. "Luciforo" always lived in Boston as an adult, but his late father of the same name was a Pittsfield State Senator prior to being a Pittsfield Probate and Family Court Judge many years ago now. "Luciforo" used his late father's same name to be elected as a Pittsfield State Senator, but he was, in fact, a resident of Boston, not of Pittsfield. In 2006, "Luciforo" strong-armed two women candidates - Sharon Henault and Sara Hathaway - out of the election for the state government elected position of Pittsfield Register of Deeds, which critics called "Luciforo's" 6-year sinecure, which he used to plot to oust the now late Congressman John W. Olver from U.S. Congress in the 2012 primary federal election. In early-2007, "Luciforo" lobbied the then new Governor Deval Patrick to appoint him to the state bureaucratic position of Commissioner of Insurance, but "Luciforo" was passed over for the position, so "Luciforo" remained at his no-show sinecure in Pittsfield, despite "Luciforo" really being a resident of Boston, which is at the other end of the state.
In 2012, then U.S. Congressman John W. Olver was redistricted out of his elected seat he held for over 20 years since the early-1990s. "Luciforo" ran against U.S. Congressman (aka PAC Man) Richie Neal in the 2012 federal primary election. The Springfield Republican editorial called "Luciforo" mean-spirited. The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) endorsed Richie Neal over "Luciforo", and the news articles called "Luciforo" "a fringe politician". "Luciforo" ended up losing the 2012 primary federal election to Richie Neal by 40 points. "Luciforo's" political career was over - thank God for me: Jon Melle, who had to deal with "Luciforo's" abuses for so many years by then. "Luciforo" is a disgraced politician and a 4-foot-tall piece of poop in the form of a man!
In March of 2017, Luciforo "went to Pot", and he started what is now called "Berkshire Roots", which is the single largest grower of marijuana in the beautiful Berkshires, has a dispensary on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield, along with a dispensary in East Boston. The Boston Globe wrote news articles and editorials about "Luciforo" cashing in on his political connections in Boston, as well as in Pittsfield, to be one of the first people to receive a state license from the cities and state to start his Pot Kingdom. The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) and the online "iBerkshires.com" news outlet wrote many news stories about how "Luciforo's" three story pot growing building on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield causes nearby residential neighborhoods to be captive to his unpleasant pot growing smells without help from the Pittsfield City Hall - namely the Mayor Linda Tyer municipal administration who has boasted about the lucrative marijuana revenues flowing into city coffers.
If Jon Melle is called a FRAUD in my native hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, then I ask my name callers to please call "Luciforo" a FRAUD, too!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 23, 2023
All of my political friends asked me - Jon Melle - what I want for my 48th birthday.
I told Linda Tyer that I want a new Lexus luxury car, to play pickleball, and for her to give me a vibrant and dynamic key to the city.
I told Barry Clairmont that I want him to get over it already after a little less than four years ago, and to please tolerate free speech in Pittsfield politics even if it hurt his big ego.
I told Peter Marchetti I want march next to him in next year's Pittsfield 4th of July parade.
I told John Krol that I want to roll in Kapanski Ka$h.
I told Karen Kalinowsky that I want to be a double dipper by doubling my public salary plus retirement nest egg that is subsidized by the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family who pay their hard-earned municipal taxes in Pittsfield.
I told Craig Gaetani that I want to fire anyone who disagrees with him.
I told Earl Persip that I want to unfavorably label all of his critics on his behalf.
I told blogger Dan Valenti that I want him to know that Tim Shugrue and Tom Bowler have not done any better than his most unfavored politician named Andrea Harrington, despite his since disproven written arguments that it was her progressive policies and leadership that failed to prosecute violent crime in Pittsfield.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 25, 2023
Peter Marchetti ran for Mayor in 2011, but he lost to Dan Bianchi. 12 years later, Peter Marchetti is running his second mayoral campaign. He has a lot of valuable financial knowledge, but he will have to always fight the state for adequate local aid and public education funding that is otherwise always underfunded, especially in Western Massachusetts. He has a solid base of supporters. My late maternal grandmother's (1909 - 2008) maiden name is Marchetti, and Peter Marchetti is her nephew or great-nephew.
John Krol is running for Mayor to make his comeback in Pittsfield politics. His promise to be accessible is rare in state and local politics. He promises to be an activist in the city to make good things happen in Pittsfield. Some of his campaign promises sound similar to Jimmy Ruberto's campaign promises from 20 years ago, but the "Ruberto Renaissance" ended up failing after a few short years of success and a lot of "Kapanski Ka$h" spent on the downtown arts and cultural venues.
Karen Kalinowsky is running as Mayor Linda Tyer's biggest critic. Karen promises to be a would-be mayor who would budget by necessity, but it would be her own public pay plus perks that would win. She currently collects a city pension as a retired Pittsfield Police Officer. Her would-be $115,725 per year mayoral salary would be on top of her city pension. Her would-be future city pension would double. That does NOT sound like budgeting by necessity to me. It sounds a lot more like double dipping!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
July 26, 2023
My reply is that Pittsfield politics has had a lot of stinkers as Mayor with the exception of Mayor Linda Tyer, who is praised by state and local officials across Massachusetts. Gerry Doyle had millions of dollars go missing that have never been accounted for that sent Pittsfield into state receivership for several fiscal years, he signed the Consent Decree that officially made Pittsfield into GE's capped toxic waste dump, he began the now 25-year-old polluted PEDA debacle with its millions of dollars in debts and always increasing unfunded liabilities, and he was a notorious Good Old Boy. Sara Hathaway called violent crime in Pittsfield an aberration, and she publicly said that Pittsfield is a junkie for state funds, but she correctly warned us that Jimmy Ruberto was a snake oil salesman. Good Old Boy Jimmy Ruberto spent tens of millions of dollars on his so-called downtown revitalization scam, which failed after a few short years of success, he told common people that they had to sacrifice their hard-earned tax dollars for his nut-ball schemes, and he never owned his own home in Pittsfield, nor did he ever rent his own would-be apartment in Pittsfield, as an adult who lived in Pittsfield (in 2001, he moved into his mother's Pittsfield home as a man who was in his 50s and then he put his mother into a nursing home for around 6 years until she passed away), but Mayor Jimmy Ruberto didn't mind spending municipal dollars like a drunken Sailor on leave. Dan Bianchi was a bad placeholder for the next in line Mayor, Linda Tyer, who is part of the Jimmy Ruberto's political network of spend, spend, spend.... I agree with you, M.A.!
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
August 6, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I hope that you are enjoying your vacation. Please take the time to read the news article that explains that municipalities throughout Massachusetts are deciding how to spend millions of dollars in settlements with the opioid industry.
I thought this news article would interest you because you wrote and blogged about Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer's administration's secretive deliberations and alleged special interest spending of over $41 million in ARPA - "Biden Buck$" - funds.
Please ask Mayor Linda Tyer if she will be holding public meetings to solicit ideas from the community to help Pittsfield with the opioid addiction and overdose crisis.
Please ask mayoral candidates John Krol, Peter Marchetti and Karen Kalinowsky how they will direct the planning process because the money will keep flowing to Pittsfield for 17 years.
Best wishes,
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
"Opioid settlements in Massachusetts are benefiting cities, towns."
By Felice J. Freyer, Boston Globe Staff, August 4, 2023
Millions of dollars from settlements with the opioid industry are flowing to cities and towns throughout Massachusetts, leaving municipalities with a welcome challenge: how to spend it.
Local officials are holding public meetings to solicit ideas and considering new investments in such solutions as mobile crisis response teams, transitional housing, and improved access to medications that treat addiction. The windfall offers hope that Massachusetts may finally be able to ease the toll of the overdose crisis, which last year killed more people in the state than ever before.
Mayor Nicole LaChapelle of Easthampton called the planning process “luxurious” because the money will keep flowing for 17 years.
Felice J. Freyer can be reached at felice.freyer@globe.com. Follow her @felicejfreyer.
-----
December 30, 2023
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I read outgoing Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer's interview with the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle). I disagree with her words about how the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield should take it easy on all of the bureaucrats and career politicians who run the city government and (level 5) public school district.
