Good morning,

It’s a blue moon tonight. I have no idea if that rarity will produce rarities for Whitewater, Wisconsin. If one unusual event begets another, expect some of the following: a Whitewater city manager who sets aside false humility and résumé-building marquee projects, a Whitewater police chief who sets aside public relations for true community policing, a common council member who sets aside the rationalization of conflicts of interest, and a political class that doesn’t confuse looking good with being good.

I am quite sure that 2009 has been a horrible year for Whitewater, and America. If we are an exceptional town, then we’re an exceptional town of self-important politicians and town squires who have, yet again, put their own images ahead of better lives for their constituents and neighbors. We are a place of deep poverty, mostly ignored by those who would rather trumpet, well, anything except the truth.

And yet, I am convinced that these difficult times offer more for reform in Whitewater than ever before. Not, I’m quite sure, because any number of arrogant new men will see how wrong they’ve been. On the contrary, I very much expect them to lie, rationalize, hide, and self-promote even more in the new year. They won’t get better; they’ll get worse.

It is, instead, because the opportunity unfolds to exercise one’s rights under the law vigorously, and litigate at their denial, that I believe the new year offers so much promise. There’s a point when one simply exercises one’s rights, ignoring what others think. There has never been a better time for that approach.

It is sad and troubling that life in Whitewater is hard for so many, and that their pains are made worse by the arrogance of third-tier municipal officials and their deluded apologists. I have not lost a focus on this fundamental truth of our common condition; no other remarks matter half so much.

I will, though, offer these personal remarks for my readers: since Advent, and growing through the season, I don’t believe I have ever felt better. I am so very much convinced and confirmed in the exercise of individual liberty, the power of markets, and the opportunities from a smaller government and more vigorous civil (that is, private) society.

More than that: one should take the message of these principles and the exercise of individual rights to within an inch of a bureaucrat’s nose, so to speak.

In that there is hope, opportunity, and a bit of adventure (as a ‘happy warrior,’ in the way of Al Smith), too.

Good morning,

There’s a likelihood of a light snow today, with a high in the mid twenties. No meaningful accumulation is expected.

On this day in 1922, law enforcement in Madison had a busy day, as the Wisconsin Historical Society recalls:

1922 – Authorities Confiscate Illegal Alcohol

On this date authorities in Madison confiscated 1,200 gallons of “mash” and fifteen gallons of moonshine from the home of a suspected bootlegger. As the illegal liquor trade flourished in Madison’s Greenbush neighborhood during Prohibition, two rival gangs, one on Regent Street and the other located on Milton Street, fought to gain control until the “Rum War” erupted among these factions in 1923. [Source: Bishops to Bootleggers: A Biographical Guide to Resurrection Cemetery, p.189]

By early January, Wisconsin law requires citizens declare their candidacies for local office, as challengers, incumbents seeking re-election, or incumbents who will not seek re-election, having tormented their communities enough during their current terms.

In Whitewater, there will be some incumbents seeking another term, on our common council or school board.

It’s sure to be an interesting season, even if no challengers step forward. I’ll cover both races. I am curious how one of the candidates covers his own race, how he reports on city events during his candidacy, and how he may handle council matters, or those of commissions on which he serves, that involve his advertisers.

What, though, could be the campaign slogan of someone seeking re-election on our council? Sadly, “The Voice of the People” is already taken; incumbents will have a hard time finding something more presumptuous than that, although I am sure they’ll do their level best to find something.

You may have heard, as I have more than once, how important it is to have “adults in the room.” I am sure it is important, but only in the banal way that one considers it important that candidates have a pulse – necessary, but hardly exemplary.

One could not find a standard that’s greater proof of what’s wrong with Whitewater, Wisconsin’s politics (at least, not one to which one might readily admit). The standard of politicians as adults reveals how little we expect of politicians, and how much politicians think of themselves.

Someone who runs for office on the platform that he or she has good judgment might kindly answer the question: Could you please tell us what your good judgment entails? If there’s no ready answer, we can safely conclude that that judgment amounts to little more than a high opinion of himself or herself.

For what do they stand, other than their own re-election?

The year ends with interesting political and legal questions ahead for our small town in the year to come.

Good morning,

It’s a cold day in Whitewater, with a predicted high of only 19 degrees.

There’s no school (of course) and no municipal, public meetings for the City of Whitewater (thankfully).

If one reads one local story today, about our part of the world, I would suggest the Gazette’s Walworth County Search Warrants Could Disappear. There’s much more to post of the topic, but I’ll first point toward the story.

