FREE WHITEWATER

Monthly Archives: January 2008

City

Expand Our Library

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We have a beautiful public library, and it serves our community well. It is one of the unalloyed good things of Whitewater.

The Irvin L. Young Memorial library offers all the community what knowledge offers: enrichment, adventure, and opportunity. As a young man, I would often walk to the library in the evening, and there a world awaited.

We who are comfortable are made more so in a library — there’s always something new to find or discover.

We have any number of people — seldom discussed, but our neighbors nonetheless — who are in poverty or otherwise challenged. They are neither poor nor challenged in a library: they are there what we are in the library. This is as it should be, and through a library, might always be.

There is a committee working to expand our library so that it might be more helpful and of greater use. I wish them the very best in their effort; their work is the good work of our community.

City, Police

Police & Fire Commission: Reasonable Procedures Update

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Readers may recall that I posted a series in December on the Whitewater Police and Fire Commission. I set out reasonable suggestions for a sound police policy based in part on a U.S. Justice Department white paper, entitled, “Principles for Promoting Police Integrity”

Below I have reproduced a table that lists reasonable suggestions, and progress made toward better – and normal — practices since my original posts.

No meeting since my series to see if content is now effectively more than merely a shallow, unquestioning, official-led session.
Meeting Notice: Generous notice for meetings No progress – last announcement of meeting had no more than the minimum statutory two days’ notice. Many committees in Whitewater have meeting notice over weeks ahead based on a regular schedule
Meeting Content
Thorough Minutes: Useful, detailed notice of minutes No meeting since my series to see if minutes are now more than merely regurgitated agendas.
Citizen Complaints Process: Complaints Form No change – no available, online complaint form
Citizen Complaints Process: Designated, identified person to handle
complaints 		No change – no single, publicly-designated official
Citizen Complaints Process:
Spanish Language Translation Copies 		No change – no translation tools online.

Some additional remarks –

On the idea of refusing to respond to anonymous or pseudonymous criticism:

There may be some who can credibly and consistently contend that anonymous or pseudonymous criticism does not merit a response – but police leaders would not be among them.

The leadership of the Whitewater Police Department would almost surely respond to an anonymous tip, when they thought it in the community interest. Anonymous tip lines exist almost everywhere – would they not take a tip like that? If someone reported anonymously on a potential crime, would the leadership of our force ignore it? (Here I mean, of course, ignore it on principle, not by error, accident, etc.)

The idea of refusing to respond to anonymity or pseudonymity is not a credible refusal on principle – it’s a refusal based on self-interest.

Let’s be clear though — there is always a response: to change, to stay the same, or to act indirectly. Everyone knows this, and from the first instances of political criticism in America – or anywhere else – these three responses have always been available, and at least one has always been taken.

Whitewater is no exception. Quite the contrary – it’s likely a case type of the third response.

On the idea of using social pressure to silence criticism:

Consider something else that I wrote in December:

There are, however, two groups who argue against truly free speech, for different reasons. The first group comprises those in this town who like the position that they have, and feel that they’re entitled to special consideration. There’s a belief some people have here, that position justifies, excuses, and entitles. They think and act situationally — if they are so-and-so, then they should be trusted, and they are entitled. I reject this view. They are justified, excused, and entitled only through law and morality, not based on an appeal to their status. When the town faction acts, they act first and foremost based on status — they ask and expect trust based on who they are, or what they claim to be.

Their status is unimpressive to me. It should be unimpressive to any resident and citizen: they are just people, neither more nor less. I can be neither smooth-talked nor cajoled into support for what I oppose. I could never be co-opted onto a board, commission, etc. I lack for nothing that those I criticize could give me; the tradition of which I am a grateful inheritor gives me more than they could take. They ask that speech be curbed, but they would never curb their actions in return. In any event, my speech — and yours — is a right, yet their actions are often in disregard of others’ rights. We could never have a fair trade: some would sacrifice what liberty allows in exchange for others’ ceasing a disregard of their fellow residents’ rights. That’s the worst possible bargain.

They stand on local status as entitlement, and that’s why the exercise of speech rights is so disturbing to them. One would think that Whitewater were a small, corrupt island in the middle of nowhere, for all the difference it makes to those who oppose mere speech on the basis of their inflated sense of local self-importance. They don’t have a meritorious position; they have a mistaken view of themselves and of the rights of others in our city.

I meant what I said then, but a few critics perhaps aren’t so sure, so it’s worth repeating. more >>

Development, Free Markets

Planning: Legislating Aesthetics

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One of the challenges of government planning is how quickly it slips from mere rules to compete, to seeking to engineer a quantitative outcome, to seeking to engineer intangible preferences of aesthetics. So one goes from paperwork to start a business, to the number of business types a community may have, to what colors the storefronts of those businesses can be. That’s where comprehensive planning leads — to any number of concerns about wholly subjective matters like color preferences or supposed ideas about which modes of life have ‘higher quality.’