In fact, I would say the opposite. I would say to give 'em Hell! The state and local government has failed the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield for decades. Pittsfield is always in the top 10 cities by population in Massachusetts for Violent Crime each and every year! The Pittsfield Public School district is rated Level 5 each and every year. North Street, which has 15 empty storefronts, is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley" and the inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street are called "The Ring of Poverty". The 25-year-old indebted and polluted PEDA debacle was a huge mistake. Hill 78, which is a capped leaky landfill full of GE's industrial chemicals PCBs, abuts Allendale Elementary School - no wonder why the public schools are rated Level 5. The municipal tax rate was recently increased by a little less than 9 percent, while the 2023-2024 Social Security CoLA increased by 3.2 percent. Senior Citizen homeowners are paying hundreds of more dollars per fiscal year to the city in return for "A Shit Sandwich"!
Pittsfield is part of our nation's huge underclass and postindustrial "Rust Belt" economy. The only growth in Pittsfield's economy is its huge underclass population and the excessively overpriced city government and public school district. Pittsfield is one of the most economically unequal metro areas in the state (of Massachusetts) and nation (U.S.A.).
On the state level, Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley Bouvier has done little to nothing in a little over 11 years in Boston except push for state driver's licenses of illegal immigrants and push to legalize sex workers in Massachusetts. Becket State Senator Paul Mark is the biggest Rubber Stamp vote in Boston, which has given the rest of the state the record profits from its biggest SCAM: the (voluntary) regressive taxation scheme called the multi-billion-dollar "Massachusetts State Lottery", which systemically mocks the mostly financially illiterate low- to moderate-income residents of "Gateway Cities" such as Pittsfield, along with the City of Pittsfield itself. It is called "Elitist Snobbery" and "Class Warfare" at the state's highest level of the banality of inequity. The state lottery is wrong at so many levels that if it were a building, it would be taller than the Empire State Building.
On the Federal Level, PAC Man Richie Neal only represents K Street corporate lobbyist firms in the Swamp. Maryland Markey spews his HOT AIR in the Swamp. Elizabeth Warren says she fights for Main Street, but she fully supports Joe Biden, who has taken in more money from Wall Street and K Street than any other politician in U.S. history. Joe Biden has spent over $10 trillion printed out of thin air, along with borrowing trillions of U.S. dollars, and U.S. inflation reached double digits for the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski working class family in Pittsfield, who have been hit by high taxation and fees.
Linda Tyer has a 6-figure sinecure waiting for her at Berkshire Community College, which is close to her mansion in her Gated Community west of BCC. For Linda Tyer, it is easy for her to say to us low- to moderate-income taxpayers that we should take it easy on the government. But for the rest of us common people out there, I say the opposite. I say, "Given 'em Hell!"
Jon Melle
-----
January 1, 2024
Happy New Year 2024! Pittsfield Mayor Peter Marchetti requested "a 90-day grace period" - January, February and March - to NOT be criticized by the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield whom he works for, but Peter Marchetti has to take a pay cut with the mayoral pay of $115,725 per fiscal year, plus all of his public perks.
Sarcasm: I remember reading about his request for "a 90-day grace period" in George Orwell's book: "1984". I think it said that if you dare to criticize Mayor Peter Marchetti during his requested "90-day grace period", then you will experience RETRIBUTION!
Peter Marchetti said that he is NOT a fan of social media and blogs. Perhaps he should change his title from "Mayor" to "Boss".
Did you know that Peter Marchetti and Jon Melle have the same great-grandfather and great-grandmother long before we were born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I did NOT get to choose my relatives! Unlike Peter Marchetti, I am all for FREE SPEECH in our FREE Country. I am against "a 90-day grace period" for Mayor Peter Marchetti.
Also, re-Pete White is running to succeed Peter Marchetti as the next President of the City Council. With Pete and re-Pete running Pittsfield politics, one may hear an echo now and then.
Pete and re-Pete and Pittsfield politics sounds very different than the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski working-class family who lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and will pay for it all and pound sand.
Jon Melle
-----
January 4, 2024
Peter Marchetti: "Openly Gay"
Linda Tyer: "Gated Community"
Dan Bianchi: "Mayor Montello"
Jimmy Ruberto: "Rolodex"
Sara Hathaway: "Aberration"
The late Gerry Doyle: "Barstool"
Pittsfield politics: "RETRIBUTION"
re-Pete White: "Food Mood"
Tricia Farley Bouvier: "Country Buffet"
Smitty Pignatelli: "NO to transparency!"
