Real marketing is a legitimate pursuit. By contrast, manipulative, smooth-talking, super-sophisticated men & women spend hours convincing others that the next big thing is, in fact, the Next Big Thing. They declare that millions of taxpayers’ money spent on white-collar projects, while truly needy people receive no benefit whatever, are Astonishing Feats of Global Significance…
Planning
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Planning
The Failure of Marketing (and the Marketing of Failure)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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 • • Comments
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
On the East Gate Project
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Government Spending, Local Government, Planning, Press
About that story on Whitewater’s East Gateway Proposal: What’s Missing?
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
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…
Local Government, Planning, Politics
Common Council 4.16.13: The New Council
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Common Council begins a new year, with four of its members sworn into office last night, and officers selected for the year ahead. By overall composition, it’s probably the most talented Council in memory, and certainly since I’ve been writing (2007). One hopes this works out well. In 2008, I wrote about the Planning Commission…
Crime, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Is This What Janesville’s Leaders Really Meant by ‘Regionalization’?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Agriculture, Animals, Beautiful Whitewater, City, Farming, Food, Good Ideas, Hip & Prosperous, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Local Government, New Whitewater, Planning
A Model Ordinance
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
These last few months, beginning in September, Whitewater’s Planning Commission has heard, and subsequently considered, a proposal for an urban (backyard) chicken ordinance. The proposal is not mine; I have been a mere observer of this effort. One may write about a topic, but only after months of careful observation, as in this case. I…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Starting Backwards
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Local governments find themselves, time and again, surprised when projects don’t go to plan. They’re often surprised when the politics of a project don’t go to plan. That surprise may have a hundred causes, but I’d guess one is among the most common: that plans advance not on their merits, but through ill-considered deals between…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Planning
Whitewater’s Common Council Session of 11.20.12: 25 Questions about the Generac Bus
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Most of Tuesday’s 11.20.12 Common Council session concerned the 2013 municipal budget, and of that, a half hour’s discussion addressed whether to give Generac Power Systems, a thriving corporation, ten-thousand dollars to bus its workers to and from other cities. That’s not all, of course: one heard the company-specific program touted as the hope for…
Business, City, Laws/Regulations, New Whitewater, Planning
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget: Downtown Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Under the 2013 draft budget, there’s the possibility of the City of Whitewater increasing the contribution for Downtown Whitewater, Inc., to compensate for the loss of funding via Tax Incremental District 4. While I’d surely rather the city didn’t prop up businesses, and I’d rather it didn’t fund just one area at that, I candidly…
City, Planning, Politics
The Extraordinary Ordinary
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Two recent meetings illustrate the simple, routine workings of government in the city: the 9.10.12 Planning Commission meeting, and the 9.11.12 Common Council session. I have embedded both below. You’ll find, I’d say, nothing extraordinary in either. Instead, it’s just the routine business of city planning, and the preparations for interviewing candidates to be Whitewater’s…
City, Green Energy Holdings, Planning
The Misdirected Focus
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Watching Whitewater’s recent Planning Commission, one saw an attention to detail about a factory building’s wall color, general style, and lighting that lasted for 13:28 minutes, from approximately 11:30 to 24:58 during the session. It’s not the particular focus on an applicant’s building, but what it says about ordinary due diligence in reviewing bigger projects,…
City, Law, Open Government, Planning
The Long and Good Meeting
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…