Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:35 PM for 13h 19m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater Unified District School Board goes into closed session shortly after 5:30 PM, returning to open session at 7 PM.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:37 PM for 13h 22m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War:
The Black Hawk War resulted in the deaths of 77 settlers, militiamen, and regular soldiers. This figure does not include the deaths from cholera suffered by the relief force under General Winfield Scott. Estimates of how many members of the British Band [Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos] died during the conflict range from about 450 to 600, or about half of the 1,100 people who entered Illinois with Black Hawk in 1832.
A number of American men with political ambitions fought in the Black Hawk War. At least seven future U.S. Senators took part, as did four future Illinois governors; future governors of Michigan, Nebraska, and the Wisconsin Territory; and two future U.S. presidents, Taylor and Lincoln. The Black Hawk War demonstrated to American officials the need for mounted troops to fight a mounted foe. During the war, the U.S. Army did not have cavalry; the only mounted soldiers were part-time volunteers. After the war, Congress created the Mounted Ranger Battalion under the command of Henry Dodge, which was expanded to the 1st Cavalry Regiment in 1833.
Patrick Marley, formerly of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and now at the Washington Post, writes about the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Wisconsin Supreme Court flips liberal, creating a ‘seismic shift.’ (Open link.) His reporting covers the recent history of the court and likely upcoming cases and disputes. Marley begins:
MADISON, Wis. — Standing in the marble-lined rotunda of the state capitol this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s incoming justice raised her right hand, swore to carry out her job “faithfully and impartially” and launched a new, liberal era on a powerful court long dominated by conservatives.
The fallout was immediate.
Within days, the new majority stripped duties from the court’s conservative chief justice and fired itsadministrative director, a conservative former judge who once ran for the court. The abrupt changes prompted the chief justice to accuse her liberal colleagues of engaging in “nothing short of a coup.” Before long, Republican lawmakers threatened to impeach the court’s newest member.
Liberal groups, long accustomed to seeing the court as hostile terrain, quickly maneuvered for potential victories on a string of major issues. They filed lawsuits to try to redraw the state’s legislative districts, which heavily favor Republicans. And the Democratic attorney general sought to speed up a case challenging a 19th-century law that has kept doctors from providing abortions in Wisconsin.
“It’s an absolute seismic shift in Wisconsin policy and politics,” said C.J. Szafir, the chief executive of the conservative, Wisconsin-based Institute for Reforming Government. “We’re about to usher in a very progressive state Supreme Court, the likes that we have not seen in quite some time. And it’s really going to change how everything operates.”
The turnaround on the Wisconsin court is the result of an April election that became the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, with campaigns and interest groups spending more than $50 million.
At stake in that race, with the retirement of a conservative justice who held a decisive vote on a 4-3 court, was the question of who would make crucial rulings in a swing state that could decide the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Conservatives had controlled the court for 15 years, during which they upheld a voter ID law, approved limits on collective bargaining for public workers, banned absentee ballot drop boxes and shut down a wide-ranging campaign finance investigation into Republicans.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:39 PM for 13h 25m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a City of Whitewater Lakes Community Meeting at 11:00 AM in the Common Council chambers.
On this day in 1920, the 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:40 PM for 13h 27m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
During its session on 8.15.23, the Whitewater Common Council entertained a motion to hire a third attorney at taxpayer expense to represent the Common Council. I’ve written before about the effort of longtime local politician Jim Allen to discuss the topic at the 8.1.23 council meeting.
(See on that 8.1.23 effort Whitewater Needs Neither a King Nor a Mind Reader: ‘A city serious about doing well by its residents requires serious, disciplined leadership. Right, center, or left matters far less than thoughtful, methodical, and composed. There are people from each part of the political spectrum in Whitewater who are like this, and Whitewater deserves no less in her council leadership.’
See on the matter of thorough work Scenes from a Council Meeting (Responsibility) ‘If a topic had been known at a meeting two weeks prior (discussed “ad nauseaum”), then there was ample time for a council member to present the topic before the subsequent meeting’s deadline. Government officials, themselves, should be expected to follow their deadlines. Their first reflex should not be to make it easier on themselves (“Oh, well, then I guess we’ll have to change that.”)
