Last week, at Common Council, the city heard a presentation from City Attorney McDonell on Wisconsin’s Open Meetings and Public Records Laws. In the embeded video below, from 1:07:00 to 1:43:03, readers will see that presentation. (Sadly, it starts off poorly, with a deprecating joke about the subject matter being boring. That’s false, of course:…
Local Government
City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, New Whitewater, Planning, Politics, Taxes/Taxation
A Review of Whitewater’s Economy is Like Peeling an Artichoke
by JOHN ADAMS •
Artichokes, of course, symbolize the idea of multi-layered things, of peeling back an exterior to discover an interior truth. Whitewater’s economy is like that – one needs to peel away layer upon layer of happy-talk headlines to address the truth of our present condition. (In a way, the only indubitable success those headlines assure is…
Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media, Press
Local News
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a paywall up at Janesville’s GazetteXtra.com, with some content available for free, but much more local news now behind a paywall. I’ve no idea whether their effort will be a success, and the best one can say is that it will be tough going. Everyone at the paper surely sees that. In the end,…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Planning
The Failure of Marketing (and the Marketing of Failure)
by JOHN ADAMS •
I respect the work of those honest people who practice or study marketing. There’s a place for marketing, and even a place for marketing public projects. In the end, though, it’s the product or service, not the presentation of it, that matters most. There should be nothing startling in so declaring, but for the marketeers…
Business, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Local Government, Planning
Bad Policy Cannot Hold the City
by JOHN ADAMS •
Local Government, Politics
If Policy Goes Bad in Three Basic Ways, What Should Be Done About It?
by JOHN ADAMS •
If policy goes bad in one of three principal ways, then are the solutions to errors as easily stated (and brought into effect)? (See, from yesterday, The Three Ways Policy Goes Wrong.) Most of the time, there are. If the errors are from bad information or bad ideas, then positive change isn’t so hard. One…
Local Government, Politics
The Three Ways Policy Goes Wrong
by JOHN ADAMS •
How does public policy go wrong? I’m sure the answer’s not complicated. There are a few principal ways, with all else being derivations: (1) bad information, (2) bad ideas, or (3) bad motives. So either knowledge is poor, theory is poor, or ethics are poor. I’ve organized the possibilities this way in order of severity,…
City, Local Government
Common Council Session of 7.16.13
by JOHN ADAMS •
A few items from a long Common Council session — Council chose an appointee to fill the open Aldermanic District 1 seat. After an initial 3-3 vote between Philip Frawley and Tiiu Gray-Fow, Council selected Philip Frawley. The process – as with the one used last December – was a good one. Applications, speaking in…
CDA, City, Law, Local Government
The CDA’s Possible Purchase of Hundreds of Acres of Whitewater’s Public Land for a Dollar
by JOHN ADAMS •
Council’s scheduled to address the possibility of selling hundreds of acres of public land to the Community Development Authority for a dollar ($1.00). (It’s Item C-9 on tonight’s agenda.) The proposal’s been kicked around for months, but I’m curious if there’s been any positive headway since an April memo from the CDA’s Patrick Cannon, and…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
On the East Gate Project
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s administration proposes renovating the area on the east side of the city, through which commuters and visitors arrive in Whitewater. I’ve posted on the project before. (See, About that story on Whitewater’s East Gateway Proposal: What’s Missing?) A few remarks: 1. The design is undeniably beautiful. 2. It would have been better to include…
City, Local Government, Politics
About those four (or five) Common Council applicants
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tomorrow night, Whitewater will choose between four (or perhaps five) qualifying applicants for an appointment to an open council seat for Aldermanic District 1. There are two quick points worth making. First, there were five applicants, but only four written submissions received by the clearly-stated deadline. (The fifth application helpfully advised, in the would-be politician’s…
Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
Credibility on Spending
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s much to be said about fiscal policy in Whitewater, and plenty of time to say it. In my previous post, The Crazy-Wrong Argument on Taxes, I addressed the ludicrous & selfish argument that public grants (in this case, for needless parkland purchases) would have no tax impact. Of course they would. Now people are…
Economy, Federal Government, Gluttony, Government Spending, Local Government, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, Walworth County, Wisconsin
The Crazy-Wrong Argument on Taxes
by JOHN ADAMS •
A succinct truth: money doesn’t grow on trees. Local government funds municipal projects in one of three principal ways: through local taxes & fees, local borrowing (debt in the form of bonds), or public money from other jurisdictions (grants from the state or federal government). These grants of state or federal public money are, themselves,…
Government Spending, Local Government, Planning, Press
About that story on Whitewater’s East Gateway Proposal: What’s Missing?
by JOHN ADAMS •
On Tuesday afternoon, Whitewater’s officials held an informational meeting about a proposed public-works beautification project on the east side of the city. It’s not a new idea; those following politics in town for more than a few years would have heard about earlier discussions along these lines. On Wednesday, the Daily Union published a thousand-word…