Foul Ball

“We’ll take a look at it carefully and then make a decision,” he said, as if he were talking to his favorite aunt.

  But the favorite aunt wasn’t having any.

  “Is that any way to do it?” asked Betty, still courteous. “This was a public meeting and I didn’t learn anything. Shame on you.”

  Nilan, not looking ashamed, smiled and nodded and turned away.

  Moving through the crowd, I timed it so that Bossidy and I would cross paths, in case he wanted to say something like, “Thanks for the book.” But he walked right past me. And I understood his eagerness to leave—he had come a long way just to hand two pieces of paper to some parks commissioners.

  I made one final request of Cliff Nilan. After Betty had finished trying to register on him, I asked if I could have a copy of the Bossidy proposal.

  “I only have one copy,” Nilan said brusquely, “and I’m not giving it to you.”

  Whereupon he adjourned to the parking lot for what someone described later as “an ad hoc meeting” with Bossidy and the other commissioners. The real meeting where the real discussion would take place.

  While we were still milling around inside, I was approached by Eagle reporter Tony Dobrowolski.

  “Do you think you’re getting a cold shoulder from the administration,” asked Dobrowolski, “because you’ve alienated them?”

  This was particularly annoying, considering the source.

  “Besides my letter to Nilan,” I asked, trying not to show my irritation, “what have we said about city officials?”

  “I can’t think of anything specific,” said Dobrowolski. “But things I’ve read.”

  “Things you probably read in your own newspaper,” I said. “You may be confusing what Chip and I have actually said and done with the Eagle’s interpretation. It’s your own paper that’s alienating people.”

  Dobrowolski just shrugged his shoulders, smiled enigmatically and shuffled away.

  Outside Springside House, Paula and I said goodbye to some Wahconah Yes! teammates who were still hanging around. They were enjoying a done-deal-undoing, cool-of-the-evening moment.

  “See you at the City Council meeting on Thursday,” we all reminded each other about the rescheduled September meeting. That’s when it will be decided whether or not to put proposals for Wahconah Park onto the November ballot.

  “What a scene!” said Paula, on the drive home. “Fifty angry and frustrated people—but all polite to the core. They should have been shouting. ‘What’s on that paper? What’s public about this meeting?’ And when it was over they got up quietly and left. No fuss. Nothing.”

  “Did you hear what Betty Quadrozzi told Nilan?” I said.

  “Yes, but it was surprisingly subdued,” said Paula. “Maybe they’re exhausted from all the battles they’ve fought. Like Mickey Mouse against the endless brooms in Fantasia.”

  We gave that some thought.

  “I’m glad I’m doing this,” I said, a surge of good feelings rising up. “I feel like I’m making a contribution. In some small way, being a good citizen in Pittsfield substitutes for being a good citizen in New York City, where they already have enough good citizens right now.”

  SEPTEMBER 18

  TUESDAY

  Susan Gordon has agreed to replace Rick Jones as the leader of the petition drive. Susan is the owner of Bagels Too, a breakfast and lunch restaurant on the main drag in Pittsfield. New signature sheets have been printed, with Bagels Too as the address where completed sheets can be mailed or dropped off.

  “And I’ll keep separate copies,” said Susan, “in case somebody comes in and tries to steal them.”

  Her fears are well founded.

  Anne Leaf and Dave Potts said their Anti-Civic Authority petition sheets were always being stolen or destroyed.

  “They were tearing them up all over town,” said Anne. “I was afraid they were going to break into my house and take them. All the meetings were held here and I had the Xerox.”

  “She wouldn’t even tell me where she was keeping them,” said Potsy. “I told her that somebody had to know. So she finally told me.”

  “I slept with them,” said Anne, finally able to laugh about it.

  But most of it wasn’t so funny.

  “I got threatening phone calls all the time,” said Anne. “One time I got a call from a man whose voice I didn’t recognize. He said, ‘You better back off or you’ll be sorry.’ Then he hung up the phone. I also got a call from the wife of a top city official, who threatened me. Honestly, I thought my house would be set on fire.”

