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City, Daily Bread, Federal Government, Immigration, Local Government, Nativism, Never Trump, Religion, State Government

Daily Bread for 1.22.25: National, State, and Local Topics

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with morning snow and a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset is 4:55, for 9 hours, 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 42.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

There is a Lakes Advisory Committee meeting at 4:30 PM and the Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1968, the Apollo Program‘s Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first lunar module into space:

Once the craft reached orbit and the LM separated from the S-IVB booster, the program of orbital testing began, but a planned burn was aborted automatically when the Apollo Guidance Computer detected the craft was not going as fast as planned. Flight Director Gene Kranz and his team at Mission Control in Houston quickly decided on an alternate mission, during which the mission’s goals of testing LM-1 were accomplished. The mission was successful enough that a contemplated second uncrewed mission to test the LM was cancelled, advancing NASA‘s plans to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

For today, a few points: national, state, and local. In February, I’ll split national topics into a new site, with state and local topics staying here at FREE WHITEWATER. Regrettably, national topics may intrude into Whitewater’s life for the worst of reasons (as they have in the past), and so one ordinary person’s preferred distinctions may understandably again yield to imposed circumstances.

In Whitewater, the national has become local. National attention over immigration in Whitewater is at best an interference with the natural growth and development of this city, and at worst would be an inhumane displacement that no majority within this city has (or ever will) support1.

A campaign of shock and awe only works on those who are susceptible of being shocked and awed2. Anyone who watched the 2024 presidential campaign would have expected all of this. Expectation and patient preparation in reply to what one heard and saw leaves one neither shocked nor awed. All of this was easily predictable.

The particular demands of national, state, or local governments should not, and must not, trump fundamental individual liberties. That’s a genuine libertarian view; no one should expect anything different from a genuine libertarian.

All populism, whether of the left (Revolutionary France) or right (America today), assumes strength in its members and weakness in its opponents. Sometimes that’s true, but other times false. Populists, soaked in their own fervor, cannot discern the character of others until conflict begins. Roosevelt was right of the American commitment to liberal democratic traditions, that no one should mistake out kindness for weakness.

There’s much to dispute and doubt, from this libertarian’s viewpoint, with the views of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On some fundamentals, however, she’s right, as with her contention that those within the American tradition should reject both the Confederates and the Nazis. No one is lawfully required to reject those malevolent ideologies, yet failure to do so places one outside the liberal democratic3 paradigm. (Her manner of presentation is skillful, although of a style from the generation after my own. Ocasio-Cortez is our children’s age, and she speaks in the easy, familiar manner of a social media generation.)

Of course Elon Musk’s gestures (twice) at an inauguration event were Nazi sieg heil salutes. He knew what he was doing, and people of normal discernment knew what they saw. He likely practiced in front of a mirror, and crafted an implausible denial beforehand. Musk, a supporter of Germany’s racist AfD party, wouldn’t be the first fascist to practice in front of a mirror.

Wisconsin has now joined other states in opposing Trump’s attempt to rewrite through a mere executive order the United States Constitution’s express provision of birthright citizenship:

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday that will end automatic citizenship for children whose parents are foreign nationals, whether they’re here legally or not.

On Tuesday, a coalition of 18 states sued Trump and federal agencies in U.S. District Court in Massachussetts, claiming the order violates the Constitution. The ACLU filed a separate legal challenge in New Hampshire on behalf of immigrant advocacy organizations on similar grounds.

It would, they said, upend a foundational aspect of the United States of America: that anyone born here is from here.

The executive order, called “Protecting the Value and Meaning of American Citizenship, would prevent federal agencies from issuing Social Security cards, passports or welfare benefits to U.S.-born children in a sweeping reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

….

Its first sentence sums up the citizenship right guaranteed at birth: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

A court case soon tested whether the amendment also afforded birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents challenged the government’s claim that he wasn’t a citizen.

The Supreme Court decided in 1898 that “children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status,” according to the American Immigration Council.

See Lauren Villagran, Trump executive order restricts birthright citizenship; states sue, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 21, 2025.

