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…
Local Government
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…
Local Government, Open Government
A Municipal Building’s No Proof of a Progressive, Modern Outlook
by JOHN ADAMS •
A public building doesn’t make a city respectable – a city’s respectable, high standards and open government make a public building worthy. It’s more than odd that, literacy notwithstanding, an editorial board would contend – as one did recently about Milton, Wisconsin – that Milton’s new [city] offices suggest professional, progressive city (subscription req’d): Milton…
Development, Local Government, Open Government, Planning
Shhh….Milton’s City Planning is a Big Secret
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over in Milton, with a ‘development professional’ for a mayor and a city administrator who’s quitting for a job where he can spend more time with his family, there’s a new municipal development: MILTON—A proposed restaurant and convenience store at the corner of Sunnyside Drive and Highway 59 is “somewhat monumental” in that it kicks…
Corporate Welfare, Economy, Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media
Rock Netroots
by JOHN ADAMS •
Local Government, Press
The Vacillating Paper in Janesville
by JOHN ADAMS •
If you’ve watched politics in Janesville lately, you know that there’s a proposal for a new fire station that’s both expensive (about nine-million dollars) and that would require the demolition of about a dozen residents’ homes. The controversy over the station might have been mitigated, but the entire episode represents a succession of unforced errors…
Business, City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Local Government’s Vendor Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
The risk of reliance on a big outside vendor for a big project in a small town is easily described: The vendor will be everywhere initially, will purr contentedly during work, but disappear quickly after the final check clears. It will want the money, will say anything to get it, but without any respect for…
Good Ideas, Local Government
Local Gov’t Desperately Needs a Version of the ‘Tenth Man Rule’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Update, 7.15.14: for a discussion of this rule as most fittingly applicable to full-time staff, see, Administration, Council, and the Tenth Man Rule. In the science fiction novel World War Z, humanity fights a zombie war, and the book describes a look back after the war is over, with interviews of those who fought against…
City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government
Why Not Build Another Los Angeles (by the Bridge to Nowhere)?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Typical Los Angeles Resident Los Angeles is America’s second-largest city, and is world-renowned for her diverse economy and global role in commerce, entertainment, and art. All its people are reputed to be exceptionally beautiful, talented, and clever (at least by their own, uniform accounts). If Los Angeles should be so valuable – and it is…