It’s also the anniversary, from 1879, of the birthday of William “Billy” Mitchell. The Wisconsin Historical Society marks the anniversary:

1879 – General William “Billy” Mitchell Born

On this date aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France. Mitchell grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College. During World War I, Mitchell was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines. He also led many air attacks in France and Germany. Upon return to the U.S., he advocated the creation of a separate Air Force. Much to the dislike of A.T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and other contemporaries, Mitchell asserted that the airplane had rendered the battleship obsolete, and attention should be shifted to developing military air power. Mitchell’s out-spokenness resulted in his being court martialed for insubordination. He was sentenced to five years suspension of rank without pay. General Douglas MacArthur — an old Milwaukee friend — was a judge in Mitchell’s case and voted against his court martial. Mitchell’s ideas for developing military air power were not implemented until long after his death. In 1946 Congress created a medal in his honor, the General “Billy” Mitchell Award. Milwaukee’s airport, General Mitchell International Airport, is named after him. [Source: American Airpower Biography]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA

Good morning,

It’s a day of freezing rain, with a high of about thirty-six forecast for today.

Offices in the City of Whitewater are closed today.

Today is the anniversary of the end of the War of 1812, under terms that made Wisconsin possible:

1814 – War of 1812 Ends

On this date the Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the the War of 1812 which was fought between the United States and Great Britain from June 1812 to the spring of 1815 (news of the treaty took several months to reach the frontiers of No. America). The treaty provided for the cessation of hostilities, the restoration of conquests, and a commission to settle boundary disputes. John Quincy Adams served as the chief negotiator for the United States. The treaty formalized U.S. possession of land which included present-day Wisconsin. [Source: The Avalon Project at Yale Law School]

No one hopes for peace more than libertarians do. Afghanistan has been a long war, stretching out over so many years, against a despicable enemy. One hopes for success, that America’s work will be done.

A story on a local marine officer who served in Afghanistan, and believes success is possible, is available online at

Marine says winning in Afghanistan is possible.

Good morning,

It’s a cloudy but relatively mild day for Whitewater, with predicted temperatures to be in the thirties.

It’s the last day of school before Christmas Break, and only a day until Santa visits Whitewater. I put good and open government on my Christmas list again this year, but I don’t know how Santa might get that down the Whitewater Municipal Building’s chimney (or if our municipal building and planning command center even has a chimney).

There are, to my knowledge, no public meetings scheduled for today.

I did read, though, that today is the anniversary of the day that Van Gogh supposedly cut off his ear, or at least a part of it. Even in 1888, I’d guess, holiday shopping was stressful.

Not long ago – only about two years ago, I wouldn’t wonder – Whitewater, Wisconsin was getting ready for a retail plaza and green grocer on the east side of town.

It’s been green (and brown) in the time since, as the area’s still just an empty lot.

We did build – as a transportation requirement – a lovely roundabout in front of the lot. Passing motorists can drive around, and around, the erstwhile site of proposed retail establishments.

Millions that might have gone to that project will go to an Innovation Center and Tech Park, not far away. Where only two years ago we heralded a future of retail, now the future is technology. One might wonder about the switch from one Next Big Thing to another, when they are so very different.

Whitewater’s small-town planners can’t make up their minds: rock star or brain surgeon?

Can they be blamed? A few million in grants here, a few million more in bonds there, and suddenly everyone’s on the cutting edge of fusion, jet cars, or if we’re really lucky, carbonated beverages that never lose their fizz.

I am not sure, though, how innovative the Innovation Center will prove to be. There’s little innovation in the same old local dodge of tax money and public debt, with the benefits of the project to show up … at an undetermined time in the future.

Candidly, no one should be awed by a project that sounds grand, but seems less consequential with each, successive description.

It’s predictable that when someone suggests that the costs might exceed the gains, he might be branded backward, dull, or uncooperative. Actually, I’d just like to know if it will be worth all the cost, effort, stress, and fuss.

I suppose the Titanic, Ford Pintos, and Space Shuttles were innovations. I’d simply suggest that the resulting sinking and explosions might have justified a different investment.

We can be sure that we’ll build an Innovation Center in Whitewater. All the rest is uncertainty cloaked as vision, inspiration, and a future-oriented outlook.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has filed suit under Wisconsin’s Public Records Law to compel release of faculty comments about a proposed conflict-of-interest policy for the faculty.

It’s both unfortunate and wrong that the faculty comments have not been released. On the other hand, at least a few people seem to be considering what might give rise to a conflict of interest.