Trump’s birthright order — by which he alone presumptuously claims to rewrite the law — is also incoherent as an attempt to do so. Josh Marshall explains:

But if you accept that place of birth isn’t controlling, everyone’s citizenship becomes at least uncertain or not clearly documented — and for many whose parents or grandparents immigrated, the uncertainty becomes very real. If any court takes this seriously, they’ll have to untangle that and possibly end up with tens of millions of Americans who may need to prove that they’re actually citizens. Even if you accept the false claim that birthright citizenship can be abolished by anything other than a constitutional amendment, there’s no way that everyone’s citizenship — and I mean everyone’s — will now rest going forward on the claims made in an executive order.

See Josh Marshall, Day Two, Talking Points Memo, January 21, 2025.

Finally, a few remarks about the prayer service at the National Cathedral yesterday. (The National Cathedral is a private Episcopal church in Washington, D.C. The name national does not mean public ownership.) The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, speaking from the pulpit, addressed Trump and others in attendance. She called for mercy (a virtue) toward gays, lesbians, and migrants. Trump, predictably, did not like these remarks, and wants an apology.

He deserves nothing of the kind. He’s weak, easily insulted by gentle words, and lashes out in response to his own narcissistic injury.

Some Americans, I included among them, worship with Episcopal congregations much like the one at the National Cathedral4. Our beliefs don’t come from Trump, won’t yield to Trump, or any of the populists who insist that God is as they last learned about Him at a political rally.

One more point about these loud and proud nativists: they lack long-term memories. One will hear that they’ve been here for a few generations, and so that entitles them to precedence. Someone else could say that his families on both sides, of German & French ancestry, came to this continent before the Revolution, and so he should have precedence5. Then again, someone could say that his forebears came to this continent in bondage even earlier. Finally, another person could rightly say that his forebears were here thousands of years earlier.

It is enough that people are here now as our neighbors.

___________

  1. As I discussed with residents last night in multiple conversations, no one in this city — other than residents who may be personally affected — wants national immigration policy to disrupt life in this city less than I do. There’s only loss in all of this. ↩︎
  2. As a military strategy, shock and awe is overrated. ↩︎
  3. Honest to goodness, for the thousandth time, the liberal democratic paradigm describes preservation of individual rights (liberal) in a society of majority decision (democratic). It doesn’t mean liberal as a partisan affiliation. Both, not either. ↩︎
  4. Not all Episcopal parishes are the same, in liturgy or political affiliation of members. There are probably about four or five different forms of worship among Episcopal congregations, and their membership runs from progressive to conservative depending on the community. In my case, the congregation with whom I worship is Anglo-Catholic in liturgy and progressive in members’ secular views (more progressive than mine — free markets are both moral and efficient). ↩︎
  5. I’m not ignorant or selfish enough to advance this claim this: all these ancestral claims strike me as primitive. My point is only that the nativists aren’t special as they imagine themselves to be. None of us is special in a nativist way. ↩︎

City, Daily Bread, Immigration, Local Government, Nativism

Daily Bread for 1.21.25: The Executive Order on Realigning The United States Refugee Admissions Program

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny and cold with a high of 0. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:54, for 9 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1968, a B-52 bomber crashes near Thule Air Base, contaminating the area after its nuclear payload ruptures. One of the four bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup operation is complete.

Whitewater has received considerable attention, mostly lies and scapegoating, for the arrival of immigrants into this community. Yesterday, via executive order, Whitewater received yet more. Our city received mention in Section 1, first paragraph:

Section 1.  Purpose.  Over the last 4 years, the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).  Cities and small towns alike, from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants.  Even major urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Denver have sought Federal aid to manage the burden of new arrivals.  Some jurisdictions, like New York and Massachusetts, have even recently declared states of emergency because of increased migration.

There’s no surprise in this — I’ve an archive of hundreds of stories about Whitewater’s immigrants that I’ve collected methodically and patiently over these months. The archive is a partial one; it’s likely there have been thousands of stories, most of which repeated the same hysterical claim that this small town had somehow been invaded.