The latest council meeting, of 8.15.23, offered two issues of representation: whether the council would hire yet another legal representative but also how the council would represent their views to the city’s residents from whom their limited authority derives under law. It is this second aspect of representation through which one considers the presentation of facts and the quality of reasoning of elected leaders.
Initially an item labeled “Discussion on attorney to represent Common Council on personnel matters” appeared on the closed session meeting agenda, and an item labeled “Discussion and possible action regarding retaining an attorney to represent Common Council on personnel matters” was presented at the bottom of the open session agenda following the full three-item closed session agenda.
Council members opted to remove the item from the closed session agenda, leaving two closed session agenda items, including a discussion about the negotiation of an Aquatic and Fitness Center agreement with the school district, and a discussion regarding the performance evaluation of the city manager.
The discussion and possible action of hiring an attorney to represent the council remained on the agenda as an open session item and advanced in its placement to a position above the noticed adjournment into closed session.
….
During discussion, and in a memo to council, Director of Human Resources Sara Marquardt noted that the city has on retainer two legal firms, including those of Harrison, Williams and McDonell, LLP, which provides services to the city through its lead attorney Jonathan McDonell, and von Briesen and Roper SC, which has served the city as “special legal counsel on matters the city attorney does not wish to address.” Within the memo, Marquardt listed contract negotiations and complex labor-related issues as among those that would likely be handled by the second firm’s lead attorney Kyle Gulya.
Would council opt to approve the motion made by Stone, she advised, the city would then be paying for three attorneys.
“Staff does not recommend moving forward with retaining an additional attorney for personnel matters. The city of Whitewater currently retains two competent and professional attorneys to handle city matters,” Marquardt wrote.
Ambiguous wording and descriptions. On the agenda item and for much of the discussion, there is not a candid acknowledgment that hiring an attorney for “personnel matters” would involve representation only concerning the city manager. The agenda item could have been crafted plainly, but instead, it appears ambiguous in a way that conceals its purpose. A resident reading the agenda item would not know that the agenda had a single subject rather than many “personnel.”
The council president presents the motion as an “action regarding retaining an attorney to represent common council on personnel matters.” Transcript and Video @ 00:00.
After the meeting has begun, the moving councilmember modifies this item “to authorize the council to retain a separate attorney for common council’s use in regard to personnel matters or employees that council oversees.” Transcript and Video @ 00:16.
Again a minute later, that same member presents this nebulous and euphemistic phrasing: “I was looking for a possibly an attorney, that would represent the council on employees that the council oversees, only employees that the council oversees.” Transcript and Video @ 01:11.
Only after four minutes into the discussion of the item does the moving member admit the narrow scope of his motion when he acknowledges that “employees the council oversees, which is, again, the only one I know of is the city manager.” Transcript and Video @ 04:50. (The use of “again” is not because the moving member acknowledged plainly this simple fact before, but because it was pointed out plainly by someone else. Transcript and Video @ 1:32.)
Shifting justifications. The first justification, coming from the council president, relies on the vacuous expression that council needs its own attorney because “what we’re looking to do here is something different that puts our attorneys in kind of a pickle.” Transcript and Video @ 00:42.
However otherwise delightful the expression kind of a pickle may be, that idiom has no useful, descriptive value to explain the justification for the motion. There are countless words in the English language that would, if used here, have been more informative. (I would very much hope — and am sure — that we teach our students in the Whitewater Unified School District to speak and write more precisely.)
And yet, and yet, there is a single moment when this council president does claim a specific purpose: “We need separate representation when doing John’s performance evaluation.” (Reporting, Transcript, and Video @ 02:57.)
He never uses this justification again, however, and retreats from it into the claim that “No. We don’t have a use for it right now, I don’t believe” (Transcript and Video @ 5:54) and that the motion is “just discretion” (Transcript and Video @ 6:10). The use of “right now” is a shallow evasion as no one would have expected the Whitewater Common Council to rely on a third attorney’s representation on the night of 8.15.23.