It’s natural that a person, in his own home, might prefer one color of tapestry over another. It’s an audacious stretch, though, for a public body or city to legislate in favor of some preferences, and not others, in color of a sign, etc.

I can well understand that those who are on a planning board are interested in these matters in their own lives; I’ll stipulate that they’re all likely to be very tasteful in their private choices, too. What I don’t believe is that their public role should include limiting your private choices.

If you want a sign of a certain color on your business, so be it. If you choose well, the community will find your establishment more attractive and enticing; if you choose poorly, customers will shun you. You should be free to make your own choice, and I do not believe that a public body should constrain you.

A group of planners will never know or follow aesthetic trends so well as all the community. Rejecting choices, or requiring a great explanation for them, will slow development and use of new styles, color combinations, etc.

That other communities also restrict choices does not mean that we should also — it need not be that way.

We would do well, I think, if we trouble ourselves less about these matters, and if we discourage others from being so occupied and intrusive about them also.

Libertarians, Uncategorized

Blogging: Once and Future American Tradition

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Many years ago, Bernard Bailyn wrote a masterwork on the intellectual atmosphere of pre-revolutionary America entitled, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. That book was the winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes. In that work, and in other studies since, Bailyn shows the power and use of pamphlets — often anonymous or pseudonymous — in shaping opinion in favor of independence. Pamphlets played other roles, too: many were small collections of poetry or religious tracts.

I am quite sure that the objects of criticism in these pamphlets dislike them intensely. So be it; they were part of the tradition of free speech on this continent that continues to this day.

It continues to this day in many forms, including blogs like FREE WHITEWATER. On the main page of my blog, I have listed a very fine, pseudonymous blog, the Foothill Cities Blog, that comments on life in towns in California. Another is daTruthSquad, from New Jersey. (Bloggers often find names for their blogs that seem odd and unusual to non-bloggers, but are very much a part of blogger culture.)

In Wisconsin, there are over one hundred — 100 — local political blogs. Many cities in Wisconsin have one such local, independent blog, and some have a few. They are in Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Fond du Lac, Whitewater — these blogs are springing up all over the place. (I am not referring to the pale imitations of blogs that are affiliated with local newspapers; I am referring to independent commentary, much like that of early American pamphleteers.)

Naturally, local officials despise these blogs, and consider them an affront. How dare someone write these things? Often they try (unsuccessfully, of course) to suppress the independent commentary, or bemoan its pseudonymous nature, or smear those who write these blogs.

America has returned to her pamphleteering tradition, in a new, electronic form. This form will not go away — it will surely evolve, and grow more robust.

I am sure that this makes life less convenient for public officials who formerly relied on a few complaint local newspapers and their small circle of stodgy, uncreative, reactionary supporters. Those few want their old, easy world back again.

It’s not coming back.

One last point: the only line of advance is forward, by embracing the full and rich constitutional tradition of our beautiful country. I am a small publisher of, from, and for America and what it offers. I am just a common person, but many great people have committed themselves to free commentary undeterred by criticism, personal attacks, etc., etc. Great libertarian heroes, for example, Paine and Mencken, were attacked in all manner of ways. (I am religious where Paine was lukewarm, and Mencken cold, but they are no less admirable as models of free expression.) They believed in what they were doing, kept doing it, and didn’t care what critics thought.

They grew more vigorous over time, not less so. Those who do this sort of thing enjoy it, and prefer the heat of the kitchen. Publishing like this is a romance with both the American and American libertarian ways of life.

Anyone can embrace this way of life, and in doing so, become confirmed in the effort, and better for it. Through blogging, one becomes more American, by drawing closer to the heritage of free expression — attributed, pseudonymous, or anonymous, that America guarantees to all.

Some may dislike these rights, but those who oppose them truly oppose the heritage of the country they profess to love.

City, Police

No Enforced Settlement in the Lawsuit Against Larry Meyer

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On January 22nd, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan, in a thorough, thirteen-page decision and order, denied federal defendant, and former Whitewater investigator, Larry Meyer’s motion to enforce settlement in this the lawsuit against him.

The order including setting a scheduling conference between the parties for February 8th, at 10:00 a.m., to “discuss with the parties the further processing of this case to final resolution.”

City, Development, Free Markets

Planning: On a Moratorium

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I am opposed to a moratorium on first floor residential housing in our downtown, and that would include a moratorium of any length. I think it’s clear, though, if one considers the arguments in favor of a moratorium, that different advocates have had different goals in mind. Some want a moratorium to give time to decide what policy to advocate for the downtown. This is something like ‘planning to decide,’ if not ‘planning to compete.’

I don’t think that an open market for all this space, for any legal use, is what many here have in mind. It’s what I have in mind.

A second group favored, and I think some might still favor, a longer moratorium not to draft a plan, but to engineer a result. They want some businesses in, some businesses excluded from competition, to produce the sort of downtown they think would be better for the community.

