In cities big and small, groups and companies that are in decline often try to conceal bad news about their performance or popularity. An easy way to attempt this is to change the unit of measure by which the group reports membership, readership, production, popularity, etc. To disguise a precipitous decline in production, for example,…
City
City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Local Government, Poverty
Three Motivations for Local Government Intervention (and One That’s Sadly Missing)
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, we’ve had any number of local projects, some involving millions, in a town of only thousands. Broadly, one may assume three motivations for local intervention: (1) genuine if mistaken efforts at community betterment, (2) the vanity or economic interest of parties to a project, or (3) a desire to prevent demographic and…
CDA, City, Development, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
About that iButtonLink Announcement…
by JOHN ADAMS •
An aspiring musician tells his friends that he performed to a standing-room-only crowd at Carnegie Hall. Needless to say, they’re impressed. “It’s great that your songs drew such attendance,” they observe. “Why, yes,” the musician replies, “it must have been my music, although I suppose the free tickets and fifty-dollar gift packages might have…
City, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, New Media
An Anecdote About an Appeal to (but not of) Authority
by JOHN ADAMS •
Years ago, around when I first started writing, someone told me about a conversation that person heard about blogging. I’ll share it with you, and explain why it was, initially, hard for me to understand. The person telling me about the conversation was reputed to be especially clever, and that reputation actually made it harder…
City, Elections, Politics
The Spring Local Election Outlook
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s local election list is now available, and as with most years, it’s a mostly-uncontested affair. There are no challengers for the WWUSD School Board seats, and only Aldermanic District 4 has challengers for a seat on Council. (District 4 has always produced a fair share of candidates for one office or another; it’s a…
City, Freedom of Speech
What the ‘End of the Beginning’ Means
by JOHN ADAMS •
I wrote in October, about drug policy, and quoted Churchill’s famous observation about the state of the Allied war effort after the British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein (“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning….”)…
City
Predictions for 2014
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s my amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions. The list for 2014, the FW seventh-annual edition: 1. In the governor’s race, Scott Walker will: A. Win the city and the state B. Lose the city but win the state C. Lose the city and the state D. The…
City
Review: Predictions for 2013
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s my amateur version of the late William Safire’s long-standing tradition of offering annual predictions. The list for 2013: 1. In 2013, UW-Whitewater will win the following number of national sports championships: A. None B. One C. Two D. More than two Adams’s guess: D. More than two. I think three, making 2013 another very…
City, Local Government, Press
An Enduring Value of Local News
by JOHN ADAMS •
One of the pleasures of reading local press accounts of a meeting in Whitewater is that through those stories one sees how local insiders want to be portrayed. It’s as close to an official’s Dear Diary entry as one is likely to find. Readers will discover clues to the concerns, preoccupations, and worries of…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Open Government, Politics
It’s Not a Communications Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
A few months ago, during a public meeting, a commissioner mentioned that an applicant and the applicant’s neighbors might have done more to communicate with each other. (I thought that was true, too; as it turned out, there was a great deal of communication in the weeks afterward, all to the good.) It’s not…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Visualizing Bad Policy
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending
Janesville & Generac’s Bus: Requesting Reductions
by JOHN ADAMS •
At Whitewater’s mid-November council meeting, Generac declared it would pay considerably less for a transit bus than Janesville Transit had projected (seventy-two percent less), and the city and university agreed to pay fifty percent less than Janesville Transit requested of them. Note to the city administration: multi-billion-dollar Generac easily got the better of those figures.…
City, Elections
Whitewater’s Notice of Spring Election
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s fall, but our spring elections (the process actually beginning in late fall) will not be that long away. Appearing below is a City of Whitewater notice about those races: Councilmember Positions up for election in 2014. NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that at an election to be held in the City of Whitewater, Wisconsin, on…
Business, City
November 30th: Small Business Saturday
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve long been opposed to government’s role in picking winners between big and small businesses, but there’s no doubt that Whitewater’s local merchants – including many small, independent businesses – have much to offer. Why not make this Saturday (and other days, too) their days, choosing them for your destination?