I posted briefly yesterday on Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, and in that post mentioned that I would look a bit more at some of the remarks for, or against, the Complete Streets ordinance that passed Tuesday night. (I supported the ordinance.) Council discussed this issue previously, on December 16th. See, Common Council 12/16/2014. I’ve included…
Planning
City, Hip & Prosperous, Lifestyle, Local Government, Planning
The Common Council Session for 1.20.15
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I’ve two quick remarks about last night’s Council session. On an appointment to the Third District seat until April, I’d say Brienne Diebolt-Brown was a solid choice. Three residents were willing to be appointed, two of whom (Ken Kienbaum, Christopher Grady) are running in the spring general election. Ms. Diebolt-Brown doesn’t plan to run in…
City, Cycling, Development, Economy, Good Ideas, Health, Hip & Prosperous, Planning
In Support of the Complete Streets Initiative for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
This Tuesday, January 20th at 6:30 PM, Common Council will consider a Complete Streets ordinance (item O-3) for Whitewater. A Complete Streets program simply requires planners to consider bike and pedestrian travel, for example, when either building or reconstructing streets within our city. (I listened closely to discussion of the idea at our 12.16.14 Common…
City, Local Government, Planning
Ordinances & Department Regulations @ Public Meetings
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Whitewater’s last Planning Commission meeting was a week ago, Monday (10.13.14). I’ve two suggestions: First, it would be a good idea to keep a copy of Whitewater’s ordinances and regulations available at the meeting. It may be that a city employee cannot recall a certain requirement or provision of our local law. That’s not surprising;…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
JANESVILLE—The city of Janesville is losing its second economic development staff member in as many months. Ryan Garcia, the city’s economic development coordinator announced his resignation effective Nov. 15, according to a city release Wednesday… Via (subscription req’d) Janesville economic development coordinator resigning @ Janesville Gazette. Perhaps the economy-meddling, big-government conservatives at the Gazette will…
Planning, Politics, Press, Wisconsin
Goat-Level’s Not Enough
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Political bloggers – left, right, libertarian, etc. – often find themselves critiquing the ill-considered proposals that government, business, labor groups, and a fawning press insist are for everyone’s good. That’s certainly true in Wisconsin – we have an active blogosphere running the whole political spectrum, and united (if in little else) at least in a…
Marketing, Planning, Politics
The ‘Paris Women’ Problem
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A benign but drunk man sits in a bar, and the tavern’s waitress keeps ignoring him. He tells fellow patrons that the waitress cannot be from Paris, as she’s claimed, because that’s not how ‘Paris women’ would treat someone. That’s the scene from part of The Sure Thing, a 1985 film starring John Cusack. The…
Development, Local Government, Open Government, Planning
Shhh….Milton’s City Planning is a Big Secret
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Business, City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Local Government’s Vendor Problem
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Planning
It’s Not Planning, It’s Central Planning That’s a Problem
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
City, Local Government, Planning
Latisha Birkeland, Modernizer
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
There are few aspects of city life that affect residents more than neighborhood services. For years, Whitewater struggled with an inefficient and erratic neighborhood services program. Left, right, center, libertarian: just about anyone saw that there was, to be mild about it, room for improvement. Residents not only saw problems, but those problems led…
Economy, Planning, Politics
Frédéric Bastiat’s Gift to Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Of course, Frédéric Bastiat‘s work offers not one gift but many, and not merely for Whitewater, but for all people in all places. Still, today, one might consider just one essay from his powerful understanding for our small city. If Whitewater were to look to one place for guidance, on rights, responsibility, and a sound…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Visualizing Bad Policy
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Planning, Politics
The People in the Room
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Consider an invitation-only meeting, before a public one, in which appointed officials and perhaps a few corporate executives meet to discuss public financing of a deal mostly benefiting a few. One can say two things, with reasonable confidence, about a meeting like that. First, no one attends a meeting of that kind to dissuade others…