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Monthly Archives: July 2014

City, Politics

How Conservatives Ruined Conservatism in Whitewater

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There are plenty of conservatives in the City of Whitewater, a small rural town, that’s home to a medium-sized campus within the city limits, and is principally located in conservative Walworth County. 

In many ways, this rural town should be mostly conservative, mostly Republican, campus notwithstanding.  After all, Walworth County is hardly a liberal place.

And yet, and yet, anyone visiting from Waukesha, Ozaukee, or Washington counties would see quickly that Whitewater is neither as conservative nor as Republican as those places.  If anything, it’s a cultural adjustment for conservative Republicans when they move to Whitewater (as some have mentioned to me): Whitewater seems liberal to them.

Now, I don’t think Whitewater is a liberal city, although it becoming bluer. 

Still, I’d say that conservatives from GOP strongholds in Wisconsin are right to see how Whitewater’s less red, or more blue, than their own communities.

How is that?

Why wouldn’t Whitewater, during the height of GOP success statewide, be more conservative? Even as recently as ten years ago, conservatives were doing better in the city than they are now.

Here’s Whitewater’s current political climate:

The Democrats’ statewide or nationally typically carry Whitewater. National or statewide Republicans can win here, but they depend more on an occasional red wave (2010), and even then it’s not a sure thing that they’ll prevail locally.

What happened?

I’d suggest that it’s not social but economic issues that have fractured the GOP, and many so-called Republicans look like putative moderates to Tea Party Republicans and movement conservatives.  (Most social issues don’t matter for local offices that have no authority over applicable policies.)

But on economic matters, Whitewater’s old-guard Republicans have flacked tax-incremental financing and Innovation Center spending – and flacked them in the most platitudinous and grandiose way – so that they look weak and unprincipled to true, small-government conservatives.

Tax Incremental Financing and the Innovation Center were not GOP ideas; the problem is that so-called conservatives in Whitewater lined up to push them, with sugary language to disguise poor economic and fiscal results.

In the eyes of a rock-ribbed conservatives in elsewhere in Wisconsin, GOP luminaries in Whitewater look slow, stodgy, bloated, and appeasing of (often sketchy) government projects.   

City GOP leaders from 2000-2010, especially, squandered the local party’s reputation on acquiescence to big projects and a ‘Hey kids, let’s put on a show’ mentality. 

Unfortunately, their “jobs, jobs, jobs” and “businesses, businesses, businesses” approach is empty of employment and full of white-collar welfare.   

It’s true conservatives and Republicans elsewhere who are among the biggest critics of that approach.  

So what does the local Republican party have now?

They have a landlords’ and realtors’ pro-business lobbying group, some signs along Main Street during election time, and lots of meetings to announce successes and triumphs where the rooms are mostly empty and without ordinary residents.

That’s something, but it’s not much for a small rural town.

The move toward a small group that seeks to influence and pressure is a common dynamic after a political party has conceded influence of the electorate.  It’s the refuge of groups that are waning. 

The Left in Waukesha County, and the Right in Dane County, took similar steps when they were losing electoral influence in those respective places.  These steps were half-measures, but ineffectual to reverse electoral decline.  
Even the Koch Brothers, who could not carry an issue in Whitewater, would at least be able to draw a crowd with their American for Prosperity team. 

Whitewater’s Republicans compromised to go along, to fit in, with a trend toward big-spending on white collar welfare and chimerical accomplishments, successes, and achievements. 

Those who brought conservatism to this condition in Whitewater, of all places, will not be able to repair their own damage. 

A new generation will have to pick up the shards that clumsy town squires have left all across town. 

I’m a libertarian, not a conservative Republican; these failures are not ones of the liberty movement. 

Still, I cannot avoid seeing how a few gentlemen have harmed their professed ideology, in a city where conditions should have been fitting for ongoing success. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.17.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday will be sunny, with a high of seventy-six and southwest winds of five mph.

On this day in 1955, Disneyland opens in California:

Disneyland Park, originally Disneyland, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955. It is the only theme park designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the only attraction on the property; its name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s.

Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland after visiting various amusement parks with his daughters in the 1930s and 1940s. He initially envisioned building a tourist attraction adjacent to his studios in Burbank to entertain fans who wished to visit; however, he soon realized that the proposed site was too small. After hiring a consultant to help him determine an appropriate site for his project, Walt bought a 160-acre (65 ha) site near Anaheim in 1953. Construction began in 1954 and the park was unveiled during a special televised press event on the ABC Television Network on July 17, 1955.

Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone a number of expansions and renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now Critter Country) in 1972, and Mickey’s Toontown in 1993. Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneyland’s original parking lot and opened in 2001.

Disneyland has a larger cumulative attendance than any other theme park in the world, with over 650 million guests since it opened. In 2013, the park hosted approximately 16.2 million guests, making it the third most visited park in the world that calendar year.[2] According to a March 2005 report from the Disney Company, there are 65,700 jobs supported by the Disneyland Resort, which includes, at the Resort itself, 20,000 direct Disney employees and 3,800 third-party employees (that is, independent contractors or their employees).[3]

On this day in 1832, Gen. Atkinson’s soldiers complete their fort:

1832 – Fort Koshkonong Construction Completed

On this date General Henry Atkinson wrote General Winfield Scott that he had finished constructing Fort Koshkonong. The fort, constructed of oak logs, was abandoned when the army pursued and defeated Black Hawk at the Battle of Bad Axe in August of 1832. The logs from the fort were then used in the construction of houses in the community now known as Fort Atkinson. By 1840, little of the original fort remained. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 107]

Google-a-Day asks about a German word:

What was Germany’s term for its amazing economic rebound in the 1950’s?

City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC

WEDC Update

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Anyone betting locally on the supposed prestige and success of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has placed a bad bet. 

That corrupt and incompetent agency is in the news yet again for its failures and lies:

WEDC award recipients outsourced Wisconsin jobs to foreign countries —

WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports

Report: WEDC-backed Kestrel had financing issues in Maine before moving to Wisconsin —

On Monday, Hackett passed along this piece from Maine about Kestrel Aircraft, the company that has promised to create 600 jobs in Superior with help from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

Headlined “Kestrel in Brunswick: How blue-sky promises came crashing down,” the story describes how Kestrel owner Alan Klapmeier had been fighting with officials in Maine about not providing enough taxpayer support for his dream of manufacturing commercial airplanes at a closed military base in Brunswick.

According to the report, Klapmeier was expecting a $100 million allocation of New Markets Tax Credits — a federal program designed to encourage investment in low-income rural areas — but had only received about a fifth of that amount.

Failing to land enough funding in Maine, Klapmeier began seeking other sources of public money and apparently found a willing participant in newly-elected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

“Note the quote where people in Maine were happy that Wisconsin won this battle,” Hackett says of the report in the Forecaster, a weekly published in Falmouth, Maine.

With new backing in place from WEDC, Klapmeier joined Walker in January 2012 to announce plans to design and build a carbon fiber passenger airplane in Superior.

Unfortunately, the project hasn’t taken hold and Kestrel has yet to follow through on its promises. Klapmeier is also apparently involved in a dispute with Wisconsin officials over the amount of New Markets Tax Credits that had been promised, according to BusinessNorth.com.

Now, admittedly, the WEDC is not the only mistake in the history of American politics and policy.

Whitewater’s town fathers might have hit upon something equally embarrassing, if only they had kept looking:

image
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For prior FW posts on the WEDC, consider The Truth About the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and The Disgrace that is the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

Tomorrow: How Conservatives Ruined Conservatism in Whitewater.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.16.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high in the low seventies, and north winds of about five mph.

The Community Development Authority’s Seed Capital Screening Committee meets at 3:30 PM, and the CDA Board at 4:30 PM.

20120721-1017a-mk10
Image via Hose’s Civet & Small Carnivore Project, Borneo http://hoscap-borneo.org

Not all squirrels look alike, but perhaps no species of squirrel is so striking as the Tufted Ground Squirrel of Borneo. They have a world-class reputation for those tails:

It’s a record that none of us even knew existed, but the tufted ground squirrel from Borneo is the official owner of the Fluffiest Tail in the World. Good job, tufted ground squirrel. We’ll never know the sacrifices you made to achieve such fluff, the lost time with your family and friends that you’ll never get back due to whatever maintenance fluff requires, but we respect an animal with ambition.

