Good morning.
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Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset is 5:13, for 10 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 53.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Starin Park Water Tower Community Committee meets at 6 PM, and the Landmarks Commission meets at 7 PM.
On this day in 1849, the University of Wisconsin opens:
The University of Wisconsin began with 20 students led by Professor John W. Sterling. The first class was organized as a preparatory school in the first department of the University: a department of science, literature, and the arts. The university was initially housed at the Madison Female Academy building, which had been provided free of charge by the city. The course of study was English grammar; arithmetic; ancient and modern geography; elements of history; algebra; Caesar’s Commentaries; the Aeneid of Virgil (six books); Sallust; select orations of Cicero; Greek; the Anabasis of Xenophon; antiquities of Greece and Rome; penmanship, reading, composition and declamation. Also offered were book-keeping, geometry, and surveying. Tuition was “twenty dollars per scholar, per annum.” For a detailed recollection of early UW-Madison life, see the memoirs of Mrs. W.F. Allen [Source: History of the University of Wisconsin, Reuben Gold Thwaites, 1900]
In early January, the Whitewater Common Council met to consider two development projects. In its deliberations, the Council heard objections that the placement of one of the development projects on vacant land (Tax Parcel No. /A4444200001) would interfere with the mere possibility of a future railroad spur at that location. The Council voted against that project of the east side of town, on a 4-2 vote. See Quick Update on Development Projects.
The concerns about a possible rail spur being an obstacle to a development at this location seemed speculative and unrealistic1. Turns out, those concerns were speculative and unrealistic. A study the city commissioned shows that the location of the proposed development was not a good location for a rail spur (“marginal rail-served value”) with two better locations available (“good rail service potential” and “excellent rail service potential,” respectively).
Embedded below is that segment of the January rail spur discussion:
Here are the material parts of that January discussion, from councilmember, city manager, and incumbent landlord:
Councilmember Singer: And then I know in the past, this particular parcel, you know, the CDA had been working with a potential light industrial, to do some electronics recycling. And one of the attractive parts of that was the rail spur potentially access. It’s one of the only parcels that would allow us to, now there’s no spur now, but it’s set for, you know, if we had a need and the funding to be able to get one installed, it was an attractive parcel. So that’s where I’m having a little bit of trouble reconciling like, okay, you know, that was a prime piece for an industrial, light industrial development that would bring in jobs versus a residential use.
And so that’s just, I mean, it is a complete 180 from what kind of the CDA and the city in the past has been trying to do on that. And I think Mr. Knight mentioned it earlier. It is one of our only spots if we did need to attract a business that required rail access that we would be then offloaded.City Manager Weidl: I’m with you. But then when you do the research on how much linear feet you need to actually do a rail siding, you need three quarters to a mile for it. And so from a viability standpoint, the other intersections make that a site where rail siding is not likely to occur.
I mean, I understand, I get it. Like you don’t give up rail if someone’s gonna build something there and have a distribution facility. The, and Taylor, correct me if I’m wrong, the requests we’ve gotten from JCEDC and Walworth County have all been looking at the rail spur on the other side of the municipality.
And that’s, those are the ones we’ve been responding to because the length of the rail available is long enough for an actual siding. That’s what it comes down to is speed of train equals length of siding. And the siding is the side track, S-I-D-I-N-G.And so that’s the technical issue we’re running into. Notwithstanding, I totally hear where you’re coming from. Making sure we’re protecting the viability of parcels, notwithstanding the offers.
Incumbent Landlord Kachel: I would recommend, too, before you try to do anything on it, as it being either the only one or one of the only ones that have rail access, you have Don Vruwink as the railroad commissioner, former assembly person from this district. Reach out to him and he would love to help Whitewater bring in a railroad spur. But in order to do that, you have to bring in some businesses, some jobs.
A few remarks:
1 . The recycling opportunity was a years-long exercise that came to nothing. It was one false start after another. I’m surprised that anyone would hold it up as an example of a realistic prospect or example for future development. It wasn’t and it isn’t.
2. I’m sure that a 180-degree turn in Community Development Authority policy upsets a few aged men in this town, but it matters more that 15,000 people have a better CDA. If a 180-degree turn is hard, it’s because moving from bad to better is hard.
3. Whitewater’s old guard steps on its own arguments all the time. If incumbent landlord Kachel should be right that we need more businesses than we have in the industrial park for a railroad spur, then concerns from Knight and Singer about an obstacle at this given location are immaterial. These three couldn’t decide among their arguments: was the need for a spur at this location a realistic concern or not a concern? The study answers that question (it wasn’t a realistic concern at this location).
4. Be clear: the arguments of these gentlemen (who didn’t bring a bounty of businesses to the industrial park when they were at the CDA) effectively work by doubt and delay to satisfy an incumbent’s landlord’s opposition to new apartments.
The Rail Spur Study appears below:
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- When I heard these arguments in January, I thought: could some of these gentlemen be more obvious? ↩︎
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