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Daily Bread for 1.7.25: Assorted Points on Development

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 23. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:37, for 9 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1610,  Galileo Galilei makes his first written observation of the four Galilean moonsGanymedeCallistoIo and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until later.


For today, a few points about development in our city.

1. Tax Incremental Financing Done Right. (Pay As You Go, PayGo). One of the oddest changes in Whitewater’s political scene is hearing older men, who flacked tax incremental financing their way for years, suddenly declaring tax incremental financing undesirable when now done the right way. I’ve been a critic of Whitewater’s old way for years, and how it is strange it is to hear the men who implemented the old way now complaining about the right way. (In years past, Whitewater spent too much up front to attract a developer. PayGo eliminates that risk.)

What’s the right tax incremental policy that the city’s pursuing now? It’s pay as you go, where incentives are only offered incrementally as development takes place. That’s not a small difference — it’s a fundamental requirement of a good, long-term plan.

On 12.19.24 there was a discussion at the Whitewater Community Development Authority on tax incremental financing. At that meeting, a consultant to the city, Kristen Fish-Peterson, thoroughly answered questions about the city’s new approach. Her breadth of knowledge1 speaks for itself, with explanations (beginning at 14:12), on pay as you go incentives (14:17), up-front investment money from a developer (14:24), vetting of a developer’s plan (14:51), the developer’s need to meet a but-for test (15:54), and calculation of the details of a proposal (18:53). Fish-Peterson answered questions about the city’s method, each reply being sensible and satisfactory to a reasonable person. Even from the skeptical perspective of this libertarian blogger, this was good work. (If this isn’t good, then nothing in this town will ever be good.)

A story about our past: Over the years, people from outside the city have sometimes asked me about how development here was taking place. Typically, they were aware that Whitewater’s development was underperforming other communities. When I would describe how tax incremental financing was implemented in the city, where we had a failed tax incremental district, they reacted to that old approach the way someone would react to a flock of flying black hyenas2.

2. History & Purposes of Tax Incremental Financing. Residents may have heard, as I have heard, that tax incremental financing isn’t meant for residential projects. That’s false. Across America, for decades, communities in Wisconsin and beyond have used tax incremental financing for these very purposes. Whitewater is simply catching up with the rest of America and rest of Wisconsin. That a given person has never had apple pie does not mean that apple pie doesn’t exist, isn’t tasty, or isn’t enjoyed in communities across Wisconsin and America.3

3. More than One Housing Option Going Forward. There’s an argument that because of Whitewater’s current mix of housing, the city should have only one kind going forward. That’s both false (there’s a reason that successful private developers come to the city with a mix of options, because those options meet actual consumer demand) and the claim that the present necessarily constrains future options is often an incumbent’s ploy to prevent options that an incumbent wants to prevent. ‘No further growth except what I like‘ rather than what many want and need places the first-person singular ahead of the far larger plural.

Of course we can do more than one thing at a time, indeed, we need to do several things at the same time for any single endeavor to succeed. (No one says I’ll eat, but I won’t drink; I’ll buy food, but I won’t buy liquid. At least, no one says that for very long.)

4. Mutually Supporting Initiatives. The relationship between public and private (when public is done right) its mutually supportive and should be synergistic. When Whitewater shores up her fundamental public fire and police services, she makes the city more attractive to private businesses and future private residents. No private person wants to build in a city where, for example, her business will simply burn down. She’ll build where she has well-staffed departments to help safeguard her property. That’s a public expenditure for a private, community gain.

Like private markets, a successful municipal policy, cannot be based on a selective pitting of one program against another. Private market transactions involve myriad interactions. Buyer & seller isn’t a buyer & a seller, but hundreds of each leading to the goods and services behind that seemingly single transaction. Try to separate or impede a single exchange, and you’ll have no transaction at all. If Whitewater’s locked in a false opposition between some public and much greater private opportunity, her public services will have been ill-used.

5. Modification as Means of Prohibition. Sometimes people will say let’s chop this project apart: how ’bout half? (It’s usually people who have not taken the time to create or nurture a project that say this.) As it turns out, half an animal is usually a dead animal. Some people will propose division sincerely, others insincerely because they know it will lead to a project’s ruin.

The same is true for endless delays with a project. The late Fred Thompson, while starring in Days of Thunder, explained succinctly how delay sometimes leads to ruin.