At the Planning Commission meeting in early January, I think that it’s clear that many advocates of a moratorium wanted the moratorium to engineer a result. That’s one of the reasons that advocates of a moratorium in that meeting wanted a long moratorium. If engineering an outcome, and excluding some uses and attracting others, is what advocates of a moratorium want, it will take a long time. If that sort of managed, determined goal is what advocates want, it will take years. It makes sense, based on their goal, for them to ask for a multi-year moratorium.

In fact, I think it will take them longer than two years — it will prove to be a never-ending processes of seeking, finding, losing, and seeking again the mix that they want. A single recession will make the two year moratorium seem far too short for those who want a given outcome, and they will need more time to compensate for unforeseen circumstances. They’ll have a current level of vacancies to fill, new or unexpected vacancies, and the goal to find only their preferred businesses, and not others, under those circumstances.

That’s not two years — that’s ongoing. Two years might as easily be twenty.

Current vacancies, and the difficulty filling them, suggests that engineering a result in the downtown will be harder, not easier.

The second group advocates a moratorium only to propose guidelines. (I think that these guidelines will likely turn out to be a long moratorium, by the way.) Still, it’s a different stated justification for a moratorium.

I would neither ban some uses, nor prevent a private group from trying to attract others. What I oppose is a private group seeking public prohibition to make its recruiting efforts easier. The private group speaks for many, but not all; I would not favor them through a modified ordinance, public moratorium, etc. They can recruit as they do now, and I would not alter the existing conditional use policy by imposing a categorical moratorium.

Their preferred, favored businesses may not be arriving as they’d like, but I would not alter the ordinances of this city to make their preferences easier by excluding other commercial uses through a moratorium.

City, Development, Free Markets

Planning: Walkable Urbanity

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Here’s a post on ‘walkable urbanity,’ or ‘walkable urbanism,’ Christopher Leinberger’s term for those characteristics that set successful downtowns apart from unsuccessful ones, or from suburbs, etc. During the Planning Commission meeting in November, when I heard the term raised, I was surprised that it was used in connection with Whitewater. I briefly mentioned the concept briefly when I wrote that

By the way, when Brodnicki mentions the term ‘walkable urbanity,’ she’s referring to a term that urban planner Christopher Leinberger coined in “Turning Around Downtown: Twelve Steps to Revitalization.” His paper’s available from Brookings.

What neither Brodnicki nor Bowen demonstrated is how the proposed project [specific first floor residential housing] would prevent or appreciably inhibit walkable urbanity. If they want to contend persuasively that walkable urbanity is threatened, they owe it to others to show how that would measurably happen in this case. Otherwise, all they offer is unquantifiable, measureless speculation, wrapped in a clever term. That’s not what Leinberger had in mind.

I left aside the question of whether the walkable urbanism that Leinberger mentions in his 2005 paper, and elsewhere since, is really for a place of our size and scope. I think that the answer is ‘no,’ and that its application to our circumstances conflates the needs of a metropolitan downtown with those of a small rural town.

I will make three quick points.

Leinberger on Walkable Urbanity. Leinberger’s famous for use of the term as part of a downtown revitalization plans. His 2005 paper, “Turning Around Downtown: Twelve Steps to Revitalization” is well-known and regarded. Considering his paper, and use of the term, I think it’s clear that he has large cities — nothing like ours — in mind. I thought that then, but I didn’t explain the point. (Since then, someone wrote and chided me that my criticism in the area of development needed a fuller explanation. I agree.)

The term itself implies a large urban area — it is, after all, walkable urbanity. Far more significant, all of the examples that Leinberger cites in his paper are large municipalities. He cites just over a dozen cities, and they are all far larger than we are: Manhattan, Albuquerque, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, Baltimore, Portland, Chattanooga, Denver, San Diego, Santa Fe. Phoenix , and Kansas City. From this list, even the closest city in size to us is over five times our size (Santa Fe), and most are between ten and one-hundred times as large as Whitewater. The smallest of these cities (Santa Fe) has a population of seventy-two thousand, the largest (Manhattan) over 1.5 million.

There are no examples anywhere of small towns, anything like ours.

Although Leinberger contends that his suggested principles might work anywhere, he cites no town like ours. He does, candidly, offer many criteria that cut against application of walkable urbanity to an area (and this could easily include an area so small as ours):

While any approach must be customized based on unique physical conditions, institutional assets, consumer demand, history and civic intent, the paper lays out the fundamentals of a downtown turnaround plan…

That’s a lot of qualification, and the absence of any town of our size in the paper is telling.

Size and Scale for our Downtown. I thought in November that if some felt that a first floor apartment here or there was too much, she should show why — why would one or two, etc. be too much to bear? But I would have been skeptical even if Leinberger’s paper did not so evidently apply to another size and scope.

