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Monthly Archives: August 2012

City, Green Energy Holdings, Planning

The Misdirected Focus

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Watching Whitewater’s recent Planning Commission, one saw an attention to detail about a factory building’s wall color, general style, and lighting that lasted for 13:28 minutes, from approximately 11:30 to 24:58 during the session.

It’s not the particular focus on an applicant’s building, but what it says about ordinary due diligence in reviewing bigger projects, that matters.

Common Council’s representative to the Planning Commission spent more public time considering a building’s color, etc., than anyone did in open-session deliberation at Common Council over of a preliminary agreement for a vast waste-digester project for Whitewater.

For open-session Planning consideration of a building’s colors, etc., on 8.13.12: thirteen and a half minutes.

For open-session Council voting on the waste-digester proposal on 6.19.12: less than ten minutes.

The return to [Common Council] open session was as brief as possible, merely to vote on the deal: no proper public hearing, community input, or public presentation (8:45 PM to 8:55 PM). That’s how to make sure secretive, ill-considered projects have the best chance of being adopted.

See, How to Keep a Public Deal from Common-Sense Evaluation.

I’ve asked over forty pertinent questions about that waste-digester project. When this city rushed that preliminary deal, how many of those questions could anyone voting have answered?

Even now, how many of those questions could anyone who moved for approval of the preliminary digester deal answer?

How many could its Interim City Manager, who a month ago offered in print only the tepid claim that it was his “understanding” that there were no problems with the deal, really answer?

For how many could the two local reporters, who have written about this deal, provide answers? (By the way, has there been a newspaper correction for the wholly erroneous story that described this deal as one with a Florida company?)

Poll

Friday Poll: Tobacco’s Popularity

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A recent World Health Organization study details the dangers of smoking, and to assess possible global risks from smoking, it lists the proportion of smokers in different countries:

The study, conducted between 2008 and 2010, found that across 14 developing nations, 49% of men and 11% of women used tobacco. Most of them smoked — 41% of men and 5% of women.

Numbers were highest in Russia, where 60% of men and 22% of women used tobacco; China, where 53% of men and 2% of women were tobacco users; Ukraine, where 50% of men and 11% of women used tobacco, and Turkey, where 48% of men and 15% of women used tobacco.

In some countries, smoking rates may now be even higher than they were in 2010, WHO officials say.

That brings us to today’s poll: do you smoke? I’ll note that I’m asking about tobacco, as that’s the subject of the WHO study, but you may answer more generally if you’d like.

For me, the answer’s ‘no.’ How about you?




Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.17.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater’s work week ends pleasantly, with sunny skies and a high of seventy-three.

It’s sunny today, but when it rains, animals have distinctive and effective ways to shake off wet fur. LiveScience.com has a video showing different creatures in action:

The Wisconsin Historical Society records that on this day in 1936,

Wisconsin Issue[d] First Unemployment Check

On this date the state of Wisconsin issued the first Unemployment Compensation Check in the United States for the amount of $15. The recipient was Neils N, Ruud who then sold it to Paul Raushenbush for $25 for its historical value. The check is now at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Wisconsin was the first state to establish an Unemployment Compensation program. [Source: Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development]

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a poem: “How many “bright stars” did I see when I wrote the poem that’s sung to the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven?””

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.16.12

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Good morning.

Thursday brings Thunderstorms, with a high of seventy-seven, to Whitewater.

The Whitewater Police Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

On this day in 1896, gold was discovered in them yar hills of the Yukon, prompting the last great gold rush on this continent:

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a person: “I was known as “Mother Lucy” by my husband’s infantrymen. What nickname did I earn as First Lady, thanks to my staunch support of temperance?” more >>

City

On Excuses for Big Problems and Poor Policies

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In local politics, one sometimes hears flimsy excuses for big mistakes, just as one hears implausible explanations for serious problems.

These sort of explanations are the stock in trade of officials who simply don’t want to accept responsibility for mistakes, or who simply don’t want to do the hard work their positions require.

Whenever I hear excuses and rationalizations of this ilk, I think of a scene from Jaws:



Few in the film’s fictional town of Amity wanted to address the truth of their predicament: that they faced an immediate and ongoing danger. Insiders were inclined to rationalize everything away as a boating accident, or to mischaracterize concerns in ways designed to dismiss peremptorily others’ legitimate concerns and worries.

For it all, the actual threat that plagued them remained the same.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.15.12

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-five, and a slight (20%) chance of showers in the afternoon.

On this day in 1969, Woodstock opened in Bethel, New York:

 

Google’s daily puzzle asks about New York’s history: “What image, depicted on New York City’s official seal, represents a trade stimulated by the first European to sail into New York Harbor?”