John Barrett III: "Career Politician"
Paul Mark: "Rubber Stamp"
Maura Healey: "No productivity"
Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr: "Pittsfield's Pot King"
Adam Hinds: "Chrome Dome"
Barry Clairmont: "Pittsfield's 3 am Cumby's Crusader"
Richie Neal: "PAC Man"
Maryland Markey: "Hot Air"
Elizabeth Warren: "Big Biden Supporter"
Joe Biden: "BIG government Biden Buck$"
Donald Trump: "Moral Hypocrite"
Bill Clinton: "Twice Convicted FELON"
Hillary Clinton: "Stand by your man"
John Kerry: "Millions of dollars invested in the oil and gas industries until early-2021"
Dan Bosley: "Greedy lobbyist for BIG business"
The Berkshire Eagle: "A yellow rag that is an embarrassment to journalism"
Blogger Dan Valenti: "The Stockbridge critic of Pittsfield politics"
Jon Melle: "The financial, corporate and ruling elites enrich themselves at the public trough, while the common people, families and taxpayers pound sand"
Capitol Hill: "The Swamp's Country Club of out-of-touch Members of U.S. Congress"
Beacon Hill: "Do NOTHING but DISSERVICES"
The lottery: "Voluntary regressive taxation that systemically mocks the mostly financially illiterate low- to moderate-income residents of "Gateway Cities" such as Pittsfield"
Casino Gambling: "Just the kind of people Massachusetts doesn't hope to attract"
North Street: "Social Services Alley surrounded by The Ring of Poverty inner-city Pittsfield distressed neighborhoods"
PEDA: "Millions of dollars in debts and unfunded liabilities that is still a polluted wasteland that is an eyesore that doesn't attract Fortune 500 companies to Pittsfield"
The American Dream: "To move your family out of Pittsfield like many thousands upon thousands of people and families did over the past 50 years"
The City Council: "Spend Pittsfield into oblivion"
The School Committee: "Level 5 is rock bottom"
Pittsfield: "A downward spiral...."
Jon Melle
-----
February 5, 2024
The past 4 and 1 current Mayors of Pittsfield politics:
Sara Hathaway called violent crime in Pittsfield "an ABERRATION". I recently read that violent crime in Pittsfield more than doubles the statewide average since at least 1980. Sara Hathaway is a (litigious) schoolmarm who has a seat on the (Level 5) Pittsfield School Committee. (Sarcasm: NO conflicts of interest there).
Jimmy Ruberto touted his ROLODEX that were to bring businesses and living wage jobs back to postindustrial Pittsfield, but now the Ruberto ROLODEX has become a sad symbol of postindustrial Pittsfield's place in the U.S.' distressed economic Rust Belt. He went onto be a full-time resident of Florida, and less than 5 years ago he purchased a condo unit for $490,000 in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he is a part-time resident.
Dan Bianchi said that he would bring his financial management skills to Pittsfield City Hall. He treated the mayor's position as a part-time job, while he continued to work for Montello. Meanwhile, the city's finances, especially spending and borrowing, continued to excessively increase at the dismay of local taxpayers.
Linda Tyer said that she would bring people together in Pittsfield politics. She then went onto marry her third husband, who is a multimillionaire CPA who is also known as Cumby's Clairmont, who lives with his second wife, Linda Tyer, in a mansion in Pittsfield's elitist Gated Community.
Since late last Summer 2023, their new neighbor is "Luciforo", who purchased his mansion for $950,000. Sarcasm: (Jon Melle's homelessness sidewalk is on the corner of First Street and Fenn Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. That is, if it were up to "Pittsfield's Pot King", who has conspiratorially persecuted me since I was 20 years old starting in the Spring 1996 when my dad, Bob, began his campaign for Berkshire County Commissioner, 1997 - mid-2000).
Peter Marchetti said that he is will unite the city with his "One Pittsfield" 2023 campaign tagline. He went onto publicly ask for a 90 day grace period free from criticism, as well as letting all of us know that he is NOT a fan of social media and blogs.
The Hathaway HACK, The Ruberto ROLODEX, the Bianchi BUST, the Tyer TAXER, and the Marchetti MANIA.
Jon Melle
-----
February 7, 2024
Mayor Peter Marchetti earns a city salary of $115,725 per fiscal year 2024, which will mostly likely increase during his 4-year term(s). He will retire with a 6-figure city public pension plus perks for life, which will be on top of his 35-year bank pension plus his monthly Social Security checks.