However one wants to describe the distances for walkable urbanism — fifteen hundred, twelve hundred, one thousand feet, etc. — are simply, I think, ill-suited and too doctrinaire for our small town. The concept seems more like an ideological view that ignores the small size and challenges that our entire city faces. Ou entire downtown is smaller than even a section of the downtowns that Leinberger discusses.

Inhibitions, lack of attractions, etc. on how far a downtown person might walk apply far less when the entire downtown requires transit in a fraction of the time that an urban downtown would require. People will simply not find scale and size as daunting here as they would in the thirteen cities that Leinberger cites.

The principles of walkable urbanity, like ideas about pedestrian malls or sports arenas (also ideas that Leinberger considers elsewhere), are not concerns of our own small town.

Whitewater is smaller, and our obstacles different from those of the Leinberger’s large cities.

Jacobs. Finally, a few remarks about Jane Jacobs, from whom I think that Leinberger has occasionally, and subtly, borrowed. She, too, discusses the same effect of going from one attractive point to another, without a dogmatic estimate of distance. The second chapter of her Death and Life of Great American Cities, entitled, “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety” is alone better than anything one will find from Leinberger.

Jacobs, unlike Leinberger, is candid about the limits of her work; she makes plain that she’s talking about cities, not towns. She notes that

This task [sidewalk safety through diverse kinds of tenant] is totally unlike any service that sidewalks and streets in little;e towns or true suburbs are called upon to do. Great cities are not like towns, only larger. They are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways…

Jacobs didn’t get everything right — she harshly criticized an Adam Smith she understood only imperfectly — but she did well-understand spontaneity. The idea of a spontaneous order, over municipal planning, pours soothingly from her pages. It’s why libertarians generally find her work supportive. Something else pours forth, too: an honest assessment that some ideas apply to cities, and not small towns. Leinberger would have done well to be so clear.

Our city is too small to have a downtown that should be subject to standards suitable — if they are at all — to far larger places. There’s an (unwelcome, I think) orthodoxy, a rigidity, in application of Leinberger’s ideas to our place of far smaller size and scope.

City, Free Markets

Planning: Overview

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I promised a few posts about planning, and here is the first of them. The basic objections to planning are well-known. The power of these objections does not lie in a general recitation; it is in specific application, showing how planning falls short of alternative, market solutions, that these objections are most interesting.

Here are a few introductory points.

Government Planning. Planning in this context refers to government planning. It’s indisputable that people can, and should, plan certain affairs. Objections to planning are not objections to mere human action and design — they are objections to human action through design where a market could operate. Neither private list-making, nor calendar-scheduling, constitutes planning, in any event. Planning in this context refers to human action and design of politicians, officials, and bureaucrats.

(By the way, when I discuss planning, and planners, I am not referring to a single person or position. It’s a role and disposition — held by more than one in and out of government — that I’m describing. My remarks are not specific to City Planner Ryan Garcia, or any consultant that the city may have once used, or may use to supplement Garcia’s work on certain projects.)

Planning to Compete. It’s also true that some level of planning is necessary to adopt basic laws of contract, or other laws that describe the rules of the game. That’s not what’s at state in the objections to planning. That’s merely planning to compete; it’s planing to produce an outcome that’s the disputed matter. Planners seeking a result are by nature utopian: they contend that they’ll create a better world by design. Those advocating a spontaneous order have no fixed result in mind — we’ll not seek to engineer a result, as we believe it can be done neither well nor fairly.

That’s why — when someone contends that a planning group is the arbiter (not mediator, but arbiter) of the community’s values — that libertarians find that bold statement undesirable and more than a bit arrogant.

Planning Characteristics. Government planning has a few simple characteristics: it is human action, by design, involving regulation of property that politicians or bureaucrats themselves did not earn, and property about which they are less familiar — by sheer circumstance, proximity, and often skill of acquisition — than those who did earn it. The public nature of government planning will attract a greater notice, and by consequence a greater potential for special interests and special pleaders, than private activity. The planner will be convinced — if acting sincerely — that he can decide about the property’s use better through design than through the operation of a market.

It is on this point last point — about the better use through planning than through a market — that the dispute against planning lies. Objections to planning, and in favor of a spontaneous order — have two main, connected components: planning is less efficient (its many conceits notwithstanding), and planning reduces the scope of individual freedom.

Markets. A market, by the way, may be described variously as simply a market, an emergent phenomenon, or a spontaneous order. These fancy terms do not mean the same thing, always (and are used variously by different people). No matter: the market forces that I am describing really mean forces that are the result of human action, but not design. An engineer designed your car, but our language did not involve by design. We speak the language, and use it intelligibly among ourselves, without a designer. We do not have a Department of New Words, yet new words enter our common language every day.

Limits and Comparative Advantages. Markets will not develop where there is only one actor, or where the is no desire for common activity. One ties one’s shoes alone, by individual skill and action — that’s not a market matter. (The division of labor’s not that specialized.) Nor do I even remotely believe that markets are perfect, or will work only in circumstances or perfect information, or work perfectly in each and every case. It’s only necessary that they work better, when conditions are suitable, than government planning.

