Sometimes one sees something impressive. Last night was one of those times. After all but a few votes have been counted, the Whitewater Schools’ referendum has likely passed. I wrote about the referendum on January 18th, and made two principal points: (1) the referendum faced long odds (“I’d guess that a referendum in the spring…
City
City
Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters April 2012 Newsletter
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters’ April 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: April 3 (Tuesday) Event: Municipal Elections and Presidential Primary Date: April 19 (Thursday) Event: Health Issues,…
Beautiful Whitewater, Books, City, Press Release
Young Auditorium receives grant to host 4th Community Big Read
by JOHN ADAMS •
Young Auditorium receives grant to host 4th Community Big Read For the fourth year in a row, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded a local partnership to bring the national Big Read initiative to Rock, Walworth, Jefferson and adjacent counties. Mark Twain in the Rock River Basin will be the focus of this…
City, Free Markets, Immigration, Libertarians, Politics
The Right and Immigration
by JOHN ADAMS •
Steve Chapman, writing in a reposted 2007 article at Reason, explains Why the Right Shifted on Immigration. Chapman thinks the shift began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, when many conservatives no longer saw immigrants trying to reach our shores as proof of America’s sound economy and society. If so, consider the cynicism of…
City, Marketing
The Best Municipal Marketing is Good Policy and Good Law
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Charity, City
Whitewater Farm Donates 151,000 Eggs to Needy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Beautiful Whitewater, City
The Flowing Well
by JOHN ADAMS •
City
Whitewater’s 3.20.12 Common Council Meeting
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sometimes the most telling discussion within a meeting occurs early, in remarks offered nearly offhand. That was true with last night’s Common Council meeting, in remarks from her city manager, Kevin Brunner. Two of his topics deserve mention. On the Innovation Center, the city manager distributed a glossy one-year anniversary book, and a glossy tri-fold…
City, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Innovation Center Executive Director Admits Building’s ‘Major Accomplishment’ Was Taking $11.5 Million in Public Money
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s no better summary of the millions wasted on Whitewater’s Innovation Center than that from the building’s own Executive Director, Robert Young: The major accomplishment was raising $11.5 million to make this community-university project possible… It’s not a perfect summary, of course: Young cleverly uses the term ‘raising,’ as though the money for the building…
City, Hip & Prosperous, Holiday
Fiesta
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s another sketch-post on how to make Whitewater hip & prosperous. Whitewater should lead with what she uniquely and distinctively offers. What the city has today, and will have tomorrow, is a multi-ethnic and multicultural population. Our Mexican-heritage population is more than a fact; it’s an opportunity for everyone. We should lead with that unique…
City
Wanting, and Getting, Newcomers
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve written before about making Whitewater hip and prosperous. Those sketch-posts were part of an ongoing series about the city. Today, not a suggestion but an observation: the kind of energetic newcomers that Whitewater needs will be unsettling to many of those longtime residents now looking for newcomers. (Some residents would not like anyone new,…
City
The Good Work of the City
by JOHN ADAMS •
The good work of the city is mostly unseen, and so unrecognized. One finds it in the private, charitable and civic commitments of so many. These civic-minded people do what they do because they believe it’s right, and they do so without expectation that they’ll find their efforts mentioned in newspapers, websites, blogs, or on…
City
Whitewater’s 2.23.12 Common Council Meeting
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a Common Council meeting tonight (3.6.12 @ 6:30 PM), and embedded below is the most recent session before tonight, from 2.23.12. One may watch the video and draw one’s own conclusions. To me, there’s seems a ponderous quality to the session. I’d say there’s a discernible gap between promises of planning (for example, what…
City
Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters March 2012 Newsletter
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters’ March 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: March 10 (Saturday) Event: Candidate Forum, Municipal Elections Where: 10-11:30 AM, City Hall Council Chambers Date: March 15 (Thursday) Event:…