Common Council’s 10.1.13 Session

Last night was a lengthy but interesting session for Whitewater.  Lots of topics, a few of which I’ll mention below.  These topics are in the order of the agenda items presented last night, with two exceptions: the upcoming Crop Walk and the status of the Janesville Transit bus, that I’ve placed ahead.  (See, in a post from yesterday, Janesville Transit’s Ghost Bus.)

Crop Walk Proclamation.  Best part of the entire night: a proclamation for Sunday’s Crop Walk, on 10.6.13 at 12:30 PM, from Fairhaven to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.   
  
The Bus.  Funding for this item isn’t in Whitewater’s preliminary 2014 budget, and will be discussed as a possible budget addition on November 5th.  Placing the item then will afford the municipal administration the chance to sneak funding back into the budget at the last minute.

Expect Janesville’s transportation director to pull out all the stops, in an Amazing Dog and Pony Show™.  Be prepared to hear anything, anything at all, from proponents.  In the meantime, backers of this project will push every behind-the-scenes, big corporation and big government connection they can find to keep a bus rolling for their selfish ends.    

One will have to be prepared for just about any dodgy claim on its behalf.

State of the Schools Address.  It’s a good practice for the district leaders to offer addresses like this at local government meetings. 

I’ll consider this presentation, from the Whitewater Schools’ district administrator and business manager, in a separate and later post.  A schools presentation deserves its own space.   

Proposed 2014 City Budget. Budget season begins.  Next session is 10.15.13.

Mutual Aid Between Police Departments.  In the end, it’s not relationships with other departments, but relationships between the police department and the rest of this community, that matter most.  Outside of a select few, those intra-city relationships are often poor, and this leadership (like the one before it) seemingly has no idea how to improve genuinely those relationships. 

An Extension of Historic Starin Neighborhood Association’s R-O District to N. Fremont Street.  R-O limits a residence to two unrelated occupants.  The deal passed as expected, with a 6-1 vote. 

Legal non-conforming uses may be permitted by application and run with the property after sale.  Big question, though: will the municipal administration stop, at this street? 

The last one couldn’t stop – will his one? 

Class B Beer and Liquor License.  Other than residential zoning, nothing gets Whitewater going like distribution of a limited-in-number Class B Beer & Liquor License. 

I agree with Mr. Binnie that Whitewater would be better off if the state did not limit Common Council’s ability to issue licenses to qualified establishments.  All three of the establishments from 10.1.13 seem to be good candidates. 

On the 4-3 vote, Council approved the Alcohol Licensing Commission’s prior recommendation of a license for Casual Joe’s 2 (to be opened along James Street).  Another license may be on offer if (1) the city’s population officially increases by 500 people, or (2) another license holder loses his or her license. 

I’ll assume that the vote would have been the same regardless of the quality of the applicants’ advocacy, but perhaps it would not have been. 

Watching the proceedings, it’s impossible, I think, to ignore that Blackthorne Scribe’s team was of uneven strength and tone.  Some were very polished, others not so much, and perhaps unaware that they were mishandling their own case by odd mixtures of presumption and pique. 

Advocacy’s tone – but not substance – depends on one’s medium: aggressive and acerbic works in print, not so much on the radio, not at all on television, and rarely in person (away from cameras).  For the most part, Wisconsinites recoil from visible irritation or pique (on television or in person).       

Tyler Sailsbery (of the Black Sheep and Casual Joe’s 2), by contrast, is just right for this sort of presentation: even in tone, relaxed and extemporaneous in delivery, knowledgeable about his subject. 

I don’t have a circumstance in mind where we’d be on opposite sides at a public forum, but I’d not make the mistake of underestimating him.   

Buried Power Lines at the East Gateway Project.  Dr. Kidd proposed reconsideration of buried power lines along the new East Gateway remodeling.  The project is two-million, the powerlines would be another three-hundred thousand.  I’ll concede that buried lines look better, and the time to bury them would be during construction.  Dr. Kidd’s right. 

The question isn’t that the East Gateway project will be lovely – no doubt it will.  The question with the project is that, truly, one has almost no idea what it will spur other than new roads and sidewalks.

The artist’s pictures of the upcoming transformation are beguiling, but revealing, too:

It looks better, of course, but what’s the same?  The building and and shops behind those trees and new sidewalks are the same.

What will beauty bring?  Even the artist behind the design drawings doesn’t know – he or she merely reproduces what’s already at the intersection. 

All this money, but what comes from it?

I don’t know, and I don’t know anyone else who does.