Whitewater’s Common Council met Tuesday, and among the topics, there was a discussion of whether to publicize delinquent taxpayers’ debts, and whether to modify parking restrictions in the downtown. (All of the Council were at the session.)

The agenda for the meeting is available online.

Publicizing Taxpayers’ Unpaid Personal-Property Taxes.

Many cities publish lists like this, and the best place would be the Web (rather than a print publication like Whitewater Register). It must true that the City of Whitewater’s website gets more visitors than the Register has subscribers – it’s probably not even close.

Downtown Parking on Saturdays.

The discussion concerned the request of some downtown merchants who wanted less restrictive Saturday parking (so patrons could enjoy a longer stay), as against the opinion of others preferring a two-hour Main Street limit (to spur parking turnover in front of stores).

Patrons coming outside to find tickets on their cars, after dining at a restaurant or bar, are understandably irritated at a surcharge on their spending.

A few points seem reasonable:

(1) Employee parking. No employee should be parking his or her vehicle at an empty spot on Main Street during a work shift. Any employer who lets this happen has no respect for his or her own interest. If a car in one of these spots is an employee’s car, that’s one too many.

That’s true now under the practical restriction of a two-hour limit, but it would be as true with unlimited parking – employees and owners should never take the prime spots.

(Employees and owners shouldn’t be smoking out front, either – that’s an activity for an alley behind one’s shop. Merchants who let employees smoke out front have insufficient respect for their customers.)

(2) Enforcement of parking violations. Enforcement that that affects businesses but involves no personal harm should be done with discretion. Revenue-collection for parking tickets during peak Saturday game times is simply counter-productive. Community Service Officers should exercise discretion by forbearance.

Ticketing during these times doesn’t make the city more orderly – it just angers patrons and turns them into former patrons.

(3) Merchant solidarity. Merchants should be trying to hang together on these questions, and if they cannot, they should at least be together to discuss their concerns. All the downtown merchants should be talking with each other about these topics.

By the way, a landlord who has a vacant store and an empty storefront has one thing too many. You’ll not sell space by leaving the space wholly empty. Empty storefronts, like empty shelves, have the look of failure that keeps customers and tenants away. If you’re not decorating the storefront (with something more than a FOR SALE sign and the faded lettering of the last tenant’s logo), you’re inhibiting your success and making the place look like a rat’s nest, both.

(4) Merchandising, chamber lobbying, enforcement, sanitation. These are separate roles.

There were lots of smart people taking part in this council discussion. This city and her merchants should come to a satisfactory arrangement. A fair amount of time went into this, but that’s for the best.

We could stand more discussions about actual business conditions for merchants in the city.

I received the following press release that I’m happy to post:

Renae Prell-Mitchell, from UW-Whitewater, will lead a ‘Natural Plant Communities Talk & Tour’ at the Whitewater Effigy Mounds Preserve on Saturday, May 26th at 10 AM.

Renae will talk about the existing wetlands, DOT prairie and Silver maples/bur oak stand, as well as the rare remnant of Oak Savannah or Oak Opening. She will help us understand the importance of these existing habitats, and give us a glimpse of the landscape as it was for the hundreds of years before the founders of our community described its beauty in the “Annuals of Whitewater.”

Good morning.

It’s a mild day for Whitewater, with mostly sunny skies and a high of seventy-one.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets today at 1 PM.

Today’s a vital day in our history, as it’s the day that Brown v. Board of Education was decided.

On this day in Wisconsin history, in 1673,

Joliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway

On this date Louis Joliet [also spelled as Jolliet], Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoiter the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again. [Source: Historic Diaries: Marquette & Joliet via Wisconsin Historical Society.

From NASA, a video on that agency’s Aqua satellite and its instruments:

Google’s daily puzzle asks about food: “What do you call a cluster of fruit on the world’s largest herb?”

Monday night was Planning Commission night in Whitewater. The agenda for the meeting is available online.

The Commission selected a chairman (Greg Meyer) & vice chairman (Lynn Binnie), and representatives from Planning to the Community Development Authority (Greg Meyer) and Urban Forestry Commission (Karen Coburn).

Every nominee was uncontested and supported unanimously. One can have consensus, although I’d think some ideological division would be useful to the city. I’ve been critical of some recent and unanimous decisions of the commission, but I’m unsure where this commission will be in six months or so.

Here’s why.