Mayor Peter Marchetti publicly stated that he requests a 90-day grace period free from criticism, and that he is not a fan of social media and blogs.
Mayor Peter Marchetti stated that he will not close to level fund the city's would-be fiscal year 2025 operating budget. Mayor Peter Marchetti's would-be proposed fiscal year 2025 operating budget will probably increase municipal spending by between 5 percent to 10 percent beginning on July 1st, 2024.
Mayor Peter Marchetti's tagline is "One Pittsfield".
Mayor Peter Marchetti is named in Victoria May's sex discrimination federal civil lawsuit versus Pittsfield Co-op Bank. She alleges that when Peter Marchetti was a manager at the bank, he called her "a BITCH" and otherwise mistreated her along with two other men bank managers.
Mayor Peter Marchetti publicly says that he is openly gay. He was endorsed by the openly gay Governor, Maura Healey.
Peter Marchetti and Jon Melle are relatives. We share the same great-grandparents who migrated from Italy to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, well over 100 years ago. I did not get to choose my relatives, especially Peter Marchetti.
Peter Marchetti ran for Mayor of Pittsfield in 2011, but he lost to Dan Bianchi back then. In 2023, he ran for Mayor of Pittsfield and was victorious versus candidate John Krol.
Jon Melle
-----
February 7, 2024
I read the Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle's) glowing editorial praising one of the worst State Representatives in the history of Massachusetts who is called Smitty Pignatelli. It is one of the worst editorials I have read in my life. I don't think that Kafka or The Twilight Zone writers could have written a more distorted opinion piece. The Eagle's editorial was a perfect illustration of 2 + 2 = 5.
Over the years, I have read the Eagle's glowing editorials praising the now and forever greedy lobbyists Peter Larkin and Dan Bosley, who never left the Boston Statehouse after they retired from state politics. I also read the Eagle's glowing editorials praising Jimmy Ruberto, including the absurd headline that he left Pittsfield better off.
Pignatelli, Larkin, Bosley, Ruberto, and the like, all failed the people and taxpayers of Pittsfield and the Berkshires. Pignatelli's public record is one of always voting down Sunshine rules and laws reform measures, voting for and always accepting his own excessive state legislative pay raises, supporting GE's poisonous plan to put a capped leaky landfill full of industrial chemicals called PCBs in Lee (Mass.) over the strong objections of his constituents who live in Lee and Lenoxdale, and so on.
Even blogger Dan Valenti continues to praise Jimmy Ruberto as a so-called great Mayor of Pittsfield.
Jimmy Ruberto's downtown revitalization plan failed after a few short years of success and a whole lot of taxpayer dollars. Jimmy Ruberto's so-called "Rolodex" stands as a sad symbol of postindustrial Pittsfield's distressed economy. Jimmy Ruberto never owned his own home, nor did he ever rent an apartment, in Pittsfield in his entire life. He now lives full-time in the state of Florida and part-time in Lenox, Mass.
Peter Larkin sold his soul to GE a long time ago. GE left Pittsfield in the ditch without even one GE job, while Pittsfield has become GE's toxic waste dump. Peter Larkin cashed in on Pittsfield's demise to the tune of millions of dollars.
Dan Bosley is a greedy lobbyist for big businesses that do not exist in mostly rural Western Massachusetts. His public record was one of supporting inequitable public policies that enriched Boston area big businesses, while he represented one of the poorest cities - North Adams - in Massachusetts. Dan Bosley's gift to North Adams, Pittsfield and other similar down-and-out cities was more (and more) state lottery tickets that exploits the mostly financially illiterate low- to moderate-income residents in Massachusetts.
I do not understand how the news media in Berkshire County praises these failed politicians. The only way it makes sense to me is that the Berkshire County news media, especially The Dirty Bird, operates in The Twilight Zone.
Jon Melle
-----
February 12, 2024
Putin the propagandist poker player is worse than the predictable Pittsfield politics always raising its municipal operating budget by between 5 percent to 10 percent per fiscal year since the early-1980's after the misguided and arbitrary Proposition 2.5 state law went into effect in Massachusetts - it is all a financial shell game from Pittsfield to Boston.