6. Opportunity Goes Where It’s Welcome and Some Losses are Irrecuperable. Oh yes, both undoubtedly true. Wisconsin’s a big place, and America’s even bigger. Capital goes where it’s wanted. And, once it’s gone, the moment is gone, and it won’t (and will have no need) to come back. In a free society, later often means never4.


  1. It’s true, as someone said to me this week, that historically I have used the term ‘development man’ disparagingly in Whitewater, of those who for years pushed unsound ideas. Perhaps it’s time, these many years later, for the connotation to change. It’s not my field, but like a man who can tell the difference between a podiatrist who improves his patient’s gait and one who leaves his patient lame, there’s an evident difference. ↩︎
  2. That is, they reacted with shock and concern. ↩︎
  3. Apple pie does exist, it is tasty, and is enjoyed in many places. ↩︎
  4. You might have said hello, she might have invited you to table, you might have had coffee, you might have learned something in conversation, but how sad if she’s already walked out the door… ↩︎

Daily Bread for 1.6.25: Proposals That Will Make Whitewater Stronger and More Prosperous

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 26. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:36, for 9 hours, 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.


Whitewater has before her a better future, should she choose it. There are two proposals before Whitewater Common Council on Tuesday night that together will make Whitewater stronger and more secure. A link to the portion of the packet with these proposals is available here. I’ll use documents from that packet to describe each proposal. Each proposal was sensibly approved by the Whitewater Community Development Authority on votes of 5-1-1 (one of the votes in each case being an abstention).

A person, a prudent person, takes care of himself or herself adjusting to the different stages of his or her life. A household, a prudent household, takes care of its members adjusting to the different stages of their lives. So it is with a community: prudent communities take care of themselves by embracing the opportunities around them. Prudent people don’t willingly stop eating and breathing, prudent households don’t allow their members to stop eating and breathing, and prudent communities don’t stop adjusting and adapting. Those communities that stop decline and perish.

Communities that sensibly adjust and adapt thrive, for themselves and their posterity.

These proposals are an extraordinary (lit., remarkable) opportunity for Whitewater. One might say the success of these efforts is bringing to Whitewater the Extraordinary Ordinary from which successful communities elsewhere have been made stronger.

Together, the proposals are worth many millions in new investment for Whitewater.

A bit about each proposal — those who have crafted these opportunities will, certainly, address them far more thoroughly tomorrow evening and in the months ahead.

The first proposal, of Premier Real Estate Management, is an offer to purchase a 10.96 acre parcel of vacant land (Tax Parcel No. /A4444200001) owned by the City located on East Main Court to develop a 60-unit multi-family housing project on the property. The City of Whitewater would receive $317,840.00 for the sale of the now-vacant land. It’s a good price for land now unused.

The proposal has the support of the Whitewater Police Department, the Whitewater Fire Department, and the Whitewater Public Works Department for low call-volume or limited demand on city services. See Reports of Respective City Departments for Proposal @ Parcel /A4444200001.

The proposed construction presents with a design and features suitable for market-rate residences.

The developer has a record of success for market-rate residences in other Wisconsin communities. By design and location, these two-bedroom, two-bathroom units with private entrances and garages are obviously crafted for professionals and families looking for market-rate residences.

In the second proposal, the Neumann-Hoffmann project, Neumann Companies proposes a significant residential project at a portion of Tax Parcel WUP 00324 lying north of the Hwy. 12 Bypass and a portion of Tax Parcel WUP 00325 lying north of the Hwy. 12 Bypass and east of Indian Mound Parkway on about 67 acres.

This area is now vacant, but would bring to the community about 150 single-family homes
60 multi-family apartments.
This is the larger of the two projects and quite impressive.

The city’s agenda packet shows the proposal has the support of the Whitewater Police Department and the Whitewater Public Works Department for low call-volume or limited demand on city services. See Reports of Respective City Departments for Neumann-Hoffmann.

This spot has been waiting for a project like this. Everyone gains from this proposal: those many who buy homes, a smaller number who rent apartments, and an entire community that gains more families with children for our schools, more employment, more shoppers our merchants, and more members for our clubs & associations.

In projects like these, with much-improved tax incremental financing (more about that and other points tomorrow), Whitewater fortifies and strengthens herself for the decade ahead.

Rain or shine, so to speak, our community will be stronger for these new additions.

Both proposals deserve the support of the Whitewater Common Council.


Daily Bread for 1.5.25: At Last, the Right Economic Development Structure for Whitewater

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:35, for 9 hours, 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 34.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.