  Over a baseball stadium?

  SEPTEMBER 19

  WEDNESDAY

  The Rick Jones story appeared in the Eagle today. A small piece of it, anyway. Just as I had feared, it ended up looking like a diligent Mayor Doyle just doing his job. And Tom Murphy wasn’t even mentioned at all.

  What’s fascinating, however, is how Doyle handled it. Especially the “smoking letter” the plumbing inspector sent to Doyle, documenting the mayor’s demand to see Rick’s and his boss’s work permits.

  Here are the key paragraphs in Dusty Bahlman’s story, beginning with a quote from Doyle:

  “On September 13, my office received an anonymous call reporting that a local plumber was breaking the law by using a vehicle for plumbing work that did not have a visible certified logo,” Doyle said. “We probably get two or three of these types of calls a week from people who have complaints and we investigate them all.”

  The Mayor said he requested the information about the permits from Stanley Greenleaf, the city’s plumbing inspector. Doyle also said that he directed Greenleaf to submit a written report of his findings.

  “Knowing that Richard Jones is a candidate for office, I requested Mr. Greenleaf’s report in writing to avoid any appearance of impropriety and to verify that I did indeed have the allegation investigated,” Doyle wrote in a memo that accompanied a copy of Greenleaf’s report. “The allegation turned out to be false and therefore no other action was required.”

  Look how clever Doyle is.

  He needs a reason for having called the plumbing inspector and demanding that Rick Jones’s permits be checked. An anonymous tip about a violation would do, but it can’t be a violation related to a particular plumbing job because that could be checked through work orders. But a lettering problem on a truck could be spotted anywhere, at any time, so we get a violation of the “visible certified logo” rule.

  It’s perfect—as long as no one asks any annoying questions, like how the anonymous caller knew who to blame if there was no lettering on the truck in the first place. Or why Greenleaf felt it necessary to chew Rick Jones’s ear for an hour just to save Pittsfield from a lettering problem.

  Then there’s the letter from Greenleaf. And this is the genius part. Since Doyle is stuck with the letter that Rick had requested Greenleaf send, he makes the most of it. Suddenly it is Doyle who requested the letter—demanded it, even—because Rick is “a candidate for office” and Doyle wanted to “avoid any appearance of impropriety.”

  In Pittsfield, you can spray the roads with PCB oil, but you better not go without lettering on your plumbing truck.

  Today I met with a guy named Ed McCormick, a lawyer from Great Barrington, who, according to several reliable sources, started that rumor about me demanding $3,000 to speak to the Boy Scouts.

  McCormick is a heavy-set, ruddy-faced man. When I called him last week to make an appointment, his secretary had asked what it was about, and I said it was personal. I walked into his office and sat down.

  “What can I do for you?” he said, as if I were looking for legal help of some kind.

  “Do you know anything at all about a rumor that I demanded $3,000 to speak to the Boy Scouts?” I said.

  “Don’t know anything about it,” said McCormick, in a very convincing manner.

  “Why would someone in Pittsfield tell me otherwise?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, shrugging.

 
I was about to apologize. There had probably been a misunderstanding. I tried to figure it out.

  “Do you have anything at all to do with the Boy Scouts?” I asked, about to get up and leave.

  “I’m the Scoutmaster for Berkshire County,” said McCormick.

  Oh.

  “Then let me ask you another question,” I said, back on the scent. “Do you have any connection to Pittsfield politics?”

  McCormick’s face got redder.

  “I got a call from some people,” he said, “asking me about you and your partner, Chip. I said Chip is a good guy. I know him. He’s my neighbor. I was less than stellar about you.”

  “Why was that?” I asked.

  “Because you canceled out on a Boy Scout meeting and I didn’t like the way you handled it.”

  “How did I handle it?” I asked, more curious than ever because I couldn’t remember having met him.

  “You should have sat down with me and talked about it.”