This national attention in a nativist media environment was predictable; Whitewater’s place in a 1.20.25 executive order, however ill-fitting, was predictable. The use of immigrants as a justification for staffing increases in Whitewater, when those staffing increases were justifiable regardless, was a fundamental failing. This libertarian blogger (and others) advised against this course, having denounced the so-called press conference that preceded it. We were ignored, not to our disadvantage, but the disadvantage of newcomers, and of the entire community.

One cannot be certain where this leads, although nativist scapegoating of Whitewater now set loose across an entire nation shows a momentum all its own.

Updated, afternoon of 1.21.25, see below memoranda from the City of Whitewater in English and Spanish in reply to the 1.20.25 federal executive order. So many years ago, FREE WHITEWATER expressly began after immigration controversies in this city. My own views on this matter have been clear since that beginning in 2007. They remain unchanged as they are by received tradition unchanging.

It’s likely an understatement that, given all possibilities, few today would want to be in our present, divided politics.

One acts in the present and on the margin. It is, in fairness to all, the best that anyone can do.

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City, Daily Bread, Local Government

Daily Bread for 1.20.25: The State of the City (Whitewater) Presentation

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Good morning.

Dr. Martin Luther King Day in Whitewater will be sunny and cold with a high of 4. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:52, for 9 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 61 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1783, the Kingdom of Great Britain signs preliminary articles of peace with the Kingdom of France, setting the stage for the official end of hostilities in the Revolutionary War later that year.

On 1.9.25, the Whitewater-Area League of Women Voters sponsored three presentations at Whitewater’s city hall, from City Manager John Weidl, Chancellor Corey King, and Superintendent Caroline Pate-Hefty. The first of these, from Whitewater’s city manager, is embedded above.

A few remarks:

This is a strong presentation. Neither of the last two city managers ever delivered remarks with this succinct clarity. A position of ideological skepticism of government (like mine) should strengthen, rather than weaken, one’s grasp of conditions and people. (Strengthen, rather than weaken, because it’s a sound position to hold.) And so, and so, one should be plain: there is a wide gap between this presentation and those of former city managers, or a few aged residents, who themselves have not spoken with such succinct clarity (and likely could not). Whitewater benefits by addresses like this.

Development has grown significantly in these last two years, both residential (homes and apartments) and commercial (stores big and small). Development (lit., ‘the process of converting land to a new purpose by constructing buildings or making use of its resources’) is a community gain.

We’ve also had new cultural events, e.g., a food truck fest and Christmas at Cravath. Along with thousands of residents, my family enjoyed both of these events. See A Food Truck Festival @ the Lakefront and Christmas at Cravath’s Festive Lights. These social events create social bonds.

Whitewater has sensibly moved to a professional fire and emergency services model. Response times are now markedly better. There should be no doubt that moving to a professional model meets the minimum expectation of any government: that it provides for public safety. (If all this could be done through volunteers, there would be an alternative worth considering; all this cannot be done through volunteers, and so that alternative is beyond consideration.) There is now before the city a policing referendum for additional officers. A referendum that staffs a neutral, non-ideological public safety department is in the community interest. (Every word in that last sentence matters: a partisan, ideological public safety department would not be in this community’s interest, at staffing of one person or a thousand.)

Finally, a few words about our lakes. It’s understandable that residents would be disappointed at the condition of the lakes. The last municipal administration, however, was not alone in leaving the lakes like this. There were many thousands of us living here, and all of us knew that there were lakes, and what they looked like1. We all knew it looked bad. Not enough of us did enough. Some did, but not enough of us. (This libertarian blogger is in the not enough of us group.) A comprehensive lakes management plan with outside institutional support, as is now underway, is the right direction.

There should be a discussion, and debate, about public directions. I’d guess this, however: most people in this city of fifteen thousand see progress (and far more progress than before). Most people (by a larger margin) likely prefer the current direction to the alternatives.

That preference is predictable and sensible.