More evasive still is the use of “I don’t believe,” which either means the council president isn’t sure if the council might need an attorney thatnight (I’m joking) or can’t recall a justification he offered only three minutes earlier (about that point I have no idea).
Presumptions and Behind-the-Scenes Discussions. From the reporting:
“This is the discussion of the public body, and in front of the pubic, as to whether or not the body is going to vote to do this. I, for one, am not supportive. We retain the counsel of two professional attorneys, one of whom specializes in labor relations. I do not feel that it is in the taxpayers’ best interest to hire another person because any one of us, or us as a body, feel that we are putting someone in an uncomfortable situation. They have taken their oath as an attorney; this is their job,” Dawsey Smith said.
….
Said Brown: “I’m concerned why this is even coming up, because you’re not explaining why we would want to retain one (attorney) in the first place. And I’m starting to get concerned there has been a violation of open meetings, that people have been talking together in some way, because it seems like — I feel like there’s been a separate conversation happening.
Yes, indeed. There is no reasonable way to watch the recorded meeting and read the transcript and not see that some members of this council have worked together, before any public discussion, to act on their own without collective authorization.
Worse, of course, the council president seems to have talked with the League of Municipalities without any reliable, independent record of his conversation, including how he might have framed any concerns: “But I talked to [pause] the League of Municipalities.” (Emphasis added. Transcript and Video @ 00:42.) Any communication should have followed a common council discussion, and then only have been made in writing.
Hiring an Attorney and Statutory Construction. One of the councilmembers sensibly asks about how a council might retain an attorney, and the council president’s reply is, well, sub-optimal. Here’s the discussion:
Councilmember Hicks Is there typically a fee for retaining?
Human Resources Director Marquardt Yeah.
Councilmember Hicks So we, if we go get quotes, we pick one, we’re going to pay the fee to retain them?
Council President Allen We would give either their hourly rate or not to exceed.
Councilmember Hicks But, I mean, is there a yearly or monthly? How do you retain them? Well, so we pick one
Council President Allen Only as needed
Councilmember Hicks Only as needed, right? So we’re not paying monthly to hold the services of somebody who
Council President Allen No. We don’t have a use for it right now, I don’t believe.
No firm worth having would consider representation without knowing the scope of the work, the role of other attorneys representing the city, the insurance carrier that insures the city, and without expectation of a retainer. If the answer “no” from the council president to a reasonable question applies to whether a competent firm would expect a retainer, well, caveat emptor.
In all of this, and beyond — discretion in the exercise of authority to seek counsel, as it turns out, is limited in the way all government should be limited: requiring a plainly stated, rational basis in compliance with law, procedure, and practicality.
Tuesday, August 29th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Mr. 3000 @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Drama/Romance/Sports
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 44 minutes (2004)
Stan Ross, a retired Milwaukee Brewers baseball player perhaps bound for the Hall of Fame, must come out of retirement at age 47 when it is discovered he is 3 hits shy of 3,000. Filmed at American Family Field (Miller Park) Milwaukee, and Waukesha! Starring Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett, Paul Sorvino, Chris Noth, Larry King and Jay Leno.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 97. Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:42 PM for 13h 30m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 51.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Behavior that would constitute sexual harassment in the workplace would also be prohibited in school settings under a bipartisan bill moving through the state Legislature.
The legislation would resolve what cosponsor Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, called a “gray area in state statute” in which sexual comments or behavior from a school employee to a minor student is technically legal if no physical contact is involved.
“Under our current state law, there are prohibitions against sexual contact with a minor and sexual harassment in the workplace between coworkers. However, what about situations where a teacher is verbally degrading a student with sexual comments?” James said at a public hearing of the Wisconsin state Senate’s judiciary committee. “Common sense would tell us that the teacher should be charged in some way for his or her actions.”
The bill would make it a felony offense for school staff to engage in sexual misconduct “that substantially interfered with a pupil’s academic performance or created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive school environment.”
It would also make this type of behavior an offense requiring mandatory reporting. People convicted of certain crimes against children, including sexual misconduct against students, would permanently lose their licenses to work in schools.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 98. Sunrise is 6:10 AM and sunset 7:43 PM for 13h 33m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM and the Parks Board at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1775, King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St. James’s stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.
Over these last few years, we have heard so much about the need to raise wages, as though wages respond only through government action. That’s simply not true, as one reads from Ben Casselman and Lydia DePillis that In a Hot Job Market, the Minimum Wage Becomes an Afterthought:
Under New Hampshire law, Janette Desmond can pay the employees who scoop ice cream and cut fudge at her Portsmouth sweet shop as little as $7.25 an hour.
But with the state unemployment rate under 2 percent, the dynamics of supply and demand trump the minimum wage: At Ms. Desmond’s store, teenagers working their first summer jobs earn at least $14 an hour.
“I could take a billboard out on I-95 saying we’re hiring, $7.25 an hour,” Ms. Desmond said. “You know who would apply? Nobody. You couldn’t hire anybody at $7.25 an hour.”
The red-hot labor market of the past two years has led to rapid pay increases, particularly in retail, hospitality and other low-wage industries. It has also rendered the minimum wage increasingly meaningless.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:45 PM for 13h 36m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.
Consider the following discussion during the 8.15.23 Whitewater Common Council meeting, about submitting agenda items before a meeting:
City Manager: We’re doing things in order of priority, and then we’ll take new requests. So any thoughts on F1 through F8 that we need to get up there right at the next meeting?
Council President: Yes. I had one that you and I argued over ad nauseam and it didn’t make it on the agenda.
City Manager: Agreed. I checked with the city clerk and as the request came in at 2 PM on Friday, it didn’t meet the city ordinance for being turned in by the Tuesday before the meeting.
Council President: Oh, well, then I guess we’ll have to change that because that’s we’ve never enforced it before.
City Manager: The city clerk is choosing to enforce the ordinance.
Council President: We, well, we’ve never enforced that before. And there’s also a policy that says the staff is supposed to have their stuff in by noon on Wednesday and packets are supposed to go out on Thursday, and we’re supposed to get a draft agenda on Tuesday.
City Manager: What I’m hearing you say is you’d like to discuss item F7 at the next meeting.
Council President: What I’m saying is, I want to discuss [pauses] notes…
City Clerk: That also could be F8, discuss agenda item request policy and how we go about because it’s not being efficient. I think what both of you are saying as you want F8 to be discussed at next meeting,
City Manager: It’s a good idea.
Council President: F what discussed?
City Clerk: F8 discuss agenda item request policy.
Council President: I don’t have an F8.
If this exchange seems odd to you, then you’re not alone. On the question of following policy, the council president should be following policy, not violating it. Leadership should not be doing less than others, but instead as much or more than others.
If a topic had been known at a meeting two weeks prior (discussed “ad nauseaum”), then there was ample time for a council member to present the topic before the subsequent meeting’s deadline. Government officials, themselves, should be expected to follow their deadlines. Their first reflex should not be to make it easier on themselves (“Oh, well, then I guess we’ll have to change that”).
The argument that a policy should not be enforced on equitable grounds might apply in cases of discrimination, disability, or destitution, but those exceptions would not apply to an elected official.
We would expect the students at Whitewater High School to turn their work in on time, so that they would develop the habits that make America a competitive society.
We should expect at least as much of government officials.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:47 PM for 13h 38m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council and Whitewater Unified District School Board meet at 6 PM.
A comment here at FREE WHITEWATER from last week seems fundamentally sound:
Come on guys, take care of the basics. Stop show boating. Streets businesses lakes. If you want to hear yourselves talk run for assembly and congress why dont you?
One would hope for more successes in the allotment between failures and successes. In the allotment between public and private, private should receive the greater share. To order these spheres and outcomes from worst to best, one might begin with government failure, then private failure, then government success, with private success as the most desirable condition.