  “I don’t recall speaking with you about it in the first place,” I said, a bit testy. “I only spoke with Cheryl Raifstanger, but I didn’t commit to anything. Then I told her I wouldn’t do it because of the Scouts’ policy against gays.”

  McCormick launched into a speech about his Boy Scout troop not discriminating against gays.

  “What does that have to do with $3,000?” I asked.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said McCormick.

  That’s when I got up and left.

  SEPTEMBER 20

  THURSDAY

  Tonight may be our last chance to get Wahconah Park. If the City Council votes to put the question onto the November ballot, we’re in. The Parks Commission, knowing the election was coming up, would have a hard time choosing anyone but us. They might even decline to make a decision and leave it up to the voters.

  Since everyone also understands that our plan for Wahconah Park dooms a new stadium, tonight’s City Council vote to put the question on the ballot is really a vote for or against a new stadium. On the ballot means no new stadium.

  Five of the eleven councilors are probably against us—Hickey, Lee, Massery, Kerwood, and Dowd, the new-stadium die-hards. We need all the rest. The good news is that Gary Grunin stated publicly last night that he’ll vote yes tonight on the ballot question—otherwise he has no chance to be mayor. With Bianchi, Guzzo, and Scapin, that makes four. The only question marks are Bill Barry and James Brassard. We feel pretty good about Barry after our breakfast meeting last week, and Brassard recently told Chip on the phone that he would vote in favor. But who knows how solid they’ll be?

  It’s always possible that one of the new-stadium guys will break ranks for some reason. Maybe Massery or Kerwood, who are both running for reelection, will feel the heat that Grunin is feeling. Maybe Hickey will risk taking “an unbelievable amount of shit” and adopt a more even-handed course. Or maybe the fix really is in and our defeat, no matter how narrow, was always in the cards. We’ll find out tonight.

  At least there’s one honest newspaper in town.

  This week’s Gazette contained an editorial by publisher Jonathan Levine entitled SAD TALE CONTINUES. A few highlights:

  The Parks Commission’s latest actions have further tainted the board’s once-strong reputation and added to Pittsfield’s festering baseball sores.

  The Commission held a hastily scheduled meeting on Monday to hear Larry Bossidy’s vague proposal…. While the commission did meet legal requirements for posting this session, the board added further fuel to the fire of public distrust by seeming to do so stealthily.

  Despite the intense public interest in this issue—with many residents especially interested in learning what Bossidy might offer—the meeting was not announced in advance.

  Had the grapevine not buzzed Monday among citizens tuned into the issue, no members of the public would likely have been present. The proponents of competing plans were not invited. The community access television station that aired earlier presentations on the topic was not in the loop. And candidates for public office—an astounding two dozen of whom have requested a public referendum on the stadium issue—also weren’t informed.

  In a related vein, it’s unclear why a public session needed to be scheduled at the last minute on the night of a major Jewish holiday.

  The Commission’s process has disappointed throughout recent months—from the dubiously created “questions” that are supposedly guiding the decision to haughty treatment of the public.

  To make a good impression at tonight’s Council meeting, Chip and I brought the finest testimonials to our good judgment—Cindy and Paula. Cindy in a fire-engine red jacket and a silk scarf. Paula in a gray herringbone jacket with black lapels. They could sway the vote just by sitting there. And it sure was fun walking in with them.

  The Wahconah Yes! team was there, of course, with their game faces on. And we had Bianchi, Guzzo, and Scapin up on the dais.

  Everybody was there for one reason—Wahconah Park. Depending on what happens tonight, this could be the fourth time in the last four years that the old ballpark, directly or indirectly, had its own place on the ballot. Not that this had ever settled anything.

  At 7:30, City Council President Tom Hickey tapped his gavel and called the meeting to order. He asked for a moment of silence for “the victims and families, and rescue people who are down there working so hard.”

  Everyone knew where “down there” was.