Whitewater should be ready, at this rate, for a discussion of conflicts of interest within the next two or three decades.

We might consider a new slogan, too:

We’ve got a task force for that™

See, Paper files suit over UW records – JSOnline.

At ten this morning, I posted a video of a snowball fight from Washington, D.C. The video is about a confrontation between a D.C. police officer and a group of pedestrians, some of whom were throwing snowballs at cars.

The officer unholstered his gun, as photos, his own remarks, and eyewitness testimony amply confirmed. Not merely the video that I posted, but photos, are all over the Web.

It goes without saying that very few officers are this recklessly stupid. It should go without saying that such an officer’s department should not try to cover for him.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case in the District of Columbia: the D.C. Department tried to get the Washington Post to swallow and report the lie that the officer never unholstered his gun. Sadly, the Post printed that lie for a while, and only corrected it in subsequent editions.

(For information from a blog that shows how the Post allowed itself to be deceived about the snowball fight, see the December 21st posts at bsom, a blog “on politics, the media, Washington, and food.”)

If there are photos and videos all over the Web, why would a municipal department spin a lie so easily exposed, and why would a newspaper fall for it?

I don’t know, but a quick guess would be that old habits die hard.

I have often wondered what it would be like to film different, odd events in Whitewater, but one cannot always be in the right place at the right time.

In any event, I cannot imagine that a documentary, something along the lines of A Day in the Life of a Municipal Official, would be either easy to arrange or popular.

There’s an astonishing video from Washington, D.C. during the unusually large snowfall there last week. You may have seen this video already, but if you’ve not, it’s well worth watching. (Note: Language NSFW.)

In the video, a group of pedestrians who have been throwing snowballs at cars are confronted by an angry motorist, who is also a plain-clothes police officer. The officer draws his gun, and confronts the crowd of snowball throwers and bystanders.

First the video, then a few comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAgQKJuriIo&feature=player_embedded

1. The officer is a reckless fool to draw his gun in this situation. He risks only significant injury to himself or others. He has no control of the area, and tempts escalation through his own lack of control, or a confrontation by someone in the crowd. Here one sees the disproportionate – and truly stupid – use of power.

2. The crowd is wrong to curse at him or call him a pig, but they’re a non-violent group. (Thinking too much of snowball throwing as violence is what leads to this confrontation.) They’re generally clever, and mock his excessive threat of force: “Don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight!”

3. As with video cameras at tea party protests, the bystanders are quickly able to record official actions, and load the videos to dozens of websites. Now the officer looks like a reckless fool across the entire continent.

4. I am not posting on this video in reference to posting on complaints about snowball throwing by University of Wisconsin-Whitewater police. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest campus police behaved in the same way.

The story is interesting in, and of, itself. Neither snow in D.C., nor rambunctious pedestrians, nor a foolish D.C. cop are anything more than coincidences from a faraway place.

I don’t see the incidents as connected, and no one else could reasonably make that leap, either.

5. There’s no arguable element of race in this story. The officer is black, but the crowd is both white and black.

They had been, according to other accounts, throwing snowballs at Hummers. Too funny, really: left-of-center D.C. resorts to action against a gas-guzzler and carbon dioxide emitter with snowballs during one of the biggest snowfalls in area memory.

More on the story is available at

D.C. Cop Brings a Gun to a Snowball Fight!

Good morning,

It’s a snowy day, with little accumulation expected, and a high of twenty-nine degrees.

I don’t know of any municipal public meetings scheduled for the cIty of Whitewater this week. We approach Christmas quietly.

There’s an odd anniversary on this day, from 1956. The History Channel recalls that on this day in 1956,

First gorilla [was] born in captivity

On this day in 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo enters the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever gorilla born in captivity. Weighing in at approximately 4 pounds, Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought to the Columbus Zoo in 1951. Before Colo’s birth, gorillas found at zoos were caught in the wild, often by brutal means. In order to capture a gorilla when it was young and therefore still small enough to handle, hunters frequently had to kill the gorilla’s parents and other family members.

