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City, Courts, Elections, Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

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Yesterday’s spring primary included a statewide contest for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with incumbent Justice Dan Kelly and challengers Judge Jill Karofsky and Professor Ed Fallone. (It was the only race on Whitewater’s ballot, as there were no contested local races). A few remarks — Statewide. Kelly and Karofsky will move on to the spring…

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Public Relations, WEDC

Do Yorkshire Terriers Dream of Being Wolves?

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Perhaps Yorkshire terriers dream each night of being ferocious wolves.  If that should be so, and if even tiny dogs imagine themselves as mighty predators, then there may be a natural explanation – in animals and people – for the yearning of smarmy local development men for gigantic corporate welfare schemes. Of those men and…

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Press Release, WEDC

A Reminder About Opportunity Zones: Bad Policy Flacked Locally

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Those following what passes for economic policy in Whitewater know that this website has been rightly critical of the economic opportunity zones that were part of Trump’s tax bill. See About that Trump Tax Bill, More About that Trump Tax Bill, and The Trump Tax Bill: That’s Not Reform. Jenny Schuetz, commenting on part of Trump’s…

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Ethics, Misconduct, Sexual Harassment, University, UW System

At UW-Whitewater, Beverly Kopper’s Tenure Was about More than Beverly Kopper

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Former UW-Whitewater chancellor Beverly Kopper was on leave – apparently for part of that time under federal or state medical leave act provisions – before her resignation from UW-Whitewater. I’ll not speculate about the circumstances under which she claimed leave under the law. There’s another matter that requires attention. There’s talk at UW-Whitewater these days…

Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Development, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Trump, WEDC

‘But Not in Conditions of Their Own Choosing’

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It’s a truism to say that all people make history, but not in conditions of their own choosing: Admittedly and sadly, the local boosterism of the pre-Trump years is now in retrospect worse than one might have initially believed: across America boosters who peddled false descriptions & junk solutions during the economic hardship of the…

CDA, City, Culture, Local Government

More Predictable Than an Atomic Clock

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If one read beforehand the agenda for last night’s common council meeting (1.21.20), one would have seen the applicants for various boards (particularly the Whitewater Community Development Authority). Seeing them, and knowing what the last ten years on the CDA have been like, one could have confidently predicted which candidate would be recommended for appointment.…

City, Culture, Ethics, Philosophy, Religion

Perspectives Narrow or Wide

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One of the hopes for small-town living is that, among the residents of such a place, one will commonly find plain speaking and humility. Perhaps there are places like this, but sadly small towns, by themselves, are not enough to overcome unworthy pride. On the contrary, within such places, sometimes a tiny faction – confusing…

Art, City, Culture, Local Government

Newnan, Georgia & Whitewater, Wisconsin

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One reads, in the New York Times, about How 17 outsize portraits rattled a small southern town (‘Not everyone was ready for what they saw’). After a white-nationalist rally in Newnan, Georgia, that town put up 17 large-scale banner portraits, images of the ordinary people who make up the town. They hang from the perches of…

Aside

Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay: Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman highlight one of the failures of public subsidies for businesses in places like Whitewater — Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay (article linked in today’s Daily Bread post). Subsidized job-creation in those circumstances is more political point than practical achievement.