The Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters’ March 2011 Newsletter is out, and it includes articles and a calendar of upcoming LWV events. The latest copy of the LWV newsletter is available as a link on my blogroll, and is embedded below, with coding through Google. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events for the Whitewater-Area League…
City
City
Fiction by the Numbers
by JOHN ADAMS •
A man walks into a Perkins restaurant, and orders an omelet, juice, and coffee. The order arrives promptly. After a while, the waitress checks on him, and asks if he’s finished eating. One would expect the man to answer the waitress’s question with either “yes, thank you’ or “no, not yet, thank you.” One wouldn’t…
City
Whitewater’s 2010 City Performance Plan (Part 3)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s the final part of a series of posts on Whitewater’s 2010 City Performance Plan. Parts 1 and 2, and the document itself, appear in the preceding posts. Far worse than a ginned-up success rate, or a shameless claim about tax incremental financing, is the apparent expectation that residents should believe these shady statements. I…
City
Whitewewater’s 2010 City Performance Plan (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s part two of a series of posts on Whitewater’s 2010 City Performance Plan. Part 1, and the document itself, appear in the preceding post. Far worse than a ginned-up success rate is a claim so shameless that a reasonable person would never venture the proclamation. Under City Manager Kevin Brunner’s supposed accomplishments, one finds…
City
Whitewater’s 2010 City Performance Plan (Part 1)
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the Whitewater 2010 City Performance Plan, City Manager Kevin Brunner contends that in 2010, municipal leaders accomplished 87.1% of their goals. (I have embedded the full document below.) That sounds like an impressive success rate, until one considers that many of the goals listed are ordinary tasks that one should perform fully as part…
City, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Planning, Taxes/Taxation, University
Another Innovation: Whitewater’s ‘Innovation’ Center as an Eleven-Million Dollar Meeting Hall
by JOHN ADAMS •
The federal government gave millions in tax dollars to Whitewater, the Whitewater Community Development Authority, and UW-Whitewater for a reason. Here’s that reason: September 7-September 11, 2009 …$4,740,809 to the Whitewater Community Development Authority, the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, and the City of Whitewater, Wisconsin, to fund construction of the new Innovation Center and infrastructure…
City, Government Spending, Politics, Taxes/Taxation
Cuts to State Shared Revenue: Whitewater’s Politics of It All (First Take)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whether Gov. Walker’s proposal to restrict public-employee collective bargaining is victorious or abandoned, cuts to state shared revenue are on the way, for Whitewater and its school district. I have supported cuts to government spending, not as a matter of budget repair, but as a long term-goal — for smaller, more limited, more responsible government.…
City, Education, Government Spending, Politics, School District
State Aid to Cites, Schools Sure to Dry Up
by JOHN ADAMS •
Walker did offer a fuller rationale for his insistence on stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights. “You’re going to see major cuts in local government,” he said of his upcoming budget, now set to be unveiled March 1. He argued that the only way he can ensure these cuts do not lead to…
City, Freedom of Speech, Police, Walworth County
Anti-Union Buffoonery in Whitewater, Wisconsin
by JOHN ADAMS •
I saw an odd ‘news item’ today, about a protest in Whitewater, that supposedly involved monitoring by the police. It was said to be a ‘heavy’ police presence, by the account that I saw. If the account’s true, then that presence is both foolish and wrong. If the account’s false, and there wasn’t really a…
City, Free Markets, Libertarians, Liberty
Sundry Libertarian Themes
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve had an eclectic set of posts lately, perhaps more even than usual. Someone asked me if there’s a theme to them, and there is. These recent posts reflect a libertarian view (although not exclusively a libertarian one.) I’ll list some posts, with a few remarks on each. First, what do we believe? Libertarians support…
City, Politics
Our New Jeffersonian Era?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Salena Zito offers a forecast: Today we are in the midst of a cultural U-turn away from a Hamiltonian meritocratic-elitist, centralized-power society to a more Jeffersonian Main Street focus, with state and local governments as the primary powerbrokers. I don’t believe that local government is less elitist; it’s just that the quality of municipal managers…
Charity, City, Politics
Public Choice Theory and Its Opposite
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Library of Economics and Liberty, there’s a section on public choice theory. Here’s a definition from that website: As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.” The wishful thinking it displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good. In the conventional “public…
City
Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters February 2011 Newsletter
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters’ February 2011 Newsletter is out, and it includes articles and a calendar of upcoming LWV events. The latest copy of the LWV newsletter is available as a link on my blogroll, and is embedded below, with coding through Google. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events for the Whitewater-Area League…
City, Politics
Nietzsche and the Dark Hope Against a Better Local Politics
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s been a while since I last read anything of Nietzsche, but his work — even when profoundly wrong — is memorable. There’s a passage from Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, that is, itself, about memory. It’s useful for understanding a certain, irresponsible view about how Whitewater’s politics should work. Imagine the lack…