Gorillas are peaceful, intelligent animals, native to Africa, who live in small groups led by one adult male, known as a silverback. There are three subspecies of gorilla: western lowland, eastern lowland and mountain. The subspecies are similar and the majority of gorillas in captivity are western lowland. Gorillas are vegetarians whose only natural enemy is the humans who hunt them. On average, a gorilla lives to 35 years in the wild and 50 years in captivity.
At the time Colo was born, captive gorillas often never learned parenting skills from their own parents in the wild, so the Columbus Zoo built her a nursery and she was reared by zookeepers. In the years since Colo’s arrival, zookeepers have developed habitats that simulate a gorilla’s natural environment and many captive-born gorillas are now raised by their mothers. In situations where this doesn’t work, zoos have created surrogacy programs, in which the infants are briefly cared for by humans and then handed over to other gorillas to raise.

Colo, who generated enormous public interest and is still alive today, went on to become a mother, grandmother, and in 1996, a great-grandmother to Timu, the first surviving infant gorilla conceived by artificial insemination. Timu gave birth to her first baby in 2003.

Today, there are approximately 750 gorillas in captivity around the world and an estimated 100,000 lowland gorillas (and far fewer mountain gorillas) remaining in the wild. Most zoos are active in captive breeding programs and have agreed not to buy gorillas born in the wild. Since Colo’s birth, 30 gorillas have been born at the Columbus Zoo alone.

There’s a second part of Whitewater’s budget that deserves special mention – the purchase of additional insurance in the event of municipal sewer backups.

I wrote at length, months ago, of the unfortunate situation of a homeowner who experienced an expensive sewer backup while serving in Afghanistan.

There was a meeting of the Whitewater common council at which the topic was discussed at length, and the city agreed to pay, through a third party, for a portion of the damage.

I thought that the city should pay, in large part because insistence that the city’s insurer’s determination settled the question of liability was confusing and self-serving. Anyone can see as much: an insurance company has an interest in the determination of claims against its insured. To hold an insurer’s determination up as conclusive of liability is misleading and, candidly, laughable.

The continued insistence of the Whitewater City Manager, Kevin Brunner, on the point only caused the city embarrassment in the press.

What to make, then, of purchasing insurance from the same insurer that insisted the city has a fine program, and has never once paid on a homeowner’s sewer backup claim (to my knowledge)?

Whitewater’s city government has learned nothing from the recent sewer backup. Absolutely nothing – we are a city that cannot spot a conflict, will not acknowledge a bad decision or poor argument, and rewards those who have only caused the city embarrassment in the past.

I understand that there’s a question about whether the city should provide insurance, but it’s secondary to the question of whether the city administration understands that coverage does not determine liability.

There’s an expectation of deference to authority that underlies the city’s approach: we said so, our insurance carrier said so, and so you should accept our determination. If you don’t, it’s proof of how very wrong you must be, to reject our position. How dare you question us.

Well, why not? Why accept a poor or ill-considered municipal position? The city’s analysis on liability and municipal sewer backups has been flimsy and embarrassing. See, Anatomy of a Municipal Bureaucrat’s Explanation.

In many ways, Don’t You Know Who I Am? is worse in our small town than many large cities. There, a vigorous press would take a self-important politician to account.

Here, residents have set aside their American heritage for a third-rate servility found only in second-rate European countries.

At least in those small and arrogant European principalities, there’s a well-tanned leisure class aristocracy to provide beauty and occasional charm along with their inveterate arrogance.

Whitewater, Wisconsin cannot say the same.

A nearby newspaper has the details at

Whitewater council approves property tax levy below 2008′s.

We are a city of fourteen thousand, with a public school district, and a college campus, and so have grown used to the idea that almost everything costs a million dollars or more. People in the know say that these large sums are just the cost of doing business, as though government were really in the business of doing business.

We spend several million dollars to fund our small city each year. Millions for a city budget, millions for a water utility, millions more for a stormwater utility, and yet millions more to fund tax incremental districts within town.

At the request of our common council, our tax levy for the new budget is slightly less than the current one. One might think that a levy at the same level as this year, during a deep recession, would be imprudent.

Imprudence, though, is a relative term. Initially, our city manager proposed an increase in the levy, albeit less than the maximum the law allowed. I suppose this was his way of being frugal, by proposing and increase less than it might have been, but I don’t know with certainty.

He seemed surprised, to me, at the council session in which he learned that the council might prefer no increase in the levy at all.

I don’t know if our city manager has his ear to the ground (or even if that really works), but I do know it should be no surprise to favor a smaller levy during business closings and high unemployment.

The details of our 2010 budget are available through a story from a nearby newspaper:

Whitewater council approves property tax levy below 2008′s

One could have expected three contentions to come out of the budget process, and sure enough, they all did.

First, Whitewater faced a shortfall of a few hundred thousand in her budget, and I have heard the effort to close the gap described in near-heroic terms.

