This Wednesday at 12:30 PM, there’s a free showing (with complimentary popcorn & beverage) of A Separation, an Academy Award & Golden Globe winner! This film, in Farsi with English subtitles, speaks in a universal language about family, and the ties that bind and rein us in. A woman in Iran seeks a divorce from…
City
City, Corporate Welfare, Green Energy Holdings, Waste Digesters
The End of the Waste Digester Proposal in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Earlier this week, I posted about a closed-session agenda item of the Tech Park Board about ‘negotiations’ with Green Energy Holdings concerning a waste digester in the city. Of the scope of those negotiations I had no idea. As readers surely know, I think there are sound objections of municipal finance, community development, economic policy,…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Press
Ceaseless Press Errors About the So-Called ‘Innovation Express’
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a recent story over at the Daily Union that repeats a prior distortion about thousands in public funds for a bus to cart a few private workers of multi-billion-dollar Generac to their homes far outside Whitewater after work. The whole proposal is an exercise in crony capitalism. I’ve written about the mistaken use of…
City, Corporate Welfare, Green Energy Holdings, Waste Digesters
The Tech Park Board and a Waste Digester
by JOHN ADAMS •
Bad leaders and ideas often go in only one direction: from bad to worse. One sees the truth of that in the agenda for today’s Tech Park Board meeting: 13. ADJOURNMENT to Closed Session, TO RECONVENE APPROXIMATELY 45 MINUTES AFTER ADJOURNMENT TO CLOSED SESSION, per Wisconsin Statutes 19.85(1)(e) “Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget: Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
So a multi-billion-dollar corporation (market cap $1.77 billion) wants thousands of taxpayer-dollars from a small city to fund a bus the corporation uses to shuttle her workers to and from other towns where they actually live. The city being imposed upon is Whitewater, Wisconsin, a tiny municipality, like many others, struggling just to balance her annual operating budget. Whitewater’s situation involves juggling to find ways…
Business, City, Laws/Regulations, New Whitewater, Planning
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget: Downtown Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Under the 2013 draft budget, there’s the possibility of the City of Whitewater increasing the contribution for Downtown Whitewater, Inc., to compensate for the loss of funding via Tax Incremental District 4. While I’d surely rather the city didn’t prop up businesses, and I’d rather it didn’t fund just one area at that, I candidly…
City, Government Spending
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget (Tax Incremental Financing)
by JOHN ADAMS •
What’s tax incremental financing? It’s the creation of a tax district where a municipality spends public funds for improvements in roads, etc., to encourage private investment in that blighted area. The hoped-for revenue from that additional – incremental – new private investment goes to pay for the municipal spending on roads, etc. It’s an if-you-build-it-they-will-come…
City, Food, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Whitewater’s ‘Transient Merchant’ Ordinance is Only Half That
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has a Transient Merchant Ordinance, at Chapter 5.28, et seq., of her Municipal Code, but the ordinance’s title is only half right. It’s not merely an ordinance that restricts food trucks’ sales, but also and necessarily consumers’ purchases. It’s part Transient Merchant Ordinance and part Consumer Restriction Ordinance. Each and every time a city…
City, Freedom of Speech
The Best Authority is a Good Argument
by JOHN ADAMS •
In a competitive marketplace of ideas – of left, right, center – each idea questioned and considered – the best authority is a well-reasoned position. Simple appeals to personal authority – of the kind that have been the foundation of Whitewater’s politics over the last generation – just aren’t good enough anymore. Who you know…
City, Government Spending, Local Government
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget (Overview)
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s budget season for the City of Whitewater, running into November, and in this post I’ll offer a few overview remarks. Subsequent posts will consider aspects of the budget in greater detail. The City of Whitewater’s Budget, not Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Budget. A bit of perspective — something lacking in past years — is in order.…
Business, City, Laws/Regulations
The Transient Merchant Ordinance
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a discussion at Common Council tonight of our “transient merchant ordinance.” The text under discussion is part of the agenda packet, at numbered pages 33 – 42. This current provisions of our municipal code are online as well. Council’s session begins at 6:30 PM in City Hall the Municipal Building.
City, Government Spending, Taxes/Taxation
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s municipal administration released its draft 2013 budget to the public last Friday. I’ve linked to it below (where readers can review, download, or print the one-hundred fifty page document). Common Council will begin consideration of the budget tonight, with tonight’s discussion addressing a portion of the full proposal: Revenues-General Fund, Debt Service-Revenue and Expense,…
City
The Old Guard Can’t See the Trees for the Forest
by JOHN ADAMS •
One often hears that a person, seeing only parts but not the whole, cannot see the forest for the trees. With Whitewater’s old guard, something like the opposite is true: they can’t see the trees for their (odd) view of the forest. There’s a reason for this: beyond the many thousands of capable and productive…