We are convinced that no number of people, however well-intentioned, intelligent, and educated will be able to design so well and so efficiently as a spontaneous order without design. That’s why we contend that its merely a conceit — well-intentioned in America, detestable in extreme forms abroad — that the planner can manage so well as a market.

In subsequent posts, I’ll look at planning for our downtown, walkable urbanity, a moratorium on downtown residential first-floor housing, how community and business special interests influence public decisions, tax incremental financing, and the risks of a planning culture.

Holiday

Martin Luther King Day

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Today is a different, but characteristically American, holiday. It’s secular, not religious, but like so many great American occasions, it honors someone serious, intelligent, and religious. The day is not to everyone’s liking, but there I am convinced the fault lies in those who dislike it.

One often hears small bits of King’s renowned speech before the Lincoln Memorial, but every word is beautiful, true. The full text appears below.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

City

Common Council Meeting for January 15th

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This was one of the better, and worse, Council meetings that Whitewater’s recently had. (Dickens famously used the ‘best of times, worst of times’ contrast, and it’s been over-used since. As one more example of its overuse is only an infinitesimally small addition to the total supply of over-use, I’m a low-polluter, and almost … green.)

I’ll will offer a few comments, leaving aside some topics that may make their way into a series on planning beginning next week.

UWW Football Recognition. A fine, well-deserved recognition for a national champion.

City Funds for Art. Here the topic was additional public money for the archway near the Cravath lakefront. It’s possible to support art without use of public funds. By my count, only one member of the Council voted against the proposal, but one’s a start. So far has the public intruded on the private that an art project that needs more money can reasonably expect public assistance.

It is, after all, more public money, I think. There was public money before, and there’s more more now, after the Council’s vote. A project has less incentive to (1) budget well, and (2) adhere to the budget, and (3) test community support among private donors if its organizers can be sure of public funds, to cover shortfalls. It’s often easier to persuade one political body to use public funds than to commit to the harder work of testing community support through private donations.

Lake Planning Grant. I have not covered previously the deliberations regarding a grant to assess the condition and restoration of the city’s lakes, but the least one can say is that a grant should not presuppose that the entire city become a taxable, lake-supporting district. The most that one can guess is that at least a few backers of the grant have already decided that is what should happen, before any study is completed, and even before the application for the grant for the study.

Moratorium on First Floor Apartments in the Downtown District. I’ll discuss this as part of an upcoming planning series.

Planners Beware. I wrote last week that I do not consider politician-dentist Dr. Roy Nosek’s views “representative of planning, generally.” I affixed ‘generally’ only to give planners a shot in the ribs. It was a little joke at the expense of those who favor government intervention over private activity: be careful, planners, or someone will associate Dr. Nosek with your position.

That’s one albatross that would weigh heavy on any neck.

University Buildings, Parking Spaces, and Green Living. Here’s an example of the absence of planning. Dr. Nosek argued for a reduction of allowed parking spaces for university buildings that were ‘green.’

Consider two positions that one could take: (1) those in a ‘green’ building would rely less on cars, so would not need as many parking spaces or (2) the reduction would only shift existing cars unable to park at the building onto adjacent streets. Dr. Nosek took the first position, Craig Stauffer the second.

Stauffer’s position was the more realistic, and I found Dr. Nosek’s search for reasons to restrict parking unpersuasive. Nosek is now the champion of a ‘green’ position, and perhaps he always has been (although I did not notice that commitment in him until it involved a reduction in parking spaces for university students).

Nosek also mentioned that it was the university that was responsible for our traffic problem. He’s right that we do have a traffic problem; he just doesn’t understand what it is. It’s not that we have too much, it’s that we have too little. Nosek betrays no feel for the market — none. He has patients, but he does not understand customers.

Socialists in the Dairyland, Part 2. Here’s what I wrote on November 20th about Dr. Nosek’s request — tabled at that time — for the city to acquire the Dairy Supply Building:

Every time you don’t like a commercial development, does it make sense to ask the city’s taxpayers to purchase the property, to prevent the development from happening? No, because it shows that (1) you’re ignorant of economics, and (2) worse, your ignorance will wreck our economy. There’s considerable imbecility in an approach that favors municipal purchases of anything a cranky politician dislikes simply because he dislikes it. (Note to UWW students: Relax. The Thirteenth Amendment will keep you safe from an approach based on purchasing whatever a local politician dislikes.)

The proposal was back again last night, from Dr. Nosek.

Dr. Nosek invariably contends that his ideas and proposals represent the voice of the community at large, or that action is necessary for the sake of the people, etc. I had this to say on September 4th about Nosek’s conviction that he’s a tribune of community sentiment, for another of his proposals: “Too funny. Here’s someone who seems oblivious to the concept of selection or situation bias. It’s predictable that everyone says that to him. Selected acquaintances often either agree with one’s views on a subject, or know enough to pretend that they do.”