If a chef set fire to a kitchen, one would consider it noteworthy that he was able to douse the fire; it might not hurt to ask, afterward, how he set fire to the kitchen in the first place.

Second, it is true that the absolute amount of the levy was reduced, as the headline of the article to which I have linked declares.

Unfortunately, residents do not feel a levy, but rather a net tax rate.

It’s true that the tax levy is slightly less than last year, owing to the insistence of our common council that it not increase over the 2008 level.

It’s also true that the majority of city residents, living in the Walworth County portion of the city, will see an increase in their net tax rate:

“Brunner noted that the estimated net tax rate when combined with other taxing jurisdictions, including the Whitewater Unified School District, county taxes, technical college taxes, and state forestry taxes, will be $18.911 in 2009 (up from $17.72) for the Walworth County part of Whitewater….”

Astonishing, really, that even in difficult times, the combination of tax rates for most of Whitewater will increase.

There’s a third predictable contention, that one cannot imagine how one might cut still more:

“Brunner commented on the budget after the vote.

“We worked very hard to do this,” he said. “The council was very strong about not increasing the levy this year because of the tough economic times our citizens face. We cut over $300,000 in this budget to get the levy down below what it was last year. We have reduced some capital expenses, and we have frozen management salaries for a year and a number of other things, as well. I do not know how long we can do this, but this is the second year in a row that we have been able to hold the line.”

When one commits to capital project after capital project, after a while I’m sure it’s impossible to imagine less spending.

Municipal spending, as with all government spending, sets an ever-higher floor, but contemplates scarcely any ceiling.

If one cannot imagine reductions in a small town, then I cannot imagine where one might find them.

Pointing to a reduction in the levy, as a headline, ignores the increasing burden of taxation (and beyond it, regulation) in small-town America.

It’s not Los Angeles, surely, but then it doesn’t need to be.

Although bureaucrats may take pride – and pad their resumes – with large budgets and impressive-sounding projects, the gap between their ambitions and a small town’s burdens is the gap that truly matters.

Good morning, and welcome to Whitewater.

Today begins the first day of winter, shortly before noon. The forecast calls for a high of twenty-eight, with cloudy skies.

Whitewater, a small town equidistant between Madison and Milwaukee, is in the news for its extraordinary college football team, national division three champions for the second time in three years.

Footage of the celebration, after the team’s return from the game, is available online:

Fans Celebrate UW-Whitewater’s Div. III Championship

FREE WHITEWATER is a blog about the politics and political culture of Whitewater, Wisconsin. As such, I seldom write about sports. There are times when one would prefer to write about sports, and the accomplishment of the truly extraordinary and exceptional, wholly free from politics.

Whitewater’s fine accomplishment is just such a time, free from political characterization, an accomplishment worthy of praise for the season-long efforts of players, coaches, and supportive families and fans to capture another national title. This exciting and victorious game, against an experienced and tenacious opponent, is worthy of admiration and congratulations.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the police department has recorded and uploaded to YouTube their rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

I think is very funny and clever, light-hearted and creative. I have been a critic of police leadership in Whitewater, Wisconsin, but I have never doubted the necessary and demanding role that officers play in a community. On the contrary, I think our force is ill-served, and deserves better leadership.

It’s a good sign, I think, that the officers in Kenosha can get together, and record their version of a Christmas staple.

Well done and humorous. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_risJzuR2E

Good morning,

The forecast for Whitewater today is for patchy fog, with a high of thirty-three. There’s a slight chance of snow tonight, of little or no accumulation.

In each of the schools in our district this morning, at 8:30 AM, there will be ‘coffee with the principal’ sessions. Visitors can stop in for discussion with each school’s principal. There’s a Santa’s Workshop at Washington school today, and it’s spirit day at the Middle School.

In Wisconsin history today, nearby Lake Geneva missed an astonishing opportunity in 1950, as the Wisconsin Historical Society reports:

1950 – Lake Geneva Vies for Air Force Academy

On this date the city of Lake Geneva put forth efforts to be the future site for the U.S. Air Force Academy. A federal selection committee arrived to inspect the 100-room Stone Manor on Geneva Lake’s south shore and considered it as a possible headquarters building. The Air Force’s college for officers was eventually located in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1958. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Two hundred-thirty six years ago, a group of patriots dumped tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against British taxation, and really, British rule, generally.

America was born as an independent nation, spread across a continent, and built the most prosperous society in the world in the years since.