But, it seems, they have a fantastical reputation for mayhem, too:

The tufted ground squirrel (Rheithrosciurus macrotis), which grows to around double the size of a regular squirrel, has a reputation for hunting deer – well, more like serial killing deer – if local legends are to be believed. According to Erik Stokstad at Science Magazine, “Hunters say that the squirrels will perch on low branches, jump onto a deer, gash its jugular vein, and disembowel the carcass.” The squirrels would then eat the deer’s stomach contents, liver and heart. Another version of the legend from villages close to the forest edge tells of these squirrels killing domestic chickens and eating their hearts and livers only.

“It sounds pretty fantastical,” Roland Kays, a zoologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, told Stokstad. “Even more than its fluffy tail.”

On this day in 1945, America successfully tests an atomic bomb.

On this day in 1941, Wisconsin gets a national wildlife refuge:

On this date the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge was established after a 20 year struggle by conservationists. The refuge is over 21,000 acres, encompasses the Horicon Marsh, the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, and is home to over 223 species of birds and other wildlife. [Source:History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 6 andHoricon National Wildlife Refuge]

Google-a-Day poses a question about art:

What was the name of the 8000-acre estate inherited by the art patron who commissioned “Lobster Telephone”?

City, Local Government

Administration, Council, and the ‘Tenth Man Rule’

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Prompted from a recent written exchange, here’s a post on the relative suitability of the ‘Tenth Man Rule’ for different parts of a local government.  The Tenth Man Rule is simply the idea that “if nine in authority agree on a course of action, it’s the duty of the tenth to adopt a contrary approach, considering an opposite course of action or risk that the nine others have dismissed.”

(See, Local Gov’t Desperately Needs a Version of the ‘Tenth Man Rule’.)

Here’s the question about this rule: where does apply?

It properly applies to administrative and appointed posts rather than elective, legislative bodies (or legislative bodies in which executive authority also fundamentally rests, as in Whitewater’s Common Council).

That’s because a full-time administrator, municipal manager, department heads, and whole municipal administration, unlike an elected Council, have the time and immediate access to resources to evaluate alternatives in the way a city council does not. 

(Everyone on Council has full-time responsibilities elsewhere; they have no legislative research staff as would the Wisconsin Assembly, for example.)

In fact, when I wrote the earlier ‘Tenth Man’ post, that distinction seemed obvious to me, but I did not make it plain, as I should have, in the post. 

In a post entitled, Show Your Work, I expressed this idea more plainly, about Whitewater’s municipal administration (that is, the full-time department leaders):

Watching this municipal administration, one sees a contrast with the last one. Our former municipal manager was his own cheerleader, boosting ill-considered projects as though civilization depended on them. (He collected a few of similar ilk along the way.)

Our current municipal manager is better educated and more affable than his predecessor, and more outwardly cautious, too. He holds back at meetings, allowing his department heads to do the cheering for him.

Cheer they do – watching some of them, one might be forgiven for thinking that those department leaders worked for the very vendors whose projects the city administration should be scrutinizing.

They are so very eager, and at least one so callow, that one wonders: do you not understand these matters, or do you hope that others won’t?

The Tenth Man Rule is, or should be, a burden on full-time leaders to do more than simply propose, without due diligence of the risks, in the hope that elected representatives with full-time jobs elsewhere won’t catch the implications during a session’s discussion.

In fact, although I have disagreed with more than one Council vote, for sheer ability and intellect, this is likely the most talented Council the city has seen in many years. 

I’ve no intention of flattering; one can guess that the inclination is not in my nature. 

To say as much about Council is simply to offer a candid assessment. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.15.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a high of sixty-six this Tuesday, with a one-third chance of scattered afternoon showers.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

So if you’re in Australia, and you’ve had a few shark attacks on bathers, what to do? For Hamish Jolly, a solution meant thinking about a shark-deterrent wetsuit:

On 7.15.1903, a company takes its first order:

On this day in 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later.

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

In the Russian monument of the founder of Moscow, which hand is he holding out to the side?

Local Government, Press

The Police Chief Turned City Administrator Turned School Public Relations Man

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The Gazette has a Monday editorial in support of hiring Milton’s former police chief-turned-city-administator for a public school, public relations job.

It’s almost a self-parody of insiders flacking for insiders.  (See, subscription req’d, Our Views: Was Milton School District’s Hiring of Jerry Schuetz a Reasonable Move?)

