FREE WHITEWATER

City

Redefining Reality

Tony Evers, State Superintendent of Public Instruction and candidate for governor, has a new video about a political effort to redefine reality. The video is about Scott Walker, but it might as easily have been about any number of local politicians in Whitewater or other small Wisconsin towns, with tax breaks for out-of-towners and cronies…

Film: Tuesday, July 31st, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Black Panther

This Tuesday, July 31st at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Black Panther @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Ryan Coogler directs the two-hour, fourteen-minute film: “After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T’Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve…

Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs

Residents of Whitewater (or at least the ones attracted to corporate welfare) had a chance this winter to hear a state operative extol the benefits of billions in public money for Foxconn.  The local 501(c)(6) business league, the Greater Whitewater Committee, brought in a guest speaker to tout the project.  See A Sham News Story on…

The UW System & Whitewater

It’s simply stating the obvious to report that Shrinking tuition revenue, growing expenses put UW campuses in potentially precarious position: A gap is growing between how much money University of Wisconsin System campuses collect in tuition and how much they budget for costs directly tied to educating students, such as faculty pay and advising. That raises serious questions about what…

The Limits of Messaging

UW-Whitewater quadruples parking without a permit fine Whitewater, like many small towns, is marketing mad: claims, professions, insistence, publicizing, and declarations exceed actual conditions. Newly-increased fines over Whitewater’s available parking spaces on campus illustrate this problem. The local campus is large, relative to the non-campus parts of the city, and that places pressure on both…

Public Records Request of 6.26.18 (Grocery)

Yesterday’s post addressed open government aspects of an unrecorded council meeting.  See Public Records Request of 6.26.18 (Open Government).   This post will consider a slide presentation from the unrecorded Whitewater Community Development Authority presentation of 6.19.18 on grocery store recruitment.  Embedded immediately below is that slide presentation, and a link to the 5.19.16 Perkins supermarket…

Foxconn’s Bait & Switch

It’s a groundbreaking ceremony for (a much smaller) Foxconn today.  This very morning one reads confirmation – yet again – that taxpayers’ billions for Foxconn are paying for a project that’s now a giant bait & switch. Rick Romell reports Foxconn scales back plans for its first factory in Mount Pleasant: The Foxconn Technology Group manufacturing…

Public Records Request of 6.26.18

Here’s a brief post to describe a public records request that I submitted to the City of Whitewater and Whitewater Community Development Authority on 6.26.18. The request – in summary – comprised three items: 1. Any audio or video recording of the 6.19.18 Common Council session, including a recording of only part of the full…

Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions

One reads that God, hearing the grumblings of the ancient Israelite community, once fed that people: 11 The LORD said to Moses: 12 I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them: In the evening twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will have your fill of bread, and then you will know that I,…