The presumptions of a local government pol:
This ordinance has been an attempt to require the food trucks to put some skin in the game,” [Fort Atkinson city councilmember] Lescohier said. “That skin is through a fee structure, through an appropriate place for them to operate and to control the noise. Right now if you have a food truck, the deck is stacked in your favor to operate in Fort Atkinson. It is inexpensive and you have your pick of the location.”
‘Skin in the game,’ as though it were his place to decide what this commitment means. (This has become a common – but already tired – demand of some conservatives, among others. They want to collect additional fees from the poor, new businesses, etc., on the theory that this shows those businesses’ commitments. All it really does is enrich the state, at the expense of some businesses and of consumer choice.)
Now I’m a resident of Whitewater, not Fort Atkinson, so my concern is a secondary one: that ideas like these don’t damage our marketplace as it will theirs. That a politician is a voice for incumbents to the detriment of others in Fort Atkinson is not my concern; that Whitewater needn’t make this same mistake is my concern.
I’d suggest that there are arguments against these restrictions from economics, consumer choice, and economic liberty (as a legal argument).
Resting on a foundation of those arguments would be the opportunity for a press-focused campaign against these restrictions. (This is proof that a politician can have a background in politics and the press, but still an approach on this issue that’s pinched and small.)
It’s easy for a councilmember to pick on a few working people, and rely on a sycophantic local press, but he’d look different if one expanded the focus farther afield. Campaigns against food truck restrictions are often successful, and cause regulators to look foolish in the eyes of a more sophisticated, cosmopolitan audience.
But Fort Atkinson is not Whitewater, and my interest here is merely as an observer (with an eye to my own city’s policies, not another town’s bad choices). Their mistakes will only make Whitewater more competitive by contrast.
If this were happening in Whitewater, I would have different feelings.
Beyond all that, truly, there are other concerns in Whitewater that are both near at hand and of greater scope.