Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 32. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:34 for 9h 09m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 2004, Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.
Snowfall was down in December for northern Wisconsin, as Danielle Kaeding reports in Lack of snow threatens to upend business, winter activities in northern Wisconsin (‘Warm weather led to drastically reduced snowfall for the month of December’):
In northern Wisconsin, where outdoor enthusiasts live for snow and ice, warmer than usual weather has skiers and snowmobilers turning to wheels, and race organizers breaking out snowmaking machines.
In December, weather stations in Brule, Ashland and Hayward recorded temperatures more than 12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 30-year average, according to the National Weather Service.
Kevin Huyck, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, said those areas saw around 11 to 16 inches less snow than average for the month.
“(It’s) definitely been drier than what we’ve seen in the past as far as snowfall for this past month of December,” Huyck said
Understandably, the lack of snow threatens businesses that depend on snow sports. Some enterprises may be able to produce artificial snow, but that creation may not be enough in volume or satisfaction for winter sports enthusiasts.
For it all, however, Wisconsin’s economy does and should rely on many activities rather than fewer. Seeing Wisconsin only through winter sports would be both erroneous and short-sighted.
One can say the same about Whitewater’s student housing market. It’s been profitable for some (a few landlords) who have benefited privately in a relationship with a publicly-funded university. (These gentlemen talk about private business but their income has depended on a healthy public institution. Not one of these men built their enterprises on purely private relationships.)
The city’s economy, however, is and healthfully must be more than a student-housing market (supportive of higher education though I am). Indeed, normal, thriving economies in America simply aren’t built on rental properties. A hundred other industries would take precedence.
Worth considering the next time some of these gentlemen expect preferential consideration…
omg so true!!! whitewater’s on its gen 2.0 landlord oligarch.
In the grand theater of Whitewater, where the stage has long been dominated by the landlord aristocracy, an unexpected plot twist emerges. For decades, these ‘noble’ landlords have orchestrated a magnum opus of extracting wealth from student renters, transforming family homes into student housing citadels. Yet, as fate’s pendulum swings, the COVID-19 interlude left these rental empires with gaping vacancies, revealing the fragility of their one-act play.
Enter stage left: the influx of immigrants, a new cast in Whitewater’s unfolding drama. The landlords, once maestros of their rental realms, now find themselves in a quandary. Lo and behold, these residences become potential housing for our newest residents, the immigrants seeking a new beginning.
How ironic that the landlords, who reveled in their unchecked reign, now bemoan the shifting tides brought about by their own short-sighted strategies. These erstwhile barons of the rental market, having sown the winds of opportunistic housing conversions, now reap the whirlwind of demographic shifts.
Yet, in this twist lies a veiled opportunity for Whitewater to script a new narrative. A chance to transform from a city held hostage by rentals to a community that embraces diversity and reshapes its identity. It’s a moment for Whitewater to pen a story of resilience and inclusivity, where the challenges of immigration and housing become the forge for a stronger, more unified community.
So, let us watch with bated breath as this new act unfolds. May the city of Whitewater, its long-time residents, and its newest members come together in crafting a tale not of division, but of unity; not of exploitation, but of mutual support. For in the end, the true measure of a community lies not in the wealth amassed by a few, but in the well-being and harmony of all its people.
Their policy prescriptions have been policy failures.
Their sense of entitlement — amounting to the idea that Whitewater’s future should be in the hands of a few, and that in effect Whitewater is the property of a few — has been with them for a lifetime.
Yes, very much so: “How ironic that the landlords, who reveled in their unchecked reign, now bemoan the shifting tides brought about by their own short-sighted strategies. These erstwhile barons of the rental market, having sown the winds of opportunistic housing conversions, now reap the whