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…
Development
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…
Development, Government Spending, Local Government
Projects Have a Price, Immediately and Consequently
by JOHN ADAMS •
Government will sometimes offer a look at a program or proposal, with a list of supposed benefits. There may be a set of colorful photographs, and a list of nebulous but optimistic (even grand) declarations of all it will offer (growth, development, jobs, opportunity, etc.). Toads in the press – and like cane toads, they’re…
Development, Local Government, Open Government, Planning
Shhh….Milton’s City Planning is a Big Secret
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over in Milton, with a ‘development professional’ for a mayor and a city administrator who’s quitting for a job where he can spend more time with his family, there’s a new municipal development: MILTON—A proposed restaurant and convenience store at the corner of Sunnyside Drive and Highway 59 is “somewhat monumental” in that it kicks…
Business, City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Local Government’s Vendor Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
The risk of reliance on a big outside vendor for a big project in a small town is easily described: The vendor will be everywhere initially, will purr contentedly during work, but disappear quickly after the final check clears. It will want the money, will say anything to get it, but without any respect for…
City, Development, Open Government
Show Your Work
by JOHN ADAMS •
#172284535 / gettyimages.com We’re in a new round of big-project proposals for Whitewater. Here’s a suggestion, that this municipal administration would do well to follow, for any large-scale proposal: (1) Release any feasibility study, analysis, or performance contract on the city’s website a month (thirty calendar days) before Council consideration. (2) Hold a public hearing…
City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government
Why Not Build Another Los Angeles (by the Bridge to Nowhere)?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Typical Los Angeles Resident Los Angeles is America’s second-largest city, and is world-renowned for her diverse economy and global role in commerce, entertainment, and art. All its people are reputed to be exceptionally beautiful, talented, and clever (at least by their own, uniform accounts). If Los Angeles should be so valuable – and it is…
City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government
Public Spending on Infrastructure
by JOHN ADAMS •
A simple rule about public spending on infrastructure, that some forget, and others would prefer remained that way: adding infrastructure is only beneficial if a resulting economic gain (should there be one) is greater than the cost of its acquisition (capital, labor, etc.). There is no way around this. Just about everything one hears about…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Press
The Gazette’s Ideological Albatross
by JOHN ADAMS •
It was Carl Denham who once declared, famously, that “It was beauty killed the beast.” In the same way, nothing matters more for a publication of news and opinion than its ideology, its intellectual outlook. A misguided outlook will prove debilitating, if not fatal. A strong set of principles helps a publication steer true in…