This is the same Roy Nosek who won his current seat, representing a single district, by a mere 2 — that’s two, one more than one — votes. I am convinced almost any opponent could defeat Nosek in a citywide contest.

(Quick aside: A while ago, over a year before I started publishing FREE WHITEWATER, some people asked me to run for local office. It was kind of them to ask, but I had no interest in doing so. They asked because they thought that I would make a good opponent as a campaigner, and in debate, against a candidate in a citywide race. I enjoy public speaking and debate, and stay calm and relaxed in those situations. The candidate was not Dr. Nosek, but anyone running against Dr. Nosek would have any number of interesting opportunities.)

One of the owners of ME & My Pets, Eric Lange, correctly noted that the expansion of his store surely indicates more support for his business, at its curent location, than Dr. Nosek’s imagined support for city acquisition of the building.

By the way, when Dr. Nosek contended — by way of clarification — that he did not want the city to purchase the building, but rather that he wanted the city to begin action to ‘acquire it,’ he was neither serious nor clear in what he wanted.

When a citizen speaks, at the podium, is it really too much for Dr. Roy Nosek — politician, dentist, champion of community aesthetics — to bear? For him, perhaps it is. He speaks, but he bristles, squirms, and asks for a time limit at speech in opposition.

Dr. Nosek should think more carefully about his proposed aesthetic standards. What if I offered a petition, online, to request that the city initiate proceedings to acquire a certain drab office building on Main Street, near Sentry? I would do so for purely aesthetic reasons, of course. It’s a squat, dull ranch home that serves as the business office of a local politician-dentist.

Main Street is a prominent location, and surely deserves a more appealing presentation in so noticeable a location. Perhaps the city could ‘acquire’ it, and then tear it down, to make all Whitewater look nicer. We could use a dog park in town; everyone loves to see cute puppies frolicking about, and the change would give Whitewater a soft, welcoming image.

I wouldn’t truly advocate the acquisition, of course. Dr. Nosek’s not so reticent, though, about his plans to displace others, in support of his sense of development and aesthetics.

I am sure that at least a few would find his sense of both development and community aesthetics lacking.

City, Development, Economy, Free Markets

The Planning/Architectural Board Meeting for January 7th

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This was a long meeting, with two principal topics: a request for a conditional use for a property downtown, and discussion of a moratorium on approval of first floor residential space in our downtown.

The second topic was more interesting, being broader and more general, than the first. I’ll come back to that meeting as part of a series on planning.

I have spent more time on police leadership, probably, than any other topic. It is the last concern any reasonable person wants to address. I can think of no greater risk to a community than poor police leadership, inequitable enforcement, and failure to administer justice. Few communities are beset with these problems, but when they are present, they’re especially destructive.

Fortunately, most people don’t feel the effects of bad police leadership; the violation of rights and propriety usually falls only on a few. Most others feel no consequence, or prefer to rationalize the consequences visited on others. Bad police leadership is like a rare, deadly disease: it affects directly only a few people, but severely. An ill-led force distorts the administration of justice itself, and puts some — including officers — at risk of reckless personal injury, too.

Ultimately, the injury to a few disgraces and injuries all the community.

One could not — in good conscience, or under any circumstances — ever compromise or relent on matters involving the administration of justice. If anything, one should probe more deeply, more thoroughly, on these matters. I know that I will.

State and municipal economic planning, though, is nothing like bad policing. It’s not a matter of a different degree; it’s a matter of a different kind, entirely. There is a vast difference between being reprehensible (bad police leadership, failure to administer justice) and being good but mistaken (planners, bureaucrats, and advocates of managed solutions).

There are, however, compelling libertarian objections to any number of planning proposals, including concepts widely-touted as ‘smart growth’ proposals. On the week of January 21st, I’ll run a series on the problems of planning, including smart growth proposals. It’s only fair to set out the libertarian case more fully, more clearly, and in detail.

Although I have criticized Dr. Roy Nosek’s views on code enforcement and affordable housing, etc., I don’t consider his views representative of planning, generally. In fact, I’ve had to stitch together his various objections merely to arrive at a position to consider. Important issues that a planner would consider — timing and sequence, among them — are unconsidered in his proposals. That’s why, in the end, I think his objections are more cultural than anything else.

I do not doubt that the city has planners, and advocates of planning, far more capable. As someone wrote to me recently, and correctly, I have been scornful of planning, but have not set out a thorough, persuasive case against it.

I’ll take a stab at setting that case out starting on the 21st.

Libertarians

Libertarians and Ron Paul

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I have been a libertarian seemingly forever, as part of a family tradition of libertarian thinking (even before it was commonly called ‘libertarian’ thinking). Many contemporary libertarians would refer to it as being ‘in the movement.’ If you’ve been in the movement, even for a while, then you know that there’s a broad range of thought that passes as libertarian, much of it in conflict with other parts. We are reminded of the joke that there cannot be a libertarian meeting, because libertarians could never agree on a common agenda. They often have trouble agreeing on common principles, or heroes, too.

