An aspiring musician tells his friends that he performed to a standing-room-only crowd at Carnegie Hall. Needless to say, they’re impressed. “It’s great that your songs drew such attendance,” they observe. “Why, yes,” the musician replies, “it must have been my music, although I suppose the free tickets and fifty-dollar gift packages might have…
Local Government
Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, Local Government, New Media, Open Government, Politics, State Government, Writing
Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal
by JOHN ADAMS •
For bloggers who cover politics, policymaking, etc., just as would have been true of essayists and pamphleteers in an earlier time, it helps to have a method to one’s writing. In the paragraphs below, I’ll list steps one should take when approaching a topic. The steps are in a rough order, but in any method,…
City, Local Government, Press
An Enduring Value of Local News
by JOHN ADAMS •
One of the pleasures of reading local press accounts of a meeting in Whitewater is that through those stories one sees how local insiders want to be portrayed. It’s as close to an official’s Dear Diary entry as one is likely to find. Readers will discover clues to the concerns, preoccupations, and worries of…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Open Government, Politics
It’s Not a Communications Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
A few months ago, during a public meeting, a commissioner mentioned that an applicant and the applicant’s neighbors might have done more to communicate with each other. (I thought that was true, too; as it turned out, there was a great deal of communication in the weeks afterward, all to the good.) It’s not…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Visualizing Bad Policy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Press
The Gazette‘s Laughable, Damage-Control Editorial
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an editorial at the Gazette today (http://gazettextra.com/article/20131122/ARTICLES/131129885/1034) predictably praising continued funding for Janesville’s transit bus to Whitewater. That there’s a bit of crowing in the editorial is unsurprising, but it’s more telling that it’s an error-prone essay that makes basic mistakes about Whitewater’s politics, and omits – perhaps intentionally – a description of the…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
The Bus Discussion @ Council Last Night: A Fiasco by Any Definition
by JOHN ADAMS •
Update, 2 PM: A reader wrote today, asking why I seem relatively unconcerned about this vote (as a practical matter). That’s my omission: in the discussion last night, it’s clear that Generac plans to reduce funding in the future. Advocates of this project will have to find other corporate sponsors and make it work with…
City, Local Government, Police
Policies for the Police and Fire Commission
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets tonight at 5:30 PM, to interview patrol officers and consider several policy documents. Those documents appear below, and at the bottom of this post readers will find the video recording of last week’s PFC meeting. There are five processes or documents to be considered tonight: (1) PFC Oath (2)…
Business, City, Free Markets, Good Ideas, Hip & Prosperous, Local Government, New Whitewater, Planning
The Planning Commission Meeting for 11.11.13
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s Planning Commission met last night, and among the topics was consideration of re-zoning and a conditional use permit for Casual Joe’s, a new restaurant, tavern, and distillery to operate at 319 W. James Street (at the site of a long-unused commercial building, the former Fort Auto Body). On 4-3 votes, a majority of…
City, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Nature
The Leaves on the Streets PSA
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has a public service announcement about leaf collection, to remind residents not to sweep their leaves into the street. It’s a short, clever video. It does government a lot of good to remind someone of a policy without doing it in a heavy-handed way, but with a more light-hearted approach. This does the…
Business, Economy, Free Markets, Hip & Prosperous, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Planning
Why Plan?
by JOHN ADAMS •
All people make plans for the future, even if that should be no farther ahead than for later the same day. Why specifically, though, should government plan? Every city has plans for development, plans for budgeting, and many (as we do in Whitewater) have a public commission with lawful authority to approve or reject certain…
City, Local Government, Police
Police and Fire Commission Meeting for 11.6.13
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a Police and Fire Commission meeting tonight, at 6 PM. The PFC meets quarterly, but will meet twice this month, both tonight and (according to tonight’s agenda) again on Thursday, November 14th. There are three main parts of tonight’s meeting: (1) election for two PFC offices (a vice president and a secretary), (2) a…
City, Development, Economy, Local Government, Poverty
Assessing the Poverty Data for Our Area
by JOHN ADAMS •
On Friday, I posted on child poverty in our area. The Great Recession took a toll on many cities, but undeniably so in ours: from 2007 to 2011, the number of children aged 5 to 17 in families in poverty rose from 9.89 to 17.9%. The number nearly doubled. Beyond that group, state measures classify an…
City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
What’s Whitewater’s Economy?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Like many others, I read the news each day, about our city, online and in print. When one reads about Whitewater, of its local government, one likely reads about one of two topics: (1) the city or public schools budgets, or (2) municipal development projects. They’re both important, sometimes very much so, but they’re only…