Electing representatives only to find they can’t grasp principles and priorities is a regrettable mistake. Paine described the problem aptly:
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
When Whitewater was most in need of a better public direction (Great Recession, 2007-2009), the city council’s external focus offered nothing useful. Now that Whitewater is most in need of a better private direction, the city council’s internal focus offers nothing but a distraction.
While one may have to address, more often than one would wish, a council’s misdirection, one does so only to highlight by implication a better private course.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 6:07 AM and sunset 7:48 PM for 13h 41m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1794, the Battle of the Fallen Timbers leads to political shifts over control of the southern Great Lakes:
The battle took place amid trees toppled by a tornado near the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio at the site of the present-day city of Maumee, Ohio.
Major General “Mad Anthony” Wayne’s Legion of the United States, supported by General Charles Scott’s Kentucky Militia, were victorious against a combined Native American force of Shawnee under Blue Jacket, Ottawas under Egushawa, and many others. The battle was brief, lasting little more than one hour, but it scattered the confederated Native forces.
The U.S. victory ended major hostilities in the region. The following Treaty of Greenville and Jay Treaty forced Native American displacement from most of modern-day Ohio, opening it to White American settlement, along with withdrawal of the British presence from the southern Great Lakes region of the United States.
Wisconsin finds itself in the national news over conditions of the Waupun Correctional Institution. Mario Koran reports Inside a ‘Nightmare’ Lockdown at a Wisconsin Prison (‘Inmates who have been confined mostly to their cells for more than four months describe unsanitary conditions and a dearth of medical care. Experts say dire staffing shortages are likely to blame and are leading to lockdowns across the country’):
Prisoners locked in their cells for days on end report walls speckled with feces and blood. Birds have moved in, leaving droppings on the food trays and ice bags handed out to keep inmates cool. Blocked from visiting the law library, prisoners say they have missed court deadlines and jeopardized appeals. Unable to access toilet paper, one prisoner tore his clothing into patches to use for tissue.
One thousand inmates incarcerated at Waupun Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in southeast Wisconsin, have been confined mostly to their cells for more than four months, ever since prison officials locked down the facility and halted many programs and services.
More than two dozen inmates at Waupun, the state’s oldest prison, have revealed to The New York Times that since late March they have been forced to eat all meals in their cells, received no visits from friends or family, seen complaints of pain ignored and been allowed limited, if any, fresh air or recreation time.
The state’s Department of Corrections has offered little explanation about the lockdown or why it has lasted so long.
….
More than half of the prison’s 284 full-time positions for correctional officers and sergeants remain unfilled, state data shows. The shortages have severely hobbled the facility’s ability to operate safely, according to former wardens, correctional officers and members of Waupun prison’s community board.
“If I was the warden right now, I’d have that institution on lockdown, too,” said Mike Thurmer, who once ran the prison and now sits on its community relations board. “You can’t have a 40 or 50 percent vacancy rate and not have at the very minimum a modified lockdown.”
What is happening in Waupun illustrates a reality at prisons across the country: Lockdowns, once a rare action taken in a crisis, are becoming a common way to deal with chronic staffing and budget shortages.
Government is obligated to fill the positions for which it rationally budgets. If it has budgeted incorrectly, planners must be held accountable for poor planning. If it has failed to fill positions, managers must be held accountable for failure to achieve employment targets.
Whether corrections officers, construction crews, or crossing guards, those responsible for planning and execution are obligated to meet defined, approved targets.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:50 PM for 13h 44m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1812, the American frigate USS Constitutiondefeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”
Meet the chef with severe food allergies. Kathlena has made it her life mission to create delicious ‘free from’ alternatives for people suffering with restricted diets, but her own allergies are so severe that she can’t taste her delicious creations, and often has to wear a full face respirator to cook.
Despite this, she started an amazing resource called RAISE that provides safe recipes for people living with food allergies and dietary restrictions. Do you have a request for a peanut free Reece’s cake? No problem. Maybe even a dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan chocolate cream tart? Piece of cake.
