The Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters’ May 2012 Newsletter is out, featuring both articles and a calendar of upcoming LWV events. This latest edition is available as a link on my blogroll, and is embedded below. Upcoming events: Date: May 19 (Saturday) Event: Annual Meeting Where: 10 AM Fairhaven Fellowhip Hall Date: June 5 (Tuesday)…
City
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Elections, Law, Liberty
Beautiful Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Nature
Go Native!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has many well-manicured lawns, and on a few of them, some honey bee hives. The lawns are lovely, and the honey bees (despite depleted aggregate numbers from colony collapse disorder) are good pollinators. But what if there’s something different, perhaps even better, than conventional lawns and common honey bees? There is something different —…
City
Whitewater’s present, future
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve had a good bit of email asking about possible changes in Whitewater’s municipal administration, and whether I think her city manager will take a job elsewhere. On Friday, I wrote an initial reply to the news of City Manager Brunner’s candidacy for a post in Fond du Lac: Qui-Gon Jinn’s Sound Advice for Whitewater.…
City
Qui-Gon Jinn’s Sound Advice for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
The work of this beautiful city is the work of many thousands. This has always been true, and it will always be true. I’m reminded today of the words of Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn to Obi-Wan Kenobi: Obi-Wan Kenobi: I have a bad feeling about this. Qui-Gon Jinn: I don’t sense anything. Obi-Wan Kenobi: It’s…
City
A Generac bus by any other name
by JOHN ADAMS •
Let’s assume that a city decides to give thousands (and that the state and federal government give tens of thousands more) in taxpayer funds to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar corporation’s bus line. It’s a strong drink of crony capitalism, of course, and someone might even say as much. (See, for example, A Local Flavor of Crony…
City, New Whitewater
New Whitewater’s Inevitability
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve written before about the transition — one that I believe is certain, as much as anything human can be — from Old Whitewater to New Whitewater. A summary of my thinking: There’s a transition taking place, slowly but ineluctably, from a stodgy, stagnant Whitewater to a more hip & prosperous one. We’ve probably about…
City
The Landmarks Commission’s Sensible Proposals for Transparency & Best Practices
by JOHN ADAMS •
At last week’s Common Council meeting (4.17.12), there was a proposal to modify part of Whitewater’s Landmarks Ordinance (Chapter 17.04, et seq.) to (1) establish certificates of appropriateness for Landmarks Commissions approvals now authorized under Whitewater’s municipal code, and (2) extend the approval process to city-controlled properties as well as private ones. These are both…
City, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Amps, Business, and the Innovation Center
by JOHN ADAMS •
There was a story recently about a tenant at the Whitewater Innovation Center that makes a device for controlling a guitar amplifier. The story’s notable for four reasons: (1) it under-reports the actual cost of the Innovation Center and Tech Park by about half, (2) the current uses of the Innovation Center are so different…
City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Planning
Distressed TID 4
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an observation from 2011 from Whitewater’s city manager to consider about the distressed status of tax incremental district 4. (I came on the observation while reading this week about Generac.) Before going further, I’ll observe that when one talks about distressed tax incremental districts, one’s talking about rare birds. By the assessment of the…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Taxes/Taxation
A little consistency would be in order
by JOHN ADAMS •
Around two years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue changed the method by which municipalities valued private properties. The state concluded — correctly — that municipalities were often over-valuing and thus over-taxing private properties. For businesses, a correct, lower assessment meant less in taxes; for municipalities, an over-valuation was useful to extract as much in…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare
A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Multi-city Generac, a large industrial concern, wants government money — federal, state, local — for a bus line to bring workers from the Janesville-Beloit area to its plant in Whitewater. The bus line’s really good for no one but Generac’s employees. The times for the proposed line are tailored not to community needs, but to…
City, Elections, Hip & Prosperous, Politics
Hip & Prosperous through Political Clarity
by JOHN ADAMS •
Most people don’t think about a contest for a single council district when they’re thinking about ways to make Whitewater hip and prosperous. In fact, political races — and how we describe them — make a big difference. Not just a race, but the way we describe it (or any other contest), matters. It’s the…
City, Elections, Uncategorized
Political Recap: The Whitewater Council Races
by JOHN ADAMS •
The spring primary for Whitewater’s Common Council ended about as one might have thought. The at-large seat broke for Kidd, Abbott won comfortably in her district, and the Binnie-Hartmann District 4 race was very close (probably closer than one would have guessed). One would expect an incumbent or establishment candidate to prevail in Whitewater, and…