First, although the city administration will soon have a leadership vacancy, there’s been a decline in managerial leadership at city hall long before the city manager’s recent announcement of a job offer to become Walworth County highway commissioner.

Clarity and consistency will be more important than ever – decisions that involve simply a hodgepodge will confuse the devil out of businesses and business prospects.

Second, lack of clarity also puts at risk a commercial re-zoning initiative that’s in process. It’s a necessary step, but it will be an insufficient one if clear zoning fuel runs though a clogged planning filter. To make re-zoning effective, businesses will need to know that revised zoning ordinances will be embraced at all parts of local government. (Members of the zoning re-write team come from different parts of the community, including the Planning Commission.)

Considering the Planning Commission’s recent work, I’m not sure how it will hold up.

The recent 5.14 session was a routine one, but routine isn’t in the offing for the months ahead (and the city will be better without the routine of these recent years).

Will this commission keep up? I don’t know.

Good morning.

Yesterday, I initially typed, but later corrected, the daily temperature forecast as forty-six (rather than eighty-six). An example of wishful thinking: I like colder weather. Today, a bit colder, but still warm: a forecast of seventy with sunny skies.

There’s a date change for a Community Development Authority meeting originally scheduled for today, to interview for a CDA director. The interview is now Thursday at 1 PM.

What a poor process this is: no list of candidates with biographies, as a suitable interview process for someone who should be the chief development official in the city. Worse, the CDA has a consultant who helped (in some capacity) with this, and this is the process they produce: all draped with silence. The Innovation Center’s director search was like this, long and hidden, mediocre and substandard throughout.

The CDA used Redevelopment Resources as a consultant – but if that firm’s work cost a penny, it was a copper coin too much. No one of any talent would be connected with a process that was a little bit here, a little bit there, all of it in the dark. The first thing the consultant needed to do – and failed to do – was show and bring into effect a proper search process.

Something more pleasant, to cleanse the palate — on this day in 1929, the first Academy Awards:

The Wisconsin Historical Society reports this day in 1913 as the day that

Big Band Leader Woody Herman [Was] Born

On this date Woody Herman was born in Milwaukee. A child prodigy, Herman sang and tap-danced in local clubs before touring as a singer on the vaudeville circuit. He played in various dance bands throughout the 20s and 30s and by 1944 was leading a band eventually known as the First Herd. In 1946, the band played an acclaimed concert at Carnegie Hall but disbanded at the end of the year. The following year, Herman returned to performing with the Second Herd that included a powerful saxophone section comprised of Herbie Steward, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Serge Chaloff. He died in 1987. [Source: WoodyHerman.com].

Google’s daily puzzle is for readers: “You’re playing the character who speaks first in Shakespeare’s longest play. What’s your opening line?”

I received a note from Open Road Media, the publisher of an electronic edition of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon. Noticing that I was reading the book’s print edition, they suggested that I might consider their new electronic version, just out.

Of course: I’d prefer an e-book to a print copy, as they’re easier to store, often in several devices at once, and are a sound conservation practice, too.

A copy from Amazon is available online. (I neither charge nor accept promotional items for anything at FREE WHITEWATER. These remarks are those of a reader like anyone else.)

The Open Road Media edition is sparkling – properly formatted and easy to read on a computer, smartphone, iPad, or Kindle. (I’ve tried it on all these devices). Easily recommended.

It’s common with a publisher’s message like this to receive a second question, about some topic in the book. In this case: What the idea of Shangri-La means to me.

I’d suppose that Hilton’s Shangri-La captivates readers initially as a place of near agelessness, a version of a fountain of youth story. That’s understandable, of course: concerns over aging and mortality are common enough.

Yet, the Shangri-La of the story is not a simply a place of near-agelessness. It’s a place with a confident way of life, as Chang, a representative of the lamasery, explains:

We rule with moderate strictness, and in return are satisfied with moderate obedience. And I think that I can claim that our people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest.

Chang knows his way and his mind – he’s confident, even when peppered with skeptical questions. It’s not the place, but the state of mind, that matters most. One lives well if one lives clearly, confidently.

Often one sees in a place what one believes one will see. Yet, I cannot avoid thinking that Shangri-La is about believing deep within oneself in, and of, something. Clarity and confidence in the face of the harsh natural conditions beyond the valley, or the political violence and disorder that looms in the world outside.

Shangri-La isn’t compelling because its residents live longer; it’s compelling because its residents live soundly and confidently. From that, many things are possible, including an enduring, everlasting community.

Good morning.

