FREE WHITEWATER

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City, Enforcement, Government Spending, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, University

Scrounging Through the Junk Drawer

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When UW-Whitewater’s enrollment was expanding, and so student housing was in demand, some residents opposed to more rental properties rushed to local government in a futile effort to hold back the student tide, through zoning or code enforcement. Now that there’s a worry that student enrollment is declining, and rental properties are less in demand,…

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, WEDC

Foxconn: Evidence of Bad Policy Judgment

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From the moment then-Governor Walker signed the Foxconn deal, it was clear to national economists (from across the political spectrum) that it was a dubious idea. As the months wore on, one could find more – and detailed – critiques of the project. FREE WHITEWATER has post after post addressing these sound critiques. The posts…

Babbittry, Blogging, City, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Newspapers, Open Government, Press

Sunshine Week 2019

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It’s Sunshine Week in America: a seven-day focus from the American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on “access to public information and what it means for you and your community.” One doesn’t have to be a reporter (and bloggers, for example, are not reporters) to understand the importance…

CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Free Markets, State Capitalism, WEDC

Fruitless Embrace

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Free-market economist Veronique de Rugy asks Why Are Republicans Embracing Economic State Planning?: China’s post-Mao economic boom has occurred only to the extent that the country became capitalist. With “Made in China 2025,” Beijing’s 2015 anticapitalist plan for an industrial policy under which the state would pick “winners,” China has taken a step back from capitalism. (It recently dropped the “Made…

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Harassment, University

A Community Listening Session for a New Chancellor

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UW-Whitewater, a public university in Whitewater, Wisconsin, now seeks a new chancellor, and the selection committee recently held a community listening session to request suggestions about a new campus administrator. (However useful an invitation to a community listening session might be, it’s worth noting that observation, reflection, and commentary answer to a different – and…

City, Culture, Demographics, Ethnicity, Police

Accreditation in Context

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There is a liturgical tradition in which parishioners reflect on what they have done and what they have left undone.  A secular equivalent for Whitewater would ask a policymaker to consider not merely what has been done so many times before, but what might – and should have been – done, years ago and now.…

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Transportation

Private Businesses Craving Public Money

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A private group may invite whom it wishes, but the guests invited tell much about the organization doing the inviting. Long years ago, straining even the finest recollection, private businesses relied on their own efforts for success (or so one has heard).  Look about now, even in small and struggling places, and one finds well-fed…

City, Local Government, Open Government

The Disorder Nearby

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All the communities in our area are struggling economically, but yet Whitewater has fared better than neighboring places. The commitment of a community to transparency inoculates against an inferior, disordered politics of the sort one sees in the nearby cities of Jefferson and Milton. Look at Jefferson (where city officials dissemble about relationships with fraudulent vendors)…

City, Local Government, Open Government, Television

Whitewater’s Channel 990

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Update 1, Tuesday morning: Channel 990 is televising properly again. Here’s my original email, and a reply from Whitewater’s city manager, Cameron Clapper.  (See also a message below from Kristin Mickelson, Whitewater’s PR & Communications Manager.) Original email: Good morning, City Manager Clapper. I hope this note finds you well, and enjoying a snow day in Whitewater.…

Books, City, Culture

The Pictures on the Wall

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During a recent visit to the public library here in Whitewater, I stopped to look at a display of photographs, of framed pictures each showing a resident of the city posing with a book. The residents were easy to see, but the book titles harder to identify, so I drew closer to the exhibit.  As…

Charity, City, Culture, Local Government, Poverty, School District, University

The Recent Cold

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It’s been unseasonably cold in southeastern Wisconsin this week, and in Whitewater that presents a challenge for the disproportionately large number of impoverished residents (some of whom occasionally lack utilities, even at the most unfavorable times). The three large public institutions in the city – municipal government, school district, and public university – have collectively dozens…