Putin's own Russian people do NOT all support Russia's authoritarian dictator. Just like Pittsfield's taxpayers do not support the city soaking them with excessive municipal spending. Interestingly, if Russia had a real democracy, then Russian voters would vote out Putin, but Pittsfield's pseudo-democracy sees voter turnout at around 20 percent in local elections, which means that around 80 percent of voters know that the fix is always in when it comes to Pittsfield politics.
Where I now live in Southern New Hampshire, I hear stories from local people I know and have talked to about local Russian families who live in the area that I now live in who are split and fighting with each other about the 2-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. It does not look and sound to me like the Russian people are all favorable of Putin and his militaristic actions in Ukraine.
Lastly, around 21 years ago, Joe Biden - along with billionaire John Forbes Kerry and Hillary Clinton - voted for the second Iraq conflict whereby the U.S. Government invaded Iraq, which holds the 2nd largest oil fields in the world second only to number one Saudi Arabia. Putin's Russian Government invaded Ukraine. Xi's Chinese Government plans to invade Taiwan. Joe Biden is the pot calling the kettle(s) black!
Jon Melle
-----
February 16, 2024
We already know that Mayor Peter Marchetti and the City Council rubber stampers are going to increase city spending by 5 percent to 10 percent when they pass the fiscal year 2025 municipal budget sometime this Spring 2024 to possibly early-Summer 2024 before the June 30th, 2024, deadline. Oh, and guess what, there is the threat of a possible recession later this year, 2024. If a recession occurs, then it may (or may not) dawn on Pittsfield politics that they will have to budget in economic reality instead of spend, spend, spend....taxpayers' money.
Cities comparable to Pittsfield (Mass.) do not spend nearly as much money as Pittsfield politics spends. States comparable and even larger than Massachusetts do not spend nearly as much money as the do nothing (but DISSERVICES) Beacon Hill lawmakers spend. A taxpayer in Pittsfield experiences the WORST of both worlds between their City Hall and the far away Statehouse in Boston.
In return for a couple hundred million taxpayer dollars per fiscal year, Pittsfield hosts many Level 5 public schools, violent crime rates that have more than doubled the statewide average since at least 1980, GE's capped leaky landfills full of industrial chemicals called PCBs, the soon to be 26-year-old heavily indebted and polluted PEDA debacle, a downtown full of around 15 empty storefronts along with a myriad of social services agencies due to the city and region's distressed and very unequal economy, and so on.
This past week, I have read editorials, op-eds, letters, and news stories praising the outgoing Lenox State Representative who is called Smitty Pignatelli. All of it propaganda at its worst, of course. What has Smitty Pignatelli really done for Berkshire County during his a little over 21-year political career in Boston? Answer: DISSERVICES!
In closing, I either live in "The Twilight Zone" or Smitty Pignatelli and all of the career politicians who are similar to him are failures in leadership.
Jon Melle
-----
March 18, 2024
Economic growth in Pittsfield = the excessive Underclass population
Financial growth in Pittsfield = the always growing bigger state and local Government
Educational growth in Pittsfield = Level 5 public schools that cost a lot of MONEY
Social growth in Pittsfield = Moving out of Pittsfield or getting stuck in the ditch
Job growth in Pittsfield = Marijuana, Alcohol, Tobacco, Lottery Tickets, etc forms of (voluntary) regressive taxation that greedy lobbyists such as Dan Bosley love to hate
Tax and Fee growth in Pittsfield = Kufflinks' secretive Slush Funds and Cooked Books
Political growth in Pittsfield = Mayor Peter Marchetti always increasing city spending because residents enjoy city services
Journalism growth in Pittsfield politics = The Twilight Zone of praise and persecution
The Governor in Pittsfield = Misguided Maura dumping illegal immigrants in Pittsfield while she cuts state funding for social services - the WORST of both worlds
The Gated Community neighborhood in Pittsfield = Linda, Luciforo, & all of the Latte Limousine Liberals
The Rolodex in Pittsfield = Jimmy Ruberto living in Florida and Lenox, but how about that Rolodex?
Jon Melle
P.S. Nadia Milleron's op-ed on her campaign to oust PAC Man Richie Neal:
https://www.masslive.com/westernmass/2024/03/next-lawmaker-in-1st-congressional-district-should-help-people-not-corporations-viewpoint.html
-----