Ron Paul has caught notice of many libertarians, but as I wrote recently, I have no preferred candidate in the upcoming presidential race. Even before the recent controversy over the execrable newsletter that went out in Paul’s name in the ’90s, I had reason to think that Paul was only libertarian in part. In some of his positions, he is as far from a commitment to individual liberty as any other candidate running. Paul is part libertarian, part arch-conservative, and part…odd apologist for crackpot theories. Some libertarian publications and groups rushed to embrace him (e.g., Reason), while others sensibly viewed him with greater caution (e.g., Cato).

They best place to see how unusual are Paul’s views is to read the transcript of his recent Meet the Press interview from late December. In that interview, Paul advocates any number of restrictive ideas, and a few crackpot ones, too. His hostility to immigrants is deep-seated and inconsistent with what so many libertarians believe about the free movement of labor. His position that slavery should have been allowed to fade away, and that Lincoln was wrong to defend the Union, is typically present only among crackpot libertarian extremists and secessionist apologists. He has an objectionable antipathy to democratic Israel that runs through many statements he’s made over the years. I could go on, but readers can review the transcript for themselves if they’d like.

(For solid, compelling support of Lincoln’s use of war powers in defense of human liberty — a view I very much share — see, for example, Timothy Sandefur’s Liberty and Union, Now and Forever.)

Young libertarians, and a few old ones, too, were likely excited in Paul’s candidacy. Many now find themselves retracting their prior support. That’s an honest, reasonable response: Paul’s views are not sufficiently liberty-enhancing. Often, they’re the exact opposite. People understandably want a candidate to support, to be excited about, for whom to work and cheer. Paul’s just not the one.

We can wait.

City, Police, Press

Answers for a Reporter, and the Community, on the Larry Meyer Case

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Last week, I wrote on the Larry Meyer case in a post entitled, “Questions for a Reporter, and the Community.” I had two questions about coverage of the lawsuit against Larry Meyer, the now-retired investigator of the Whitewater Police Department. My questions were directed to the reporters of the Janesville Gazette, The Week, and their online editions. Below I will repost my questions, with the answers that somehow escaped the Gazette‘s reporters.

All this matters because it goes to the heart of how Meyer was led and managed, how eager city officials and others are to keep this matter confidential, or how eager some are to cast the story in a light favorable to themselves, contrary information notwithstanding.

(In any event, the very fact that the Defendant, Larry Meyer is reduced to considering settlement a worthy goal shows how weak his position really is.)

1. Why has your newspaper not reported that the settlement includes proposed confidentiality agreements involving a lawsuit against a public employee, involving a public matter, at public expense, during the exercise of public duties?

Here, from a pleading in the case, Exhibit C of Defense Attorney Braithwaite’s January 3rd affidavit, Braithwaite includes a copy of an email that the defense contends is a proposed settlement. These are the paragraphs on confidentiality, that show clearly how eager the defense and its supporters are to keep this public matter, involving public conduct, at public expense, private forever:

As a condition precedent to the performance of the promises and consideration described in this Release, all parties, hereby agree not to disclose to any media representative or any third party, including but not limited to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (“A TLA”), Jury Verdicts Weekly, The Defense Research Institute, Trial Magazine, A TLA Law Reporter, A TLA Products Liability Reporter, Verdicts, Settlement and Tactics Magazine, The Verdict, The National Law Journal, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Janesville Gazette, the Bar Journals of Wisconsin or any other state, or any print, broadcast and/or electronic media whatsoever, including but not limited to any Internet or Internet website, any of the terms or conditions of any paragraphs of this Release, or any dollar, sum, estimate, or characterization of the amount of the settlement embodied in this Release or any part or portion thereof. To the extent that the details of this dispute involve claims against other parties not subject to this release including but not limited to The Walworth County District Attorney’s Office, the Walworth County Sheriffs Office the Walworth County Huber Dormitory or any parties not specifically mentioned above, they are not subject to this agreement and may be discussed with violating this agreement. Stephen D. Cvicker agrees and stipulates that any failure to perform in accordance with the provisions of this Paragraph will result in the return to the released parties of the payment of $25,000, along with any attorney fees/costs incurred by the released parties in connection with such failure, will be due immediately upon the released parties’ written demand following such failure.

Stephen D. Cvicker and his attorneys shall not disclose or characterize to any third person the dollar sum, any estimate of the amount of the settlement embodied in this Release, or the negotiations which culminated in this settlement or any part or portion thereof. Notwithstanding the provisions of this paragraph, Stephen D. Cvicker and his attorneys may discuss the amounts received pursuant to this Release as may be reasonable necessary with trust and investment advisors, accountants, and other financial advisors, and may reveal the amounts received pursuant to this release as otherwise required by law. It is understood that all such advisors and attorneys must maintain the confidentiality of the information disclosed to them. To the extent that the details of this dispute involve claims against other parties not subject to this release including but not limited to The Walworth County District Attorney’s Office, the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office the Walworth County Huber Dormitory or any parties not specifically mentioned above, they are not subject to this agreement and may be discussed without violating this agreement.

