Yesterday, I wrote about an obvious lack of diligence from members of Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission. Their meetings are an exercise in lack of preparation, sloppiness, and plodding along unenthusiastically. (See, Lack of Diligence, Front and Center.) Someone asked me, in reply to that post, if I thought that Whitewater’s commissioners, on the PFC or…
Politics
Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, Local Government, New Media, Open Government, Politics, State Government, Writing
Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal
by JOHN ADAMS •
For bloggers who cover politics, policymaking, etc., just as would have been true of essayists and pamphleteers in an earlier time, it helps to have a method to one’s writing. In the paragraphs below, I’ll list steps one should take when approaching a topic. The steps are in a rough order, but in any method,…
Economy, Planning, Politics
Frédéric Bastiat’s Gift to Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
New Media, New Whitewater, Politics, Press
What the ‘Shock of Inclusion’ Means Locally
by JOHN ADAMS •
I posted yesterday on Clay Shirky’s Shock of Inclusion and New Roles for News in the Fabric of Society, published in 2010 and just as relevant today. His essay isn’t about local media especially, but his observations are useful to assess both local news and politics. Shirky writes about the collapse of a pipeline…
City, Elections, Politics
The Spring Local Election Outlook
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s local election list is now available, and as with most years, it’s a mostly-uncontested affair. There are no challengers for the WWUSD School Board seats, and only Aldermanic District 4 has challengers for a seat on Council. (District 4 has always produced a fair share of candidates for one office or another; it’s a…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Open Government, Politics
It’s Not a Communications Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
A few months ago, during a public meeting, a commissioner mentioned that an applicant and the applicant’s neighbors might have done more to communicate with each other. (I thought that was true, too; as it turned out, there was a great deal of communication in the weeks afterward, all to the good.) It’s not…
City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Visualizing Bad Policy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Planning, Politics
The People in the Room
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics
Whitewater’s Common Council Meeting for 10.15.13 (City Manager, Budget Perspective)
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s budget season for local governments across Wisconsin, including Whitewater. Presentations beginning in October will conclude with a vote in November. A few introductory remarks on that process follow. City Manager, Cameron Clapper. City Manager Clapper has two tasks, not one: daily management the city’s local government, and normalizing the way his administration describes local government’s functions. In…
Free Markets, Politics, Weird Tales
Do Rally Monkeys Really Spark Market Rallies?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Financial Times, there’s a post that has a video of a rally monkey, and the possibilty of a market rally if there’s a House-Obama compromise on the debt-ceiling (and perhaps on the shutdown, too.) Well, a political pact might spark a rally, but what role does the monkey, himself, play? Most likely none,…
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…
Politics
‘More Than Sharks Love Blood’
by JOHN ADAMS •
How does one explain politicians like Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, or Mark Sanford? They’ve kept returning no matter how risible their revealed conduct. Their particular motivations are known (if then) only to their families or therapists. It’s possible, though, that a suitable political explanation is available. In the American version of House of Cards, Congressman…
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,…