Press

The Best Editorials are Online

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No publisher is required to go online; those who wish to stick with newsprint may do so. Yet, of all publishers, there are few who don’t have, at least, a rudimentary online offering.

Here’s one distinction, however, between major and minor newspapers: most major papers will put their editorials online without charge, but smaller papers are reluctant to do the same.

One sees why major papers do this: they see greater political influence through free, online publication. They’re convinced that what they lose in editorial-seeking subscribers they more than gain in influence via Facebook, Twitter, blog commentary, etc. Even the Wall Street Journal, entrenched behind a sturdy paywall, keeps many of its editorials unrestricted.

The local, smaller-paper practice of print-only editorials is professed to be necessary to drive print subscriptions, but I don’t know, and some of these papers probably don’t even know.

I do know, by contrast, that freely accessible editorials are often better written and more powerfully reasoned than print-only alternatives. A little time on the Web, easily accessible to anyone, offers an editorialist better and more widespread feedback (email or otherwise) than a print-only commentator.

If there’s a local newspaper problem with solid reporting – and there very much is – there’s an equal problem with cosseted, and as a consequence unpersuasive, editorialists.

City, Green Energy Holdings, Open Government

How to Keep a Public Deal from Common-Sense Evaluation

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It’s not that hard, really. One just needs a shameless disregard for open government and an equal disregard for diligent environmental and fiscal evaluation.

1. Keep discussion of the deal within a closed session of the Community Development Authority.

That would be item 12 from the 6.6.12 CDA meeting. See, at 1:14:56 in the video, the brief and mere mention of a proposal with Green Energy Holdings before a closed session:

Community Development Authority 06/06/2012 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo.

2. Keep Common Council’s discussion of the deal in closed session, and return to open session only to approve a preliminary agreement.

That would be the 6.19.12 council session, where Whitewater’s Common Council went into closed session to debate a supposedly ‘monumental’ deal, to return to open session merely to vote on the proposal.

The amount of out-of-the public-eye consideration of this proposal — and two other proposals at the same time! — was under forty-five minutes (8:01 PM to 8:45 PM). See, at 59:52 in the video, the brief and mere mention of a proposal with Green Energy Holdings before a closed session:

Common Council Meeting 06/19/2012 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo.

Less time went into council’s consideration of this deal than it takes to watch a single episode of an ordinary television show.

The return to open session was as brief as possible, merely to vote on the deal: no proper public hearing, community input, or public presentation (8:45 PM to 8:55 PM). That’s how to make sure secretive, ill-considered projects have the best chance of being adopted.

3. Make sure sycophantic reporters push the deal uncritically, as quickly as possible.

One readily finds examples of that reflexive approach in this case. See, Questions for the Press about a Proposal with Green Energy Holdings and Part 2: Questions for the Press about a Proposal with Green Energy Holdings.

I’ve a question for today:

Why is it that when a deal of this kind (from the same parent and sister companies as this deal) is subject to public scrutiny, hundreds of homeowners, residents, conservationists, environmentalists, academics, and attorneys present detailed, comprehensive, environmental and fiscal concerns about the proposal?

Animals, City, Weird Tales

Whitewater, this snake would have been a real problem…

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Scientists at the University of Florida say the 160-pound, 17-foot-long Burmese python found in the Everglades last week is the largest one ever seen in the state, and more evidence that the “monstrous” snakes are taking over the park. Even more disturbing than the snake’s size is the fact that it was carrying 87 eggs, also a record. The find shows that the non-native species is growing virtually unchecked, and breeding at astounding rates.

Via Scientists Show Off the Largest Python Ever Found in the Everglades – National – The Atlantic Wire. more >>

City, Elections

Election Day

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The polling location for the August 14, 2012 Partisan Primary will be at the City of Whitewater Municipal Building, Common Council Chambers, 312 W. Whitewater Street, Whitewater, WI 53190.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.14.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater’s election day will be sunny and warm, with a high of eighty.

About a decade ago, parts of the east coast experienced a day-long blackout:

On this day in 2003, a major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Beginning at 4:10 p.m. ET, 21 power plants shut down in just three minutes. Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. Although power companies were able to resume some service in as little as two hours, power remained off in other places for more than a day.

The outage stopped trains and elevators, and disrupted everything from cellular telephone service to operations at hospitals to traffic at airports. In New York City, it took more than two hours for passengers to be evacuated from stalled subway trains. Small business owners were affected when they lost expensive refrigerated stock. The loss of use of electric water pumps interrupted water service in many areas. There were even some reports of people being stranded mid-ride on amusement park roller coasters. At the New York Stock Exchange and bond market, though, trading was able to continue thanks to backup generators.

From Google’s daily puzzle, a question about the natural order: “What cannot happen to energy according to the law that’s expressed mathematically as delta U = Q – W?” more >>