We’ve another warm day ahead, with a high of forty-six eighty-six, and a one-third chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1911, the Supreme Court enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act against Standard Oil, breaking up that vast company.

The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that on this day in 1911,

…the Janesville City Council proposed ordinances banning fortune-tellers and prohibiting breweries from operating bars in the city. For more on Wisconsin brewing history, see the “Brewing and Prohibition” page at Turning Points in Wisconsin History. [Source: Janesville Gazette].

I’ve no confidence in fortune tellers, but one can be confident that a community that worries over them is on the wrong track.

Google’s daily puzzle ask about astrophysics: “When a star collapses, its mass is squeezed into a single point that has zero volume. What is its density?”

In the 13th district recall battle between Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald and challenger Lori Compas, Fitzgerald recently expressed his doubts about Compas’s control of her own campaign:

For the record, Fitzgerald said he doesn’t buy Compas’ Pollyanna image. He knows some people are painting the race as a David-vs.-Goliath contest.

But Fitzgerald said he thinks her husband is one of the main forces behind her campaign, as well as unions and protest groups. “I don’t for one minute believe she is the organizing force behind this whole thing,” he said.

Fitzgerald’s foolish assertion is that her husband, rather than Compas herself, is one of the main forces behind her campaign. Any person of normal understanding will interpret this one way, and one way only: that Fitzgerald thinks she can’t do what he considers to be a man’s job.

When Fitzgerald speaks this way, he might as well say that Compas should leave the campaign trail, and promptly resume a woman’s station in the kitchen.

That position is both condescending and easily ridiculed as condescending.

Sure enough – within a single day – Compas produced a video mocking Fitzgerald’s narrow, patronizing remark:

I’m involved with neither campaign, but the greater advantage is lack of connection to the Fitzgerald campaign: it saves one an embarrassing association with another of his gaffes.

I’d guess that Fitzgerald will remain the favorite in this Republican-leaning district, but he sounds worse every time he tries to speak on his own. Far from Compas needing to rely on her husband, Fitzgerald would do well to rely on his wife, or any other overly-generous woman who can endure his views.

I’ve written about Compas before, most recently after she attended a Democrats’ forum at UW-Whitewater. See, The Democrats’ Recall Forum @ UW-Whitewater (Compas and Jorgensen edition).

Her views are not my own. No matter: someone listening to Compas for even a few minutes would know that she was presenting her own remarks, of her own design. A candidate writing her own remarks is doing still more, and thus running her own campaign.

(From my recent post: “She read from prepared remarks, rather than extemporaneously, but spoke well and easily. Her remarks were obviously her own, and Compas read them with a familiarity that made looking at them necsssary only briefly.
In this way, she would step back from the lectern, and then occasionally move toward it, in a kind of gavotte. I’d never coach someone to do this, but it was surprisingly innocuous, and almost effective.”)

There’s not the slighest chance Lori Compas’s remarks were not her own. If they were another’s, she would either have stayed closer to the lectern throughout, or tried to memorize the address in a way that would have produced a stilted, halting cadence. Her delivery was that of someone who wrote her own words, and then wanted independence from the podium by stepping back occasionally. A more polished speaker would have navigated the podium more effectively, but her words were surely her own.

Predictably, Compas’s campaign unsettles Fitzgerald (“I’m sure Fitzgerald resents her candidacy, her imposition on his time, his moment, his influence. She must seem something between impertinent and alien to him.”)

Fitzgerald is mistaken to think she’s merely a Pollyanna; it’s closer to the truth to say he’s cynical.

(Again: “She’s smart, but here’s her great strength: she’s evidently and manifestly sincere. If one comes away with a single impression, it’s that she means what she says. That doesn’t make her right, but it does make her politically effective.”)

The majority party controls Wisconsin’s executive office, both chambers of the legislature, with a conservative majority on the state’s supreme court.

Yet for all the majority’s advantages, Lori Compas has Scott Fitzgerald rattled.

Good morning.

It’s a warm and sunny Monday ahead for Whitewater, with a high of seventy-nine. Whitewater’s May 14th will be a day of 14 hours, 38 minutes of sunlight, 15 hours, 44 minutes of daylight, and a waning crescent moon.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM tonight.

On this day in 1804, Lewis & Clark set out westward.

The Wisconsin Historical Society marks today as the beginning of a ten-week strike in the Milwaukee beer industry:

1953 – Milwaukee Brewery Workers Go On Strike

Milwaukee brewery workers begin a 10-week strike, demanding contracts comparable to those of East and West coast workers. The strike was won when Blatz Brewery accepted their demands, but Blatz was ousted from the Brewers Association for “unethical” business methods as a result. The following year Schlitz president Erwin C. Uihlein told guests at Schlitz’ annual Christmas party that “Irreparable harm was done to the Milwaukee brewery industry during the 76-day strike of 1953, and unemployed brewery workers must endure ‘continued suffering’ before the prestige of Milwaukee beer is re-established on the world market.”

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a famous figure in law enforcement: “What office did the man who created the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list hold when he implemented the program?”

11 May
@dailywisconsin Baldwin 38%? Dubious @js_newswatch: Rasmussen Senate poll: Thompson over Baldwin, 50%-38% bit.ly/JsjvXr

11 May
@DailyAdams Japanese invent ice bra for women without air conditioning bit.ly/IQRLQA

9 May
@DailyAdams Nebraska man changes name to Tyrannosaurus Rex bit.ly/KmfDtF

8 May
@dailywisconsin REMATCH: Barrett wins Democratic primary, will face Walker in recall – JSOnline bit.ly/LJeLli

8 May
@dailywisconsin As everyone on planet expected, Walker easily wins recall primary bit.ly/KL2TdC #wirecall

8 May
@dailywisconsin Headline that Says It All™: “Falk has Union Support, Looks for Voter Support, too” bit.ly/JWGXz9

8 May
@dailywisconsin Nice to live in Wisconsin: Nevada allows Google to test driverless cars on public streets bit.ly/KjdYVN

8 May
@dailywisconsin But how can Melissa Gilbert still be on this show? DWTS: Donald Driver remains tied for 3rd place gbpg.net/III9Ya

7 May
RT @libertarianism No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain

7 May
@DailyAdams Cinco de Mayo: An all-American holiday | The Volokh Conspiracy bit.ly/ISkmGb

6 May
@FREEWHITEWATER Help a WI filmmaker achieve his dream by crowd-funding Heavy Hands by Sean Williamson — kck.st/ID9Z6P #film #kickstarter

5 May
@FREEWHITEWATER Help a WI filmmaker achieve his dream by crowd-funding Heavy Hands by Sean Williamson — Kickstarter kck.st/ID9Z6P

5 May
@dailywisconsin Video: Wisconsin 2012 Dem Candidates Debate bit.ly/Jbdb9G

4 May
@FREEWHITEWATER Vienna’s first cat cafe opens. bit.ly/IJLuY6

2 May
@FREEWHITEWATER Whitewater: Go Native! bit.ly/IrfDu0

30 Apr
@DailyAdams Low: Man arrested for stealing dog’s pills bit.ly/IoOFDV

30 Apr
@DailyAdams That’s like being an AT&T customer 24×7 – Milwaukee Verizon Wireless customers experiencing outages bit.ly/IkCVBI

Indeed they should, as expressive content – Trevor Burrus discusses.

Posted originally on 5.10.12 at Daily Adams.

Consider two ways to discuss an event.

Let’s suppose the City of Whitewater’s municipal administration decides to erect a statue near Cravath Lake in honor of Gary Dahl, the creator of the pet rock. Dahl had no connection to Whitewater of which I’m aware, but he was innovative: he re-positioned rocks as pets, complete with an instruction manual for their proper care.

As city staff are erecting the statue on a pedestal, a piece of the sculpture’s big toe breaks off, and strikes a squirrel scampering by. The unfortunate creature is killed instantly. A small girl of about seven sees the accident, screams in horror, and faints.

After she’s revived, the city’s departmental directors ponder what to do, as they’re concerned that others will be similarly shocked at the accident.

They might choose from these alternatives:

Option 1

Issue an urgent memorandum to the members of Common Council, with the subject line, “TOP-SECRET, ULTRA HUSH-HUSH QUADRUPED DIRECTIVE NO. 17.”

The memorandum would relate the events of the morning, but caution that the account therein was confidential, lest there be a citywide uproar. Of particular concern would be the possibility that the nearby Maoist Animal Action League of Walworth County might learn of what happened, drive to the city in their aged VW van, and spread utter chaos through their customarily raucous leaflet-distribution schemes.

The memo would be emphatic on the need for secrecy, and generously peppered with the German words ACHTUNG and VERBOTEN.

Option 2

Promptly issue a news release telling the city that there was an accident during the installation of the Dahl statue, as a small piece broke off, killing instantly a squirrel walking underfoot. A girl witnessing the events was startled, momentarily fainted, but recovered quickly and was unharmed.

They are both options, and neither’s perfect, but Option 2 gives concise and prompt information on a public act to the public from whom all political authority ultimately derives. No fuss, no uncertainties, no counter-productive effort to make a public event into a confidential conversation.

I’d suggest Option 2.

Thirty-nine pound fat cat Meow died this week, aged only two. Needless to say, that’s astonishingly large for a cat. (The news clip below says he was 37 pounds – most accounts put his weight at 39, although he had been on a veterinary-designed diet.)

A smart reader wrote and offered an idea for a poll topic — “Here’s my suggestion for a poll question for your blog: Do you think Whitewater teaches and embraces free thinking?” Well, here we are, with that very question.

Quick assumptions:

(1) This question was about our schools, principally, but you may think of it more broadly if you’d like.

(2) I don’t have an answer – I know how I think, but not what’s being taught all over, throughout the community. I do think that there will be much more independent thinking in the years ahead.

(3) I’d say that free-thinking — whether of the left or right — is a good thing for a community, but others are sure to disagree, believing instead that an enforced consensus is preferable.

(In any event, I will always contend that free-thinking is an individual right, trumping compulsory-thinking expectations.)

Here’s that poll: Have at it.

Good morning.

Today looks to be a fine day – mostly sunny with a high of seventy-six.

That makes this afternoon a perfect opportunity for Great Flowers and Gifts at the Floral Villa Cash Mob —

Janesville, in 1931, was still battling over Prohibition, as the Wisconsin Historical Society records:

1931 – Janesville Police Nab Prohibition Violator

On this date Clifford Conn of Crandon was apprehended by Janesville police officers with 90 gallons of moonshine in his car. This was the largest single seizure of illegal alcohol by local law enforcement to this date. For the offense, Crandon was fined $700 and sentenced to two months in jail. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Lots of elements to Google’s daily puzzle today: “What economics book, written by a clergyman, helped an English naturalist formulate a model of speciation that was controversial with creationists?”

Reason interviewed free-market farmer Joel Salatin in an article published on 5.5.12.

Two of Salatin’s observations stand out.

On deciding what to eat:

I think the government should allow this debate to flourish in the marketplace of ideas. The government entered this debate in the early 1970s by publishing the first food pyramid, a guide for what Americans should eat. The obesity and diabetes epidemic in this country are a direct result of that intrusion, sponsored and massaged along by the grain cartel and big ag, from chemical companies to equipment dealers. Grain requires more machinery, more energy, and more risk (hence justification for manipulation) than pasture based livestock, and especially forage-based herbivores.

On the worst food law in America today:

The prohibition on raw milk specifically and direct producer-eater food commerce generally. If I could do one thing and only one thing legislatively for the food system, it would be to create a Constitutional Amendment called the Food Choice Emancipation Proclamation which would guarantee every citizen the inalienable, fundamental right to consume any product of their choice and legalizing the direct unregulated commerce between consenting adults of said product.

Right now, farmers can give away raw milk and home made pickles; the prohibition is on sales. What is it about taking money for something that suddenly turns it from a wonderful charitable product into a hazardous substance?

On organic milk, I’d say America is heading, however fitfully, toward liberalization. On government’s role in cajoling or banning other food choices, I’d guess we’re heading in the opposite direction.

Via Reason.

Originally posted on 5.8.12 at Daily Adams.

Update, 5.10.12 @ 8:20 PM: See, along these lines, Whitewater’s city manager’s published acknowledgement in a newspaper interview (online at 1:03 PM today) of a possible position with Walworth County.

Original post of 5.10.12 @ 12:30 PM:

Change comes at varying speeds, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, still other times seemingly (but only seemingly) not at all.

We’ll hear much in the days ahead about changes in Whitewater’s municipal administration. There’s no surprise in this: In general, once people start looking for a new position, they keep going until they find something.

I’ve written recently about possible changes. See, Qui-Gon Jinn’s Sound Advice for Whitewater and Whitewater’s present, future.

I cannot say precisely when there will be a new Whitewater, but I am certain of New Whitewater’s Inevitability. We’ve made the occasional step backwards or sideways, but our direction is principally forward.

Still much work to go, but then the work of the community has always been the work of many thousands, each shaping a part of the city’s future.