Last Monday, June 11th, Whitewater’s Common Council and Planning Commission met jointly, to receive a sixty-two-page .pdf presentation from Graef Consulting as part of a zoning rewrite project. The meeting lasted about three hours, during which members of Council and the Planning Commission heard residents’ views on the presentation. The easiest description would be to…
Open Government
City, Good Ideas, Open Government
Whitewater’s Online Commitment to Budget Transparency
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s very good news for Whitewater, as the City of Whitewater’s budget information from 2000 to 2012 is now available online. Not only are the data available, but they’re easily accessible by department or particular item, interactively, and are also available for download. An initiative like this is an unalloyed good for Whitewater. First, it’s…
City, Local Government, Open Government
Top-Secret, Ultra Hush-Hush Quadruped Directive No. 17
by JOHN ADAMS •
The best approach for announcements in public policy & administration is a simple memo to the community. Open government is not only better in principle, it’s better in practice. Consider two ways to discuss an event. Let’s suppose the City of Whitewater’s municipal administration decides to erect a statue near Cravath Lake in honor of…
Federal Government, Government Spending, Open Government
Feds get low marks for online spending transparency
by JOHN ADAMS •
Open Government, Police
The Predictable, Dead-End Response
by JOHN ADAMS •
Writing about the feud between Milwaukee’s Chief Flynn and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bruce Murphy writes that Experts on police departments will tell you that criticism from outside inevitably results in everyone on the force circling the wagons. That’s very true. So true and predictable, that it’s more predictable and regular than Old Faithful has…
Official Misconduct, Open Government
Racine Journal Times Investigation Uncovers Municipal Abuses in Mount Pleasant
by JOHN ADAMS •
For those who obstinately contend that bureaucrats and politicians are always and forever public servants, selfless, giving of themselves, exist for a better community, etc., a compelling refutation will be found in a series from the Racine Journal Times, entitled, “JT investigates: Climate of fear in Mount Pleasant.” The JT describes the series: The abrupt…
Economy, Government Spending, Open Government
The Fed’s Secret Lending Program
by JOHN ADAMS •
One doesn’t have to be a libertarian critic of the Federal Reserve (Ron Paul being the exemplar) to see that billions in secret loans to financiers represents another example of government over-reach and (as they were at the time secret loans) unaccountability. Here, from Reason.tv, is a segment of Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch, where guests…
Open Government
WisconsinWatch.org: Lawmakers shouldn’t meet in secret
by JOHN ADAMS •
Town, village, city, school district and county governments are prohibited from having such closed-door meetings, except in very limited circumstances, to discuss sensitive matters such as employee discipline or negotiating purchases of property. And even then the public must be notified of the general topics to be discussed. In contrast, the Wisconsin Legislature routinely passes…
Freedom of Speech, Open Government, Politics, Press, Press Release
Tracking the Influence of Money in Politics
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has issued a press release with good news about new resources to track the influence of money in politics. Here’s the press release, with links to a new tracking website: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and MAPLight.org, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, today announced a major initiative to…
Open Government, Walworth County
Election Transparency: How Jefferson and Rock Counties Top Walworth County
by JOHN ADAMS •
All Wisconsin has been debating and pondering the reporting of votes from the Town of Brookfield in the supreme court race. Waukesha County’s become a national topic, in the worst way. One way to prevent something like this is to allow citizens to see – on election night – how each precinct within a county…
Law, Open Government
Sunshine Week, March 13 – 19
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s Sunshine Week in America this week. Here’s a quick description of the initiative, from the Sunshine Week website: Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right…