On the evening of December 19th, the Whitewater Community Development Authority held its monthly meeting. Embedded above is the full video of that meeting. Item 3 of the meeting agenda included PowerPoint slides describing the process tax incremental financing in Whitewater. (I’ll address general and particular elements of tax incremental financing tomorrow. For today, what’s of interest is the orderly & transparent process of Whitewater’s new Office of Economic Development and much-improved Community Development Authority.) Embedded below are the slides that describe Whitewater’s process:

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Methodical: an invitation to meet, a written proposal from a developer, a burden of proof on the developer, a review by the city of the plan’s feasibility, a calculation of a payback period, a legal draft agreement if the proposal meets the requirements of the city, and then a presentation to the CDA1.

What does a private man, this libertarian blogger, see in these slides? An orderly and transparent process, embodying principles of open government, visible and understandable to anyone in our city.

That orderly and transparent process offers the best chance of producing sound results through government action in support of a common prosperity. If there is to be government, and I recognize that there need be, then it should — and must — be like this.

How it should be — how it always should have been.

It hasn’t always been like this. Indeed, only four years ago, under a prior municipal administration, an effort at reform failed, and was quickly, regrettably abandoned.

On January 23, 2020, at a meeting of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, then City Manager Cameron Clapper proposed that Whitewater come into alignment with the best practices of other cities, by suggesting (as part of a longer discussion), placing the development director in our city hall to make his or her work more conventional and transparent.

His remarks begin at 2:58 on the video below, and a lengthy discussion continues thereafter:

One month later, for a February 20, 2020, the agenda for that meeting included an item for a new and more modern development structure. It was, however, pulled from the agenda and so left unrealized. At that meeting, the men who for so long dominated development in this city offered a revisionist history that cast their influence as the most productive, and self-servingly omitted their many mistakes2. See Whitewater’s Still Waiting for That Boom.

We’ve a new and transparent structure now. At last, we’ve something open, rational, reliable. Long time coming. The days under the old CDA of a distressed tax incremental district, a cease and desist order from the federal government over a conflict of interest, hundreds of thousands wasted on low-quality startups, and years without a grocery until this administration made it happen are now over.

Whitewater’s past development structure was opaque, its efforts ineffectual at best, and wasteful or conflicted at worst. How much did residents know about what was happening under the old structure? Not enough, that’s how much.

And look, and look: no one has to be a government man to see that these processes are objectively more open. (I’m not in the government, in any role, and never will be.) Open and transparent government, by the way, is a right of all private residents that benefits all private residents. It wasn’t easy to get to this point, I wouldn’t wonder. All the community benefits from it.

The fruits of that better process include a superior grasp and use of tax incremental financing3, and a high-quality set of housing proposals recently approved on 12.19.24 on a 5-1-1 (one abstention) vote at the Whitewater Community Development Authority.

Those are topics for Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Update, evening of 1.5.24: I’ll switch the order, with discussion of high-quality set of housing proposals for Monday and various topics including tax incremental financing on Tuesday.


  1. Much better than times past when the CDA couldn’t even find its paperwork. (Those times were always blamed on someone or something else, making Whitewater’s old CDA perhaps the state’s biggest user of the dog-ate-my homework defense.) ↩︎
  2. They’ll talk about the past, if it’s their contrived version of the past. Otherwise, they’d rather move on. ↩︎
  3. I’ve been a longtime critic of how Whitewater approached tax incremental financing in the past, and rightly so. The municipal administration’s present approach is wholly different and far sounder. ↩︎

Hurrah! List of Reassuring Things in Whitewater, 2024

Here’s the first annual FREE WHITEWATER list of reassuring things in Whitewater. (It’s a companion to the eighteenth annual Boo! List of Scariest Things in Whitewater, 2024.) The list runs in alphabetical order.  ALDI.  This administration brought ALDI. Whitewater wanted a supermarket and the new administration brought one. Well done. The old guard mucked around for…

Daily Bread for 9.14.24: A Food Truck Festival @ the Lakefront

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:35, and sunset is 7:04, for 12h 29m 36s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1994, the rest of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.



Britain’s Red Arrows soar over Niagara Falls on Canadian tour:

The UK’s Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, flew over Niagara Falls’ trio of waterfalls as part of a tour of Canada marking 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Daily Bread for 8.20.24: The Young

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:08, and sunset is 7:47, for 13h 39m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1794, American soldiers are victorious at the Battle of Fallen Timbers:

American troops under General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeated a confederation of Indian forces led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnees. Wayne’s soldiers, who included future Western explorer William Clark and future President William Henry Harrison, won the battle in less than an hour with the loss of some 30 men killed. (The number of Indian casualties is uncertain.)

