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…
Local Government
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Wisconsin
The New (But Old) Zero-Sum Game
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Rock Netroots, Lou Kaye makes this accurate observation about how most local communities’ officials understand development: For the most part, city leaders here [he’s referring to Janesville] and across Wisconsin not only believe that communities are in competition with one another, they vigorously support and fuel those concepts by carving out special slush…
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…
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…
Local Government, Press
No Official in America Reigns
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Gazette, yet another editorial goes wrong. While trying to praise the work of retiring Rock County Administrator Craig Knutson, the Gazette headlines with Our Views: Rock County’s Craig Knutson deserves salute for solid reign (subscription req’d). (The editorialist uses reign once again, in the body of the editorial.) The use of reign…
City, Law, Local Government
A Game It’s Not
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a story in the Gazette about a Janesville resident who’s looking for a litigation fund to support lawsuits against the City of Janesville. See, subscription req’d, Citizens group wants to mount legal offensive against City Hall. The story’s too funny – it’s part overwrought idea, and (I would guess) part effort of the Gazette…
City, Local Government, School District
The Bigger the Project, the Greater the Need for Substantive Justifications
by JOHN ADAMS •
It seems – to most people, I’d guess – that to say ‘the bigger the project, the greater the need for substantive justifications’ is simply reasonable and practical. In almost all public efforts, municipalities, school districts, and other public bodies should Lead Substantively, and Support Fiscally. The best way to win big is usually a…
Government Spending, Local Government, Press, Taxes/Taxation
What Steve Jobs Understood About People That Local ‘Movers and Shakers’ Don’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s an easy – and false – pose to assume that people can’t understand a supposedly complicated project. There was some of this thinking in an editorial about which I commented yesterday, in the Gazette‘s contention that that “SWAG’s [Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Group’s] complex, though intriguing, always seemed grand and hard for average residents to…
Government Spending, Local Government, Press
In Policymaking, Passion’s a Weak Justification
by JOHN ADAMS •
Alternative title: Passion’s Just Another Word for Nothing Substantive to Say. Only recently, small-town Evansville rejected a $5.5 million tax-incremental funding demand from the Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Group to locate in that community. See, Demanding Millions from Small-town Evansville. To accede to SWAG’s demands, Evansville would have had to abandon street repair, water-system upgrades, etc.,…
Government Spending, Local Government
Demanding Millions from Small-town Evansville
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads (subscription req’d) that the SWAG project won’t happen in Evansville. SWAG is the Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Group, and they wanted $5.5 million from tiny Evansville, Wisconsin before building an agricultural complex in that town. So Evansville, recognizing that the cost would inhibit other municipal projects, said no after SWAG demanded millions: More than…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC
WEDC Update
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anyone betting locally on the supposed prestige and success of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has placed a bad bet. That corrupt and incompetent agency is in the news yet again for its failures and lies: WEDC award recipients outsourced Wisconsin jobs to foreign countries — WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports…
City, Local Government
Administration, Council, and the ‘Tenth Man Rule’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Prompted from a recent written exchange, here’s a post on the relative suitability of the ‘Tenth Man Rule’ for different parts of a local government. The Tenth Man Rule is simply the idea that “if nine in authority agree on a course of action, it’s the duty of the tenth to adopt a contrary approach,…
Local Government, Press
The Police Chief Turned City Administrator Turned School Public Relations Man
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Gazette has a Monday editorial in support of hiring Milton’s former police chief-turned-city-administator for a public school, public relations job. It’s almost a self-parody of insiders flacking for insiders. (See, subscription req’d, Our Views: Was Milton School District’s Hiring of Jerry Schuetz a Reasonable Move?) It’s grandiose and wasteful to think that Milton’s schools…