In many cities, of disparate sizes, there is a strong theory that if one fixes the downtown – makes it look nicer, improves streets, lighting, and building facades, etc., then the town will undergo a more thorough renaissance. If you build it, or rehabilitate it, they will come… In measures small and moderate, Whitewater has…
City
City, Police
Jim Coan and Larry Meyer’s Shameful Legacy
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Star Packaging raid is nearly eleven months on, but the damage that Police Chief Jim Coan and now-retired detective and Larry Meyer did in the false name of ‘identity theft’ endures. (See my earlier post, “The Identity Theft Excuse”, for an explanation of how the raid on Star Packaging was falsely justified.) It’s a…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
What Does Driving into Whitewater from Highway 12 Suggest about the City?
by JOHN ADAMS •
If a person saw what I described yesterday – a small sign, a ramshackle cluster of dull yellow motel buildings, a small cluster of private, single family homes, etc. – what should he reasonably conclude? First, he might see all of this as a failure of public development, a lack of sidewalks, street lights, directional…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Arriving into the Whitewater from the West.
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s bracing to enter Whitewater from Highway 12: the initial sights are non-descript, with little to distinguish Whitewater from a smaller town. We are a city of fourteen thousand, with a university campus, but our problems become apparent when entering the city from the west. Here’s what a traveler would find, as conditions are now:…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Community Prosperity: Introduction
by JOHN ADAMS •
We hear much about community development in Whitewater, now more than ever. We depend on our fellow residents; their success or failure affects us greatly. It was Aristotle who famously remarked that one who freely lives outside a city is either a beast or a god. Americans are not so convinced of town, let alone…
City, Inbox Reader Mail
Inbox: Reader Mail
by JOHN ADAMS •
This small website has been publishing for less than a month, but in that time it’s seen steady readership growth, and a fair amount of reader e-mail. I thought that I would take a moment to answer some of the questions that I’ve been asked. (As I publish pseudonymously, I ‘ll not publish the names…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Whitewater’s Economy
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ll write over the next few posts about the state of the economy in Whitewater. I mentioned economic problems as one of the challenges facing Whitewater when I wrote that Our municipal government is narrow-minded, with a poor grasp of economics, and clings to burdensome regulations that make Whitewater unattractive to businesses. We gain housing,…
City
The Smaller Pie
by JOHN ADAMS •
Many years ago, I read an interview in which the now-disgraced Assembly Speaker, Scott Jensen, gave advice for those aspiring to politics. He said that one of the most important advantages for a politician was to be a third generation Wisconsin resident. He spoke both practically and approvingly: what he felt was necessary, and what…
City, Police, Press
Coan on Star Packaging from the WPD Newsletter, Volume 48
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Star Packaging raid offers insight into how Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan presents his police force to the community, and as a consequence, the message he sends to his team. No action of Coan’s force has been as justly controversial as the Star Packaging raid, and at each stage his statements underlie an unwillingness…
City, Police, Press
Journal Sentinel on Star Packaging Raid
by JOHN ADAMS •
On May 1st, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a thoughtful, informative story on the Star Packaging raid. Georgia Pabst wrote the story, running on page B1, of the paper. Here are some nuggets from that story, that may not have been printed in local papers, with my comments following: 1. From City Councilman Maxwell Taylor,…
City, Free Markets
Open Letter: “White, Non-Minority?”
by JOHN ADAMS •
UPDATE, 6-4-07 I received a reply from the Community Development Authority to my open letter, and the reply related that the CDA website is in transition. There will always be some positive achievements from the past that should be continued, but other perspectives and legacies should be relegated only to distant memory. Rome was not…
Beautiful Whitewater, City
Beautiful Whitewater: Our Skate Park
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Press
A Normal Perspective Would Help Us All
by JOHN ADAMS •
In most cities and towns, a few organizations and institutions play the role of community watchdog. Whitewater has no one who plays that role, as the Whitewater Register — our hometown paper — doesn’t behave like a community watchdog. In other towns nearby, the newspapers are willing to ask questions of elected and appointed officials.…
City, Free Markets
“White, Non-Minority?”
by JOHN ADAMS •
I believe strongly in growth for Whitewater, and in the the importance of attracting new businesses to our city. The Whitewater Community Development Authority is part of that effort. Here is how the Community Development authority describes itself, from its website: The Whitewater CDA is a Housing and Community Development Authority formed in 1983 by…