FREE WHITEWATER

City

City, Courts, Elections

Local Elections 2019: Municipal Court (Part 4 of 4)

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Whitewater has a municipal court, and since a municipal court then a municipal judge presiding over that court. In the course of the campaign between Chad Buehler and Patrick Taylor, the candidates have discussed questions of experience, background, and perspective.  They’ve both offered outlines of how they would serve, but they both face this same…

Bad Ideas, City, Elections, Government Spending, Local Government

Local Elections 2019: City Council (Part 3 of 4)

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In 1926, Hugo Gernsback began publishing Amazing Stories, an American science fiction magazine of fantastic, but entertaining, tales.  The magazine was benign: even if the stories described impossible or improbable events, they caused no practical harm. One cannot say the same about lingering fantasies of fiscal and economic policy in Whitewater, Wisconsin: they produce real…

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, March 26th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Green Book

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This Tuesday, March 26th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Green Book @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building: Green Book (Biography/Drama/Comedy/History/Music) Tuesday, March 26, 12:30 pm Rated PG-13; 2 hours, 10 minutes A working-class Italian American bodyguard/bouncer (Viggo Mortensen) becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist (Mahershala…

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…

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)…