View image | gettyimages.com People are attracted to good opportunities, and repulsed by bad ones. At the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, there’s no better sign of a failed organization than that the agency has become a building that needs a revolving door: Since WEDC’s creation in July 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers as…
Development
Development, Economy, Government Spending, Marketing, Public Relations, Taxes/Taxation, WEDC
WEDC’s Development Gurus Fail Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
All Whitewater has heard Chancellor Telfer, City Manager Clapper, and CDA Chairman Knight tout money from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation as though it were manna from Heaven. We were supposed to see this money as they meant us to see it, as blessing and providence. Meanwhile, each time those officials flacked these public funds,…
City, Cycling, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Planning
In Support of the Complete Streets Initiative for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, January 20th at 6:30 PM, Common Council will consider a Complete Streets ordinance (item O-3) for Whitewater. A Complete Streets program simply requires planners to consider bike and pedestrian travel, for example, when either building or reconstructing streets within our city. (I listened closely to discussion of the idea at our 12.16.14 Common…
City, Development, Government Spending
The Peddler’s Egg
by JOHN ADAMS •
A peddler visits a local town, and announces that he has a Fabergé egg to sell. Townspeople gather near his freshly-painted cart to see the shiny jewel. The seller contends his merchandise is the Rose Trellis Fabergé egg. He extols the beauty of the object, tells listeners that he recently purchased it from a museum,…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, WEDC
Clap Your Hands, It’s Galactic Marmoset Week
by JOHN ADAMS •
So one reads that a few of Whitewater’s town fathers, toadying to the WEDC’s public-relations machine, are crowing that the Innovation Center is part of GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK. Global? That’s not so much. One can easily show these striving WEDC public-relations men how to take something small and make it look really big. Behold, I…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, WEDC
Another Holiday on the Calendar
by JOHN ADAMS •
Oh dearie me, having been thinking these months about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, somehow GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK slipped my mind. How, truly, could one forget a week-long celebration of white-collar tech startups? Perhaps a lifetime of celebrating both religious and national holidays, and the actual accomplishments of ordinary people who have overcome harrowing obstacles, has…
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Infrastructure, Local Government
Is Whitewater’s Public Infrastructure Undeveloped? No.
by JOHN ADAMS •
I wrote on Friday that I would consider a bit more about Whitewater’s 2015 proposed budget today. This post’s title frames how to think about the budget: the city’s fiscal condition is only a small part of the local economy’s condition. Important, to be sure, but also small. Many city services are ordinary and commonplace…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?
by JOHN ADAMS •
JANESVILLE—The city of Janesville is losing its second economic development staff member in as many months. Ryan Garcia, the city’s economic development coordinator announced his resignation effective Nov. 15, according to a city release Wednesday… Via (subscription req’d) Janesville economic development coordinator resigning @ Janesville Gazette. Perhaps the economy-meddling, big-government conservatives at the Gazette will…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, Marketing, Press
In a City of Sixty-Thousand, Fifteen People Aren’t a Sign of Community Enthusiasm
by JOHN ADAMS •
Nearby Janesville is considering a downtown revitalization, and at the most-recent meeting for the large & expensive proposal, only fifteen-people attended. The Gazette wrote about the plan with this headline: Last meeting for Janesville’s downtown plan doesn’t reflect ‘widespread championship’ (subscription req’d). Well, no, it doesn’t. (The online version of the Gazette had a more…
Culture, Development, Marketing, Politics
The Bad Bet Placed on an Eternal 2004
by JOHN ADAMS •
Some local proposals, in Whitewater or nearby places, look like they were designed by someone from 2004. Some in that year assumed that local residents would support public funding for any designated purpose, that claims of job-creation would be swallowed whole, that the press would support those claims relentlessly, that press support would make a…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, WEDC
WEDC Afflicted with Internal Strife
by JOHN ADAMS •
Not long ago, Messrs. Telfer, Knight, and Clapper met in Whitewater with Reed Hall, so-called CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, to ‘celebrate’ another round of public money in the service of crony capitalism. These gentlemen must have thought – somehow – that all this would look grand and spectacular, that it would be…
Books, Business, Development, Economy, Local Government, Press
The Book on Janesville
by JOHN ADAMS •
Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story. I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com: Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM…
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Development, Government Spending, Hip & Prosperous, Local Government
Whitewater’s Independent Merchants: Supporting Small Bricks Over Bytes
by JOHN ADAMS •
A quick summary of my views on business would be to say that (1) private markets are typically superior to government regulation, subsidies, or game-rigging, (2) government should be impartial to different kinds of businesses, (3) government ‘business’ or ‘development’ efforts are often self-promoting efforts of officials, bureaucrats, and hangers-on who are parasitic of public…
City, Development, Marketing
One Reason a Comprehensive Marketing Plan Can’t Work (Now) in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s talk, about every six months or so, about launching a comprehensive marketing plan for Whitewater. (This must be version 17.0 by now.) I’ll set aside the problem of past efforts at marketing the city dishonestly, as though prospects were too dim to see through blatant exaggerations or omissions about life in town. (See, The…