  Then the councilors, all wearing American flag ties and/or lapel pins, recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Hickey announced that Councilman Brassard would be late because he was attending a neighborhood meeting. Brassard is the vote Chip and I are least sure of. Maybe the tie-breaking vote.

  “He’s getting his final instructions,” I said to Chip.

  “He’s getting an unbelievable amount of shit,” said Chip.

  First on the agenda was the open mike period. “We have over twenty speakers,” said Hickey, “so keep your comments to three minutes please.”

  Then began a parade of twenty-two speakers, all but one in favor of putting Wahconah Park on the November ballot. And they did more than simply state their preference. They made a plea for democracy.

  Here’s a sampling:

  “You gentlemen were elected to represent the citizens of Pittsfield, and I do not believe you are listening to them or representing them.”

  “The voice of the people is something we hold dear and something that we are ready to fight for.”

  “Here’s an opportunity to clean up what has been a very manipulative and closed process.”

  “You know what the people want from you—a chance to be heard. Why is it they have to resort to referendum petitions?”

  “Larry Bossidy is asking for three things that we just voted down—a new stadium, millions of dollars in public funding, and an executive authority to run it. I am personally insulted that nobody said to him, ‘We just voted that down, sir!’ Now I am offended that we have to go before you and ask for a referendum to consider this thing that we don’t want.”

  Chip and I added our voices, too, but it was really a night for the citizens of Pittsfield.

  Then it was time to call the question.

  “Madam Clerk,” said Tom Hickey, “if we could have item number twenty-six, please.”

  The clerk advised the council that the three-part question—to vote for the Fleisig, Bossidy, or Bouton proposal—could not go on the ballot as is. The only solution was to turn it into it three separate yes or no questions—with the winner being the proposal that gets the most yeses—as other communities have done.

  But Pittsfield is not other communities.

  To understand what it’s like in Pittsfield, a verbatim transcript of the first five minutes of council deliberations tells you everything you need to know. Keep in mind that the ballot question was non-binding and had the support of two thirds of the candidates running for office.

  Brassard: (who j
ust arrived) Is there any way that an individual can pull one lever and the rest of the levers be shut?

  Clerk: No.

  Brassard: Okay, so a person could go in and pull one yes lever and two no levers, is that correct?

  Clerk: Yes.

  Brassard: Could they vote three yeses?

  Clerk: They could vote yes or no for all three questions.

  Brassard: What I want to know is that a person could go behind the curtain and pull more than one lever. Is that correct? (The clerk nodded.) They can pull a yes for each question. So they could pull a total of three levers. They could vote for all three plans. They could vote yes for each? Yes, yes, and yes, in any combination? Any combination. You can’t lock out… That scares me.

  A few members of the audience groaned.

  Hickey: Let me just try to clear this up. I’ll make an attempt at clearing that up for the audience. What the city clerk has said, the type of machines we have, the questions would be set up as three individual questions and you could vote yes or no, or any combination thereof, on each one without being able to lock out the others. So if you wanted to vote for the Bouton plan and the Bossidy plan and the Fleisig plan you could vote yes on all three, or yes, no, no. There’s no way to lock out, am I correct?

  Clerk: Yes.

  The audience grew impatient with Hickey’s explanation. They already understood that multiple yes votes would simply cancel each other out, having no impact one way or another.

  Hickey: The Chair recognizes Councilor Rick Scapin.

  Scapin: I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about them voting for yes on all three. They’re going to vote for one yes and two nos. They’re very educated, and a lot of councilors thought they were stupid out there—and I think they showed that at the last Civic Authority vote—and don’t underestimate the voters out there. They know what they want and who they want.

  Hickey: The Chair recognizes Councilor Kerwood. (The guy Peter Arlos calls “Little Eddie Munster.”)

  Kerwood: I agree with Councilor Scapin that the voters aren’t stupid, but I think it’s important that we make it as foolproof as possible and whether we like it or not, the system that was just outlined can lend itself to manipulation, and you could have somebody go in and vote three yeses, three no’s or whatnot.