If this list were any more exhaustive, America would suffer a shortage of printer ink.

The officials of our police department and city administration will talk at length about any trivial matter, but for this public matter they would apparently prefer silence.

(See my list of seven sound reasons that confidentiality in municipal litigation is bad policy in my post entitled, “Against Confidentiality in Municipal Litigation.”)

I ran a series recently on our Police and Fire Commission, in which I showed — among other matters — how little time they spend meeting. No one on that commission has ever written to me to defend any part of their work. I am not surprised; it’s a years-long exercise in embarrassing mediocrity. If they had done even a tolerable job, one can be assured that I would have received many indignant emails from PFC members. That I received no defense speaks for itself. But, as they have met so sporadically and briefly over these last years, perhaps they might put aside whatever they do in their leisure time to explain how this confidentiality agreement is good policy.

Go ahead. If you want to be recognized as city officials, department heads, and noted commission members exercising a required public duty, then speak on behalf of this matter. I’ll publish what you write in full, uninterrupted, and reply only thereafter.

2. On Quoting the Walworth County District Attorney, Phillip Koss, in your December 22nd Gazette story, entitled, “Cvicker Decides Not to Settle Suit.” You quote D.A. Koss at length, protesting against the idea of a ‘global settlement,’ where charges in a prior criminal matter would be reduced in exchange for the settlement of the civil suit against Meyer. In Exhibit A of Defense Attorney Braithwaite’s January 3rd affidavit, Braithwaite includes a copy of an email from D.A. Koss.

Will you report on that email, and in light of it, what do you believe that it says about whether discussions of a global settlement actually took place, and Koss’s candid estimation of the merits of discussing a possible global settlement?

Here’s how Mike Heine of the Gazette carefully quoted D.A. Phillip Koss on December 22nd:

Walworth County District Attorney Phil Koss said he never agreed to a reduction of criminal charges in exchange for a settlement in Cvicker’s civil case. “If I reduced this, everyone who is unhappy with their criminal conviction is going to sue the investigating officer and then go for a reduction by going to the federal court,” Koss said. “It’s bad precedent to reward someone for suing an officer.”

Koss said it was Cvicker and his attorneys who tried to tie the reduction of criminal charges to the civil case.

“I’ve never contacted them saying, ‘Settle this, and we’ll reduce in exchange for a release,’” Koss said….

Koss agreed that kind of action would be improper.

“We didn’t do that,” he said. “We were contacted by them. They made an offer to make sure everybody was held harmless if there was a civil settlement.

“Never in all my years have I seen some sort of criminal settlement tied to a civil settlement (like this),” Koss said.

But here is what D.A. Koss wrote, to attorneys involved in a possible reduction of criminal charges in exchange for a civil settlement, in an email that is Exhibit A of Defense Attorney Braithwaite’s affidavit filed on January 3rd:

I have thought about this overnight. Frankly, I don’t think that it’s fair that the state has to give something up to help a civil case; especially when it’s not factually related to that case. It certainly has been rushed as well. I think it [sic] we reduce this we will be saying to the jury and the public that we screwed up. All I have is my integrity, and I can’t have that questioned. Therefore, I will not amend the felony to misdemeanors. I certainly can see both sides, that’s why it was a difficult decision. I appreciate the work all the attorneys have done, but this has been last minute for the criminal case. Phil

(Emphasis added in blue font.)

The District Attorney’s email is noticeably more understanding of considering the issue of a global settlement (“I have thought about this overnight”) and of the possibility of deciding in favor of a such a settlement (“I certainly can see both sides, that’s why it was a difficult decision”) than his posture in the pages of the Gazette. He writes that he’s opposed, as many others might be, but it’s a balanced assessment.

From the pages of the Gazette, one would think that D.A. Koss was railing against a proposal for cannibalism, or some other depravity. The email — now part of a public court filing — reveals a different perspective than the public posturing in a local newspaper.

(Nor can Koss reasonably contend that he was misquoted in the Gazette without a chance to respond to them, or for the Gazette to correct the story. The Gazette ran its story on December 22, but afterward, days apart, ran the same story online at the GazetteEztra.com, in print at The Week, and online at TheWeekExtra.com.)

I neither favor nor oppose a so-called ‘global settlement’ of civil and criminal matters. My concerns are against confidentiality in municipal litigation, and for what the lawsuit’s allegations of Meyer’s conduct show about the quality of police and administration leadership in our city.

Nonetheless, the Gazette has not probed deeply, and has allowed significant grandstanding about aspects of this case. They couldn’t or wouldn’t answer my questions from last week, but I expected no answer from them.

No matter; the answer’s here.