__________

  1. Admittedly, the last city manager wasn’t aware for two days that oil from an asphalt project, for example, was running into the lake. ↩︎

How Bluesky Grew From A Twitter Side Project To An X Competitor:

Not many people had heard of Bluesky when the Twitter side project made its debut as a separate company in 2021. The decentralized social media platform initially flew under the radar, but user numbers skyrocketed after the U.S. election in November. This was largely because many of X’s users fled to Bluesky, as they were unhappy with some of the changes that Elon Musk made to Twitter after he acquired it in 2022 and later renamed it X. Bluesky now has over 27 million users, but whether it can continue its rapid growth and compete with the likes of Musk’s X and Meta and Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads remains to be seen.

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 1.14.25: A Bit More on Expertise

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 15. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset is 4:45, for 9 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Innovation Center Advisory Board meets at 8:30 AM, the Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1784 it’s the first Ratification Day, as the Confederation Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain:

By the United States in Congress assembled, a proclamation : Whereas definitive articles of peace and friendship, between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty, were concluded and signed at Paris, on the 3rd day of September, 1783 … we have thought proper by these presents, to notify the premises to all the good citizens of these United States … Given under the seal of the United States, witness His Excellency Thomas Mifflin, our president, at Annapolis, this fourteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four …

Yesterday’s post, Debunking Grifters and Crackpots on Social Media, described the skill with which Dr. Jessica Knurick refuted false nutritional claims on social media. In this clash of ideas, Knurick applied her field’s expertise in reply others’ weak or mendacious claims. A few points about expertise appear below.

First, this libertarian blogger has not described himself on this site as an expert in some particular field. FREE WHITEWATER is, by design, a website for all readers of ‘commentary on politics, policy, and popular culture, published from Whitewater, Wisconsin since 2007.’ I have a profession, but this website isn’t designed merely for that profession. (FREE WHITEWATER would look very different if were otherwise.) It’s meant to be as it is. And so, and so, I’m not referring to myself as an expert in anything that follows.

Second, as someone wrote to me last night, nutrition expert Dr. Knurick takes a dim view of, in her words, capitalism1. (That’s true, she does, and anyone who followed her work, as I have, would know as much.) And yet, and yet, I did not tout her expertise in economics but rather her expertise in nutrition. She’s strong there: that was the full reach of my endorsement (although I’m sure she’s a fine person and an asset to her community).

Third, a responsible community, and responsible political leadership, should at the least allow those with a strong expertise or understanding to speak responsively to others’ claims (especially others’ tendentious claims). While any resident should be allowed to stand at the lectern and speak, afterward members of the government should be able to reply to unsupported claims or weak arguments. Residents should be able to speak; a responsible board or council should allow members of the government to reply after all residents have finished speaking.

I’m not writing here about general, non-agenda public comment, but about residents’ specific comments on points that are on the agenda.

Otherwise, at that meeting, one hears only one side of the issue. ‘We’ll get to the other side later’ impoverishes the discussion. Whitewater should expect of her government that it be capable of replying then and there. Holding back the government reply to placate a few residents only serves to create the false impression that a point from the lectern is more serious, and so needing of study, than it truly is2.

If there is a government employee who can answer a point after residents’ points have been made, based on that employee’s knowledge, he or she should be allowed — indeed, afforded the opportunity — to do so. More speech means more speech3.

Bluntly: keep the discussion going, as the strength of a claim is often revealed only after it meets a reply. If a reply is available readily, then it should be heard, not postponed.

How could one not admire Dr. Knurick’s argumentation, for example, on nutrition? It’s cultivated abilities like hers, of so many in so many fields, that have made America a global leader.4

Whitewater should not hold back members of an administration with equivalent abilities.

__________

  1. Private ownership of capital is merely one part of a productive, advanced economics. It’s much more than that, as myriad free, voluntary transactions: of capital, labor, goods, and services. All of it, all of those, where one chooses freely. ↩︎
  2. If there’s a ready answer, boards and commissions only undermine rigorous discussion to placate a few by contending that something needs to be looked into. ↩︎
  3. Not merely more speech for one’s friends at the lectern. ↩︎
  4. High octane is the best octane. ↩︎

Why Is US GDP Growth Outperforming the World?:

Despite a bumpy phase of inflation shocks and high interest rates, the US economy has continued to outpace the growth rates of other advanced economies. Since January 2020, growth in US real GDP has touched 10%, three times the G7 average.

