There’s a Tom Waits song entitled, “What’s He Building in There?” It’s an ode of (but not to) paranoia, and every time that I hear it, I think of all the small-town busybodies who are sure that your business should, truly should, be their business.
Private citizens preying on private citizens, enforcing conformity.
Here’s the song –
Well, what of public matters? That’s different! In the words of Democratic State Senator Marlin Schneider, speaking of a legislators’ meeting, that’s “not open to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet.”
Actually, legislators’ meetings should and must be open, even to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Our law requires it, but even in the absence of a law, a principle would apply: that good government is open government, visible and accessible to common people.
Good government is more than open meetings, though. It’s taking a look at what government does, and that means what it spends. The City of Whitewater — both rightly and properly — includes copies of invoices paid and unpaid with Common Council agendas posted online.
The City of Whitewater website has a link to the July 7, 2009 agenda and submitted invoices.
So, for Common Council — a public body — deliberating public issues — what are they building in there? Let’s consider the last Common Council meeting, from July 7th.
From the invoices attached to the July 7th Common Council agenda, one finds —
Over $60,000 dollars in payments to Strand Associates, Inc. for sundry consulting projects. Now, I thought that only local mattered, and that one didn’t need consultants, if one were a tribune, microphone, voice of the people. Shouldn’t all this require just a cocktail napkin, a marker, and a few minutes, to whip up something impressive?
I’m not the least bit concerned about engineering or other consultants from outside Whitewater. On the contrary, we’re too local, too often, in matters of principle and practices, setting aside the higher, national standards others use.
Still, there’s little good to say about thousands ($4,700, $1,760, $5,466, etc.) for tax incremental districts that — like much of tax incremental financing — often delivers less than it promises.
Anyone — or anyone with a ready excuse — can say that “This is how it should be,” “That’s just municipal government,” etc.
Why, really?
There’s no inevitability in any of this; it might have been different, and it might still be different. “It had to be this way” is a lazy person’s excuse.