On Neighborhood Associations. The Housing Task Force encouraged the creation of neighborhood associations. These associations will be well intentioned, but when they act on their own, they’ll risk overly intrusive actions toward their neighbors. When they seek action from the city, they find either too much or too little support. When they’re on their own,…
City
City, Free Markets, University
Whitewater Common Council Meeting for 9/2: Student Housing (Part 1)
by JOHN ADAMS •
In this post, I will consider the Common Council discussion on university housing, and off-campus student housing. It was the most heated portion of the meeting, but some of the quiet, scattered remarks during the conversation were no less telling. On Enforcement. Consider the situation of Atty. Terry Race, who lives near the university. …
City
Whitewater Common Council Meeting for 9/2: The Joint Court Proposal
by JOHN ADAMS •
Early in Whitewater’s September 2nd Common Council meeting, there was a brief mention of a failed effort to establish a joint municipal-university court, with jurisdiction over certain local offenses in Whitewater. I have watched this proposal since June, and wondered how long it would be before the effort was abandoned. It had to be…
City
Whitewater Common Council Meeting for 9/2: Downtown Whitewater Quarterly Report.
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has a collection of local merchants organized as Downtown Whitewater, Inc. Tami Brodnicki is the Executive Director of the group, and she presented last night as part of a quarterly presentation schedule. The group supports and seeks local merchants for Whitewater, and one example of that support is the upcoming September 12th and…
City
Whitewater Common Council Meeting for 9/2: Public Access Channel
by JOHN ADAMS •
Like many towns, we have local public access cable channel. (We have a second one for our local campus station, too.) We have a weekly newspaper, and a few websites, but little local news coverage otherwise. The public access channel is our best bet for unedited coverage of municipal meetings and events. Although there…
City
Taste of Whitewater: September 12 & 13 (Video 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
City
2008 Taste of Whitewater: September 12 & 13
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets, University
Student Housing in Whitewater: Our Mistaken and Repetitive Approach
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are two stories from yesterday’s Janesville Gazette that describe the pressures of student housing: Students Spread Out in Whitewater City, School Address Housing Concerns. The stories ably describe arguments that residents of Whitewater have have made against student housing for years with no change in demand. I certainly don’t believe that demand for student…
City
First-Time Home Buyer’s Workshop: September 20th, 2008
by JOHN ADAMS •
I received an announcement from the Community Development Authority about a first-time homebuyers workshop, taking place on September 20th. The program will take place on 9/20 at the Cravath Lakefront Center. Early registration is encouraged, by calling 262-473-0500. Topics at the workshop will include establishing good credit, developing a household budget, what to look for…
City, Free Markets, Planning
Randal O’Toole on the Inefficiency of Mass Transit
by JOHN ADAMS •
In a post from July 28th, I questioned the idea of a mass transit proposal for the Janesville-Milton-Whitewater area. Over at the Cato Institute, there’s a link to a daily podcast featuring scholars from that think tank. The always interesting Randal O’Toole, author of The Best Laid Plans, speaks on the inefficiency of mass transit.…
City
Municipal Exaggeration: Dream Towns.
by JOHN ADAMS •
UPDATE: A clever reader writes with insight into the data — Regarding your post about the ridiculous nature of calling the 101,000 population in the micropolitan area “Whitewater,” I just wanted to clear up that the census designates metropolitan and micropolitan areas based on counties, meaning that this micropolitan area is most likely all of…
City
Municipal Exaggeration: Police Statistics.
by JOHN ADAMS •
In our small town, our city manager publishes a weekly report that he calls, helpfully, the City Manager’s “Weekly Report.” (He includes the quotation marks, presumably so that we know that “Weekly Report” is just a term of art for a weekly report.) I read it each week, and if I stopped, I wonder if…
City
The Failure of Municipal Public Relations
by JOHN ADAMS •
In almost every community with financial or political challenges, local officials will feel the temptation to respond to trouble with a feel-good public relations campaign. It’s a foolish idea. In a town like my town of Whitewater, Wisconsin, that favors local orthodoxy, the temptation is nearly irresistible. There are three problems with officials’ use of…