The battle had several far-reaching consequences for the United States and what would later become the state of Wisconsin. The crushing defeat of the British-allied Indians convinced the British to finally evacuate their posts in the American west (an accession explicitly given in the Jay Treaty signed some three months later), eliminating forever the English presence in the early American northwest and clearing the way for American expansion.

The battle also resulted in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, in which the defeated Indians ceded to Wayne the right of Americans to settle in the Ohio Valley (although the northwestern area of that country was given to the Indians). Wayne’s victory opened the gates of widespread settlement of the Old Northwest, Wisconsin included.


I had heard, and now have read, that the Irvin Young Auditorium will rebrand itself as The Young.

The change is a clever, contemporary way to describe the venue. The Young is pithy and, in its way, more familiar than the longer formal name (as people in families have sometimes have diminuitives for their relatives’ names).

Well done.


Underwater video shows marine life flourishing in railcars:

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority deployed two decommissioned railcars into the Atlantic Ocean to create a new reef habitat.

Daily Bread for 8.19.24: A Public Health Vending Machine in Jefferson, WI

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:07, and sunset is 7:49, for 13h 42m 01s of daytime. The moon is full with 100 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The full board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, to return to open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1944, the Liberation of Paris begins as the city’s residents rise against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.


I don’t believe that Whitewater has a public health vending machine, but it would be a good idea to install one. Jefferson, Wisconsin has done so, as WKOW reports:


Rangers Band and Tag Northern Royal Albatross Chicks Across the Colony:

The Northern Royal Albatross chicks from the Top Flat and Top Flat Track nests received their steel leg bands and Geo Location Sensor (GLS) tags on August 9. Watch rangers and staff from the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) arrive to affix a stainless-steel band to the right leg of the Top Flat Track chick in this highlight.

Daily Bread for 5.18.24: Buildings Designed to Limit Catastrophe

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:27 and sunset 8:15 for 14h 47m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s professional journalism site, WhitewaterWise, has been admitted to the Milwaukee Press Club. It’s a well-deserved addition to the oldest continuously operating press club in North America. Bloggers are not journalists (we’re modern-day pamphleteers), but one needn’t be (or wish to be) a watchmaker to appreciate having a watch. Whitewater benefits from professional journalism. (See from 2023 Professional Journalism Returns to Whitewater.)

Whitewater WindUp meets this morning at 9 AM to select the winner of their first startup competition. Best of luck to all the finalists.

On this day in 1804,  Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.

On this day in 1863, the Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, when after nearly three weeks spent encircling Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union forces had bottled up their enemy inside the city and prepared to attack it. Seventeen different Wisconsin regiments were involved in the assault that began the next day (8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 29th, and 33rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 1st, 6th and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries as well as the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry).


The building designed to limit catastrophe:

Daily Bread for 4.20.24: Surviving Extinction in Dubai

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:02 and sunset 7:44 for 13h 41m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2008,  Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.


How Did This Animal Survive Extinction in Dubai?:


See Ingenuity’s Flight Map: 72 Helicopter Flights on Mars:

Daily Bread for 1.6.24: A Capybara Spa Day

 Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see flurries in the morning then cloudy skies with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:36 for 9h 11m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in his State of the Union address.


Capybara Spa Day:

The largest rodent in the world is a Capybara—and they are VERY cute. Native to South America, these semi-aquatic gentle giants are known for their peaceful, sociable personalities. But there’s something special about the Capybaras in Japan’s Izu Shaboten Zoo – here they live a pampered life, drawing crowds of people to see them.

Spending winter days relaxing in their personal onsen (hot bath), eating fruit they relish their time in the warm waters—an activity that has become a tradition in about 20 zoos across Japan since its accidental discovery in 1982. The Izu Shaboten Zoo, where we find ourselves in today’s Great Big Story, is particularly famous for this practice – sit back, relax and get cosy with these cute Capybaras.


Stunning auroras seen during Hurtigruten Coastal Express astronomy voyage:

Friday Catblogging: Doctor Prescribes a Cat

Embed from Getty Images Cathy Free reports A Virginia woman was feeling sad. Her doctor prescribed her a cat (‘Her doctor, Earl D. King, said he wrote it down ‘because people sometimes don’t follow your instructions’): Robin Sipe’s eyes filled with tears as soon as her doctor entered the examining room. “My cat had recently…