Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset 5:58 for 10h 38m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 76.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM. 

  On this day in 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed. 

Pres. Reagan popularized a Russian proverb for Americans when he spoke of arms control with the Soviet Union under the principle ‘Trust, but verify’ (Doveryai, no proveryai). 

The Whitewater Common Council’s majority operates under a different principle: ‘Trust, no verification needed.’ 

Councilmember David Stone’s remarks from the 8.15.23 session of the Whitewater Common Council are an example of the no-verification-needed approach: 

Councilmember Stone 

Well, I looked at the statute and I found and I don’t have it in front of me. You could ask the city attorney to do that as well, that it is allowed for counsel to hire outside firms on specific issues as the council sees

City Manager Weidl
Did you enter any of that into the public record? Documents to be discussed by the council need to be entered into the public record. So if you do have that information, it should be turned into the clerk so she can add it to the public record.

Councilmember Stone

Okay, I just don’t have it in front of me right now.

Video @ 10:01.

A fundamental issue is not that Stone might be right — it’s that he doesn’t present evidence that he might be right. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he has a responsibility to support his claims at the time he makes them. 

Stone wants others to trust his assertions, but does not offer a way for them to see the basis of those claims.

One can guess, and hope, that at Whitewater High School, a student would be expected to cite to his sources in a term paper. It would not be enough for the student to say he forgot, or to ask the instructor to ask someone else to look the sources up. 

The proper standard of citation that one would expect of a student at Whitewater High School should be the minimum standard for the Whitewater Common Council. 

A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.

 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset 5:59 for 10h 40m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:30 PM, returning to open session at 7 PM. 

  On this day in 2001, Apple Computer releases the iPod.

Typically (but not always), special interests speak deceptively in the language of good government. They will ask for cooperation, partnerships, collaboration, openness, and transparency. To get close, they will speak the language and make the sounds of those they seek to manipulate. 

Their technique is effective with well-intentioned people who assume (mistakenly) that everyone else is well-intentioned.

There are other approaches special-interest men will try, if they’re denied their unjustified requests. They may express outrage (how dare you?! insane! outrageous!). This outrage has both a cause and an intended effect. The cause is, most often, an insult to their excessive sense of entitlement. It hurts them that others do not see them as special, gifted, or better than others. So they squeal and shriek when someone reminds them that they aren’t what they think they are, or they don’t deserve an extra portion of dessert, etc. 

This expressed outrage often works an effect favorable to the special-interest types: others simply back down to avoid a confrontation.

If speaking in the language of good government doesn’t work, and if outrage doesn’t work, they may try to show how they are, in their view, more deserving than others. They will not do so themselves, however; they will find a catspaw who will praise how deserving they are in grandiose terms (how much these types supposedly love, care, or feel). These claims will not be measurable (one person’s love against another, for example). Indeed, how could they be? Nonetheless, grandiosity will be their starting point. 

Finally, special-interest men will threaten to wreck what they cannot have. That’s a last resort, but if it comes to it, they’ll destroy what they cannot manipulate.

They start, however, with the language of good government, in the way that a wolf might approach a flock in sheep’s clothing.

A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.