It’s grandiose and wasteful to think that Milton’s schools – or Whitewater’s – would need a public relations man.  They don’t.  The way to present oneself at open enrollment is better teaching and to offer better academic, athletic, and artistic opportunities.

That is, the best reputation comes from good work, itself.  

Public relations is not a substantive, fundamental field.  It’s a secondary activity.  Success comes from accomplishments in substantive and fundamental fields (e.g., mathematics, history, etc.) and from that comes a true & good reputation.   

Of this hire, we have a serial job-shifter.  Because, after all, who in the city would be better? —

However, perhaps no one besides Schuetz was as suited for the role the district envisions. The city hired him as police chief less than six years ago. He moved up to city administrator in 2010. Schuetz has become deeply involved in the community and says he and his wife love Milton. He has a background in policing, in the city and its economic development. He even has dabbled in teaching on the side. Combine this experience with his investment in the community, and Schuetz has knowledge and talents that likely were unmatched by the six other finalists the district interviewed.

You see, the cop-turned-administrator would be perfect for a school district’s public relations flack because he “loves Milton” and has “even dabbled in teaching on the side.”

The Gazette‘s editorialist forgot to add that Schuetz likes moonlit walks, apple martinis, and bureaucrats who care about world peace.  

Funny how the editorial ends – coming as it does from a newspaper – with the argument that one will not know the value of this hire for years to come:

School officials might take heat for this hiring now, but it could be years before anyone can gauge whether Schuetz and his marketing efforts are worth the investment.

That’s a joke, right? 

The burden is now – at this moment – on those who hired Schuetz to justify the cost and his selection over other, profesionally-qualified candidates. 

It’s false to say that there’s no evaluation to be made now, and it’s simply a transparent – and weak – attempt to stifle criticism behind the notion that no one can now know.

If what the Gazette‘s editorialist contends were true, there would be no point in much of a hiring process for anyone, after all, on the theory that no one could be certain of someone’s selection for years to come. 

Is this editorial board unaware that feasilibity assesements come at the time before hiring, (2) that’s also the purpose of an interview process, (3) that such predictions based on sound analysis happen all across America each day, and (4) that one would have to be dense or gullible not to see as much. 

Perhaps they’re aware, perhaps they’re not. 

At the very least, I’m quite sure most people in Milton, and Whitewater, can easily see through a weak argument on behalf of an unsuitable candidate for a needless position.  

Local Government, Open Government

A Municipal Building’s No Proof of a Progressive, Modern Outlook

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A public building doesn’t make a city respectable – a city’s respectable, high standards and open government make a public building worthy. 

It’s more than odd that, literacy notwithstanding, an editorial board would contend – as one did recently about Milton, Wisconsin – that Milton’s new [city] offices suggest professional, progressive city (subscription req’d):

Milton residents have reason to beam about their new City Hall and police station.

The offices are so new that workers were adjusting door locks and downspouts while Mayor Brett Frazier and City Administrator Jerry Schuetz gave a tour Wednesday. Boxes from Monday’s move had yet to be unpacked or discarded. Seeding and landscaping awaited.

Milton is, after all, a city struggling economically, and one that somehow thought it wise to make its police chief a city administrator and now a newly-created public relations specialist for Milton’s school district. 

Here’s how a newspaperman who covered that city for twenty years assessed the transfer (again, subscription req’d):

Because of this history of [district] frugality, it surprised me when I saw the district job posting for a new public relations position—but not because of the need in this age of competitive school choice. I was surprised at the position’s $80,000-per-year salary. It can be argued the district would have attracted many highly qualified candidates from the public relations professional world at two-thirds that salary.

When I learned former Milton Chief of Police and current City Administrator Jerry Schuetz was offered the position, my inner red flags of cynicism went up—not because I question Mr. Schuetz’s abilities but because these are questions that once were expected of me by taxpayers of Milton. Was this all preordained? Is this what used to be termed a “good old boy” hire?

Those questions were only intensified when The Gazette broke the story early this week and the article, seemingly, was all about this position being able to allow Mr. Schuetz to find “balance” in his personal life.

No, a new city hall doesn’t make a city modern – true modernity comes from the high standards of a community.

To think otherwise is to fall into the amazement of Oklahoma!‘s fictional visitor to Kansas City, convinced as he mistakenly is that “they gone about as fer as they can go.”