City, Daily Bread, Education, Elections, Local Government, School District, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.9.25: For Elections, More Candidates Are Better

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:39, for 9 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1945, the Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.

Statewide, there will be a February primary election for Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. In this statewide race, it’s not merely contested but contested in a way that requires a primary election:

Three candidates have filed nomination papers for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, which means there will be a primary election next month for Wisconsin’s top education post.

State Superintendent Jill Underly has two challengers: Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, and Brittany Kinser, a former special education teacher and reading advocate.

The primary will be held Feb. 18 with the top two candidates facing each other in the nonpartisan election on April 1.

See Corrinne Hess, State Superintendent Jill Underly will face primary challenge in February, Wisconsin Public Radio, January 8, 2025.

Locally, we’ll have, it seems, contested races for the Whitewater Unified School District Board and one of our city’s assembly districts before the voters in April. That’s all to the good: voters will be able to see differences between candidates.

Choice is preferable.

Entering a dragon’s lair:

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Housing, Local Government

Daily Bread for 1.8.25: Quick Update on Development Projects

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:38, for 9 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1982,  Breakup of the Bell System begins as AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.

For today, a quick update on two votes from the 1.7.25 Whitewater Common Council on development. I supported both proposals, but I’d say the Council’s votes (with 6 council members present) went as one would have expected. There were no genuine surprises, to my mind:

1. A 4-2 vote against the proposal of Premier Real Estate Management 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 units on the property. (Video @ 1:53:20.)

2. A 6-0 vote in favor of the proposal (letter of intent), for the Neumann-Hoffmann project, where the Neumann Companies will develop 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 for 150 homes and 60 multifamily units. (Video @ 2:12:09.)

Wisconsin Life | Art meets astronomy at revitalized Yerkes Observatory:

Dr. Amanda Bauer is reimagining the future of Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay as a historic outpost for space exploration and future artistic collaboration.

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Housing, Local Government

Daily Bread for 1.7.25: Assorted Points on Development

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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 moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io 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… ↩︎

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Housing, Local Government

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

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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.

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Housing, Local Government

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

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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. ↩︎

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Housing, Local Government, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 1.4.25: Reliable Measurements of the City

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 20. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:34, for 9 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, falls to Earth from orbit.

For today, before going further over the next three days about an upcoming proposal before the Whitewater Common Council on Tuesday, a word about reliable measurements for Whitewater. Sound argumentation rests on a trustworthy foundation.

First, and foremost, what are conditions like truly like? How do people live and carry on each day? Not how a few who have wrung profit out of the city claim Whitewater is, but how ordinary residents living each day know Whitewater is? Will you believe what they tell you, or your own experience?

Second, good data and good reasoning carry the day. A few — too many, really — people in this town have traditionally used bad metrics in bad faith to win the day at the expense of general conditions all around us. They’ll mix and match any number of inapplicable measures or standards to prevent change. Those peddling in fear, uncertainty, and doubt use those techniques to their advantage, at the expense of market opportunities for others.

Fair use. Link

Ferocious opponents of progress, no matter how edgy and agitated, no matter how long-winded, are then and there simply blocking opportunity with a puffed-up display. Even the most furious Tasmanian Devil, it turns out, is no more than a creation of Warner Bros.

Those who stick to sound observation and sound data will serve Whitewater well.

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Housing, Local Government, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 1.3.25: The Market Barriers in Whitewater

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 22. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:33, for 9 hours, 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 15.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1777, after victory at the Second Battle of Trenton the day before,  American forces under Genera Washington then defeat British forces at the Battle of Princeton, helping boost Patriot morale.

There’s a story one sometimes hears, including in Whitewater, that there are only two forces shaping an economy: private and public. In this story, the private endeavors of individuals and businesses are defined as necessarily encouraging of general prosperity, and the public reach of government as necessarily restrictive of general prosperity.

While it’s a story, it’s also a false story, and sometimes no more than a self-serving lie.

Prosperity rests on the free interactions between individuals, businesses, and government. The relationship (of free action) precedes the result. That’s why libertarians (bona fide ones, who read more than superficially) are free-market men and women.

Government constrains, but not only government constrains. There are private men and private business, including those who proudly tout their ‘pro-business,’ ‘pro-growth’ outlook, but who stifle growth and inhibit the economic liberty of others.

They’re not the champions of positive change but its adversaries. They oppose competition.

How does this happen, that private men and incumbent businesses work against the economic liberty of others?

Here are a few ways (and residents of Whitewater will recognize them):

Control of government agencies and boards to favor cronies and limit alternatives. These private men don’t bother to count to 15,000, but instead stop at 4 of 7, simply enough to run a board or commission for their benefit and to the detriment rival businesses or individuals. This is regulatory or agency capture (shaping regulations their way, or controlling the whole agency and dismissing anyone who won’t go along with their selfish ambitions).

They’ll say this is what the people want, but they’ve not bothered to poll a community; they merely assert that they know the popular will. They’ll point to a few co-opted people as though a few were many. To gather these few, a special interest will rely on any claim imaginable, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about potential rivals with better ideas and new approaches.

Control of a market by monopoly or oligopoly. We think of this approach as applicable only on a large scale, but it happens in small communities, too. One or a few private men will control an entire market and fight to keep new, rival businesses (especially ones with fresh ideas) from forming. They’ll buy resources and deny access to those who’d like to compete in a free market. Many are the one-horse towns where the old horse fights like hell to keep new horses from showing up, so to speak.

Whitewater has had both of these problems for many years. In Whitewater, specifically, It’s not government that has held people back, it’s scheming and selfish private men who think that they own the place and work to keep new enterprises from taking root.

When they talk ‘pro-business,’ they mean their businesses, their opportunities, their way. Indeed, they simply deny, at bottom, that there could be any other way than their businesses, their opportunities, their way.

Here’s a key technique: they’ll argue against any better opportunity for others in favor of an imagined perfect opportunity that they know won’t arrive. They’re like bakers who tell the hungry not to make their own bread but instead to wait for cake and caviar.

Again and again: Who owns Whitewater? Everyone and no one.

There’s no reason for residents in this town to deny themselves better opportunities for the sake of a few old men who insist that it must be their way or no way. The adversaries of free markets in Whitewater are private men who want to deny opportunity for others. No one in Whitewater lives at the pleasure of these aged schemers, no one here was born merely to deny himself or herself better life on an incumbent’s behalf.

Open the market to alternatives, and let people freely choose among them.

CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Economy, Local Government

Daily Bread for 1.2.25: The Extraordinary Ordinary

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 28. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:32, for 9 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1777, American forces under the command of General Washington repulse a British attack led by General Charles Cornwallis at the Second Battle of Trenton near Trenton, New Jersey:

After assaulting the American positions three times and being repulsed each time, Cornwallis decided to wait and finish the battle the next day. Washington moved his army around Cornwallis’s camp that night and  attacked [Lieutenant Colonel Charles] Mawhood at Princeton the next day.

Somewhere in America, perhaps even in Whitewater, a grammarian is pondering whether nouns or adjectives are more important as parts of speech. And so, and so, in the expression the extraordinary ordinary, that person might wonder: does the noun ordinary matter more, or might the modifier extraordinary tell the crucial tale?

The public policy of Whitewater offers an answer.

Bringing the city into an ordinary development position, like other cities, is for Whitewater an act that should be ordinary, but requires instead extraordinary effort.

It’s in this way that Whitewater’s politics (and culture) are best understood. What should be easy is often hard, and what should be embraced often meets special-interest opposition.

Whitewater’s like a community where a few people have always eaten well, but some of those few have left others with less and worse, all the while insisting falsely that less and worse is somehow more and better.

If we’d had better policies before, one could say that this city for the last generation was meeting an ordinary development standard; as we had worse policies before, Whitewater is only now overcoming below-average standards.

We’re now on a proper diet after years of missed meals and poor nutrition. It’s simply that a few would like the community to believe that the past’s poor nutrition is preferable to the present’s proper diet.

For Whitewater, it’s extraordinary to be, at long last, ordinary in policy. It’s from the ordinary — the normal, and business-standard — that we can at last take advantage of the national and state growth that other communities have enjoyed.

Whitewater has waited long for ordinary, long for normal, long for business-standard.

There’s the answer to a grammarian pondering whether the noun or adjective of extraordinary ordinary is more important. For Whitewater, it’s extraordinary to be, at long last, ordinary in policy. It’s from the ordinary — the normal and business-standard — that we can at last take advantage of the national and state growth that other communities have enjoyed.

That’s a notable accomplishment.

A methodical, patient look at recent development projects, post by post, is overdue. Not so overdue as the projects themselves, of course, but that fault lies with the past.

Looking at these projects, of the last two years, is a good way to begin this year.

That’s what this libertarian blogger will do.

Daily Bread, Elections, Local Government, Voting Rights, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.2.24: Clerk Lawfully Returns Drop Box that Wausau’s Mayor Removed

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:53, and sunset is 6:33, for 11 hours, 39 minutes of daytime. The moon is new, with none percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater will hold a Healthy Lakes Summit today at 5 PM.

On this day in 1980, Michael Myers becomes the first member of either chamber of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War.

Readers may recall that last week, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny removed “[a] drop box, located outside of City Hall, on Sunday and distributed a picture of himself doing it while wearing worker’s gloves and a hard hat. Diny is a conservative opponent to drop boxes. He insists he did nothing wrong.” See from FREE WHITEWATER Performative Voting Disruption in Wausau.

The Wausau City Clerk now has lawfully placed another ballot drop box outside her city hall. Scott Bauer follows his earlier reporting with Wisconsin city replaces ballot drop box after mayor carted it away:

An absentee ballot drop box that the mayor of a central Wisconsin city removed a week ago was back in place on Monday.

The Wausau city clerk said the box was available outside of city hall “for residents to submit absentee ballots, payments, and other important city requests as was intended.”

Mayor Doug Diny removed the drop box on Sept. 22 without consulting with the clerk, who has the authority under a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling legalizing drop boxes to make one available. They are not mandatory in the state.

Emphasis added. Wausau’s major is not a king1. He’s not even a duke, marquess, earl, viscount, or baron. The lawful authority over drop boxes was not his; he acted outside legal authority.

The law assigns the roles of public officials, and in a free society of limited government they do not (and should not) have more authority than the law allows.

Watch this octopus ‘punch’ a freeloading fish:

  1. A reminder to what’s left of Old Whitewater: this city did not have a mayor during your time, and if not a mayor then neither did Whitewater have a worthy and legitimate ‘unofficial mayor.’ When a few once declared someone an ‘unofficial mayor,’ the term was either a false & arrogant boast or an implicit insult against illegitimate overreaching. Those who thought the term praiseworthy confused praise with condemnation. ↩︎

Business, CDA, City, Daily Bread, Development, Local Government

Daily Bread for 9.23.24: Six Points on a Supermarket in Whitewater

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:44, and sunset is 6:49, for 12 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 63.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 6 PM, and the full board in regular session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1846, astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.

Whitewater once again has a stand-alone supermarket, and like so many residents, this libertarian blogger is pleased to see ALDI in town. Note well: the public policy of recruiting a supermarket is not the matter of a single business, but of how local public officials have managed through public bodies (like the Whitewater Community Development Authority) under public laws and principles. However hard it has been, and remains, for Whitewater’s declining old guard to grasp, each of them (or any of us) is no less — but no more — than 1 of 15,000 in the city.1

Of a supermarket, consider these two claims:

From FREE WHITEWATER on 9.19.24:

Unquestionably right. The old Sentry closed in ’15, and Whitewater went years fumbling with old-guard CDA attempts to bring a dedicated supermarket. They accomplished nothing of the kind. 

ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here.

As part of a post at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner on 9.20.24 :

Larry Kachel indicated that the prior property owner [DLK related] had been in discussion with ALDI beginning in 2017, but the company had concluded that the traffic counts and population did not meet their minimum criteria. Kachel hastened to add that the late Jim Allen’s persistent efforts over many years to attract a store should also be recognized. Tom Howard, ALDI’s regional real estate developer, told the Banner that the city became a viable possibility for a store as a result of the success that the company has recently enjoyed with other stores in rural areas. Jon Kachel indicated that discussions have taken place with a variety of prospects regarding the property located between ALDI and Culver’s, but nothing has come together yet.

I’ll offer six remarks:

First, the City of Whitewater — through its taxpayers — had to spend $500,000 of public money to remediate — to clean up — the site of the prior private property owner, DLK Enterprises. In the language of a consultant’s assessment:

The existing structures on the property will be demolished and the site remediated, including the removal of asbestos and lead in the buildings. This cost is significant and potentially cost prohibitive for any new development.

I’m glad the City of Whitewater accepted this proposal, yet one should be clear about what this means: ordinary people had to pay to clean up the prior, local owner’s mess. The local business did not pay this money — ordinary people did. This municipal administration, under law, through the Community Development Authority and the Whitewater Common Council, had to pay this money up front to make the deal possible.

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See Letter on Developer Agreement (two pages) and Development Agreement (forty-three pages) that I received in June through a public records request.2

Second, It seems likely, if not certain, that the publicly-funded remediation has made the remaining area more suitable for sale. (The Brothers Kachel are free to thank the taxpayers of Whitewater at their earliest convenience.)

Third, and admittedly, the Banner‘s paragraph is a poor specimen on which to rely. There’s nothing quoted here; it’s a conversation or conversations related from one person to another, as though people were talking along a fence line. There isn’t even a claim to word-for-word accuracy: it’s an account of what someone “indicated,” not what someone said verbatim. It’s also told from a narrow perspective in which every reader should know the local people mentioned and in which the local men cited should be taken at face value3.

Fourth, the corporate real estate developer for ALDI, at least as recounted here, reasonably states the obvious about why ALDI would pick this city (once the property was cleaned up, of course). That statement says nothing about the many prior, fruitless local efforts to find a supermarket.

Fifth, I have no idea why someone from ALDI, whether in Batavia, Illinois, or an office in Germany, would want to be pulled into a discussion that’s more about local public policy over the last generation than ALDI (or whether he was even told accurately what the local issues are before he was asked to comment). ALDI’s corporate representative is presumably unfamiliar with the public policy mistakes at yesteryear’s Whitewater Community Development Authority, or the controversial past actions of Whitewater CDA (and the role of local landlords on that body). See Meeper Technology Loan Investigation Memo, professional reporting from WhitewaterWise, City officials: Internal investigation finds CDA engaged in ‘lack of proper documentation, communication and transparency’ when it ‘wrote off’ more than $750,000 in loans, and blogging from FREE WHITEWATER, Meeper Technology Loan Investigation, Memo and Documents.

Sixth, equally puzzling is why anyone at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner would look for answers from ALDI before seeking public documents from his or her own city. The foundational issue is about years’ long local policy to seek to a supermarket, and conduct at the Whitewater CDA across a decade’s time, not any given business arriving recently.

What portion of this libertarian blogger’s contention — ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here — is accurate?

All of it, every last word.

I’m glad ALDI is here — one should be clear about how she’s here.

  1. Denoted as a fraction, these aged men of the old guard would each look like this: 1/15,000 or 0.000067
    ↩︎
  2. The request, submitted and received under Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39, has more than one use.
    ↩︎
  3. The Banner‘s author writes in his paragraph with a credulousness that suggests no awareness or no appreciation of the challenges to the modernization — normalization, truly — of local government over the last two years. ↩︎