While we have grown in so many admirable ways in the intervening generations, we have abandoned – or been asked to abandon – much of the independent and forthright character that made us a free and great republic.

Even in a small town, like Whitewater, Wisconsin, there is an expectation that officials will be treated with a certain deference. What they call politeness is more like a servile deference, a fawning and compliant attitude.

When one person feels this way, he collects and selects others who think as he does.

Some months ago, I wrote about the unfortunate situation in which a homeowner’s property was flooded by a sewer backup while he was serving abroad.

Unfortunate, but more than that – odd, too. Odd that citizens were asked to assume that a decision the insurance carrier for the city made to deny coverage was – by simple consequence – proof that the city was not liable.

That’s odd, because almost anyone knows that there may be a difference between damage an insurance carrier will cover and what the law may determine about an insured’s liability.

Yet, when an official comes to believe that what he says must receive assent because he has said it, then justification and reasoning are secondary to mere declaration.

One often hears that small towns encourage greater humility, but I simply cannot tell.

I am quite sure that websites, blogs, email, digital cameras, hand-held video cameras, and phones that can take pictures and record video make it easier to spread a message that’s free of official influence.

This year, current-day tea party protesters have taken advantage of all these media to spread a message that politicians, bureaucrats, and their status-quo defenders cannot easily obstruct or edit.

Now, I know very well that some progressives dislike the tea party movement, but those on the left should support the means if not the ends. The clever use of video and websites to promote a message is one from which the left can learn, and one which they will surely emulate.

(I am not on the left, but instead am a libertarian. Still, I find it foolish for progressives, or true conservatives, for that matter, to object to media that help advance individual rights.)

Most interesting to me is the use of video recordings of ordinary citizens asking questions at a public meeting. It takes scarcely any time to upload video of a pompous official to YouTube for an entire community to see.

(Predictably, so-called public servants often ban cameras from town halls. Tea Party activists have learned to take in a few cameras in different parts of a room, so that one camera can record the confiscation – sometimes aggressively – of a second camera.)

A politician who grew to maturity in an era of Time, Newsweek, the CBS Evening News and one compliant local newspaper might find this new era chaotic and somehow wrong.

If every meeting in Whitewater were recorded – with audio or video – what would public meetings in our small town be like? We’d have no possibility of leaving something out of the meeting’s minutes, no matter how unintentional those omissions might be.

A video camera could supplement, and improve, the written record. A camera properly placed, costing not much, really, would be an advance over minutes alone.

There are many fine cameras with excellent features that consumers purchase and use satisfactorily each day.

But how willing would groups be to have a video record of every public meeting? (Here I emphasize that my question concerns only public meetings. No official should feel concern about the recording of a meeting that is, in any event, open to the public.)

One of the best ways to assure public awareness of political developments would be video recording of all public meetings, even with a simple camera on a tripod.

Not merely those that are recorded now, but those that are not – the meetings of the Police and Fire Commission, the Community Development Authority (each committee and subgroup, each and every time), etc.

(Our public access channel does a very fine job – the only truly fine job anyone does – of covering the meetings. We would be far less knowledgeable without a complete video record of Council, Planning, and school board meetings, among others.)

You can be assured that the same people who insist that one should never say a contrary word will suddenly have myriad objections and serious concerns about expanded recording.

Oh my – in those objections, one could not be more hypocritical and self-interested, even if one tried.

Good morning,

It’s a forecast of mostly sunny skies but cold weather, with a high of fifteen degrees for Whitewater today.

This afternoon, our school district will hold a public meeting from 4 to 6 PM. Here’s the text of the invitation to the meeting, available online:

December 10, 2009

Dear Members of the Whitewater Community:

As the Whitewater Unified School District continues exploring building a 21st Century Learning Community, we are ready to begin looking more closely at the variety of options that are available to us.

Our next community listening session will be designed around a panel of experts we have assembled to share their particular backgrounds and experiences. These areas of expertise include but are not limited to funding options, curriculum foci in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), charter schools, entrepreneurship, world languages and post secondary educational opportunities.

We are very interested in having you attend our next session on Wednesday, December 16 from 4:00-6:00 at the University of Wisconsin University Center (UC) upstairs ballroom.

You will have the opportunity to listen, ask questions and help us determine our next steps. We look forward to having you continue this process with us.

Sincerely,

Suzanne M. Zentner, Ph.D. Mary Whitrock
District Administrator Curriculum/Staff Development Coordinator

In American history on this date, today is the anniversary, on December 16, 1773, of the Boston Tea Party.