It’s never been sensible to believe that the center of civilization is 312 W. Whitewater Street, with people and events beyond shrinking markedly in significance as one gets farther from that supposed center. Under that theory, by the time one reaches Palmyra, one might as well be in the unexplored Amazon. Exaggerating the significance of…
Local Government
CDA, City, Economy, Gov. Walker, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Technology
The New Whitewater Start Up Grants (in Proper Perspective)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority has been working on a seed capital fund (working on this fund for some time), and today the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has announced a $150,000 matching contribution to the CDA, and two grants – each in the amount of $10,000 – for entrepreneurs from that fund. The matching grant from…
City, Development, Hip & Prosperous, Local Government, New Whitewater
Which Homeowners for Whitewater?
by JOHN ADAMS •
The preceding post, Who Should Live in Whitewater?, was about immigration. Here’s a second question, a bit more specific: which homeowners for Whitewater? One hears repeatedly that out city could use more families with children. I don’t disagree: it would help our public schools to have a stable, or growing, school-age population. Here’s where I…
City, Haiku, Local Government
Winter Haiku
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Local Government, Politics
The Martians’ Next Campaign
by JOHN ADAMS •
Stories, even short, science-fiction stories, offer lessons beyond their pages. Near the final pages of Wells’s War of the Worlds, the narrator ponders his future, months after the Martians succumbed on our world. He considers the possibility of another invasion: A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the…
City, Local Government, Politics
The Political Risk of Appointment (and How to Avoid It)
by JOHN ADAMS •
About a month ago, Whitewater’s common council filled an at-large vacancy left after Marilyn Kienbaum’s passing. I thought the process – applicants speaking on behalf of their possible appointment – was a good one. See, Common Council Session of 12.18.12: A New Councilmember. My remarks here aren’t about those four initial applicants, but about applicants,…
Crime, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Is This What Janesville’s Leaders Really Meant by ‘Regionalization’?
by JOHN ADAMS •
About two months ago, Janesville’s City Manager, Eric Levitt, came to Whitewater asking for money to support a public transit bus to benefit Generac (and anyone else Janesville’s transportation director will undoubtedly throw into the mix to justify ten thousand from Whitewater and hundreds of thousands from taxpayers in total). During his appearance before Whitewater’s…
City, Local Government
About those performance evaluations…
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater and communities far beyond, cities and public bodies are evaluating their administrators’ annual performance. That’s true for Whitewater’s municipal manager, and for the Innovation Center director, among others. These evaluations are closed-session reviews, but (as I write) I have no particular interest in how they’re conducted or the substance of the evaluations, in…
City, Good Ideas, Hip & Prosperous, Local Government
Model practices are the new exceptional
by JOHN ADAMS •
The signs that welcome visitors to Whitewater assure newcomers that we are an exceptional community. It’s an odd slogan for a city: exceptional needn’t mean better. One can be exceptionally talented, for example, but exceptionally narrow and stodgy, too. The slogan was meant, no doubt, to imply good qualities, but it’s a measure of our…
Animals, Beautiful Whitewater, City, Good Ideas, Hip & Prosperous, Liberty, Local Government
The Backyard Chicken Trend
by JOHN ADAMS •
We’re not alone among communities recently allowing urban chickens. A good and smart friend sent along news of Beloit’s urban chicken ordinance, now in effect in that city. She noted in her message that backyard chickens are a positive trend, and she’s right. (For a prior post on this topic, see Common Council Session of…
Local Government, Press
About the Administrator’s Equal Time…
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a story at the Gazette from 1.5.13 about how Walworth County Administrator David Bretl’s columns started. The story’s odd, but the title’s odder: ‘Bretl writes columns as a self-check on county government.’ That’s funny, as the true check on government isn’t a so-called self-check from an administrator, but a check from the newspaper itself,…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
Grant-Chasing
by JOHN ADAMS •
Janesville now has her hundreds of thousands for a bus. It should be no surprise that those who have flacked every possible public program as the Next Big Thing (no matter how neglectful of dire needs) would herald state and federal grants as though they were genuine, private productivity. The fawning need to tout the…
City, Local Government, Politics
So, Three Municipal Managers Walk Into a Room…
by JOHN ADAMS •
Let’s say the recently-hired municipal manager of a small city, with a population of just under fifteen-thousand, walks into a party. It’s a busy affair, with others standing and talking throughout the room. Someone walks up to him, and says, “Hey, City Manager, did you know that your two immediate predecessors are here, too?” This…
City, Local Government
Common Council Session of 12.18.12: A New Councilmember
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater had a Council vacancy to fill, and for that vacancy she received four initial applicants to an at-large seat. (For a prior post about those applicants, please see It’s Not Who, But What.) There are only two such seats, representing all the residents of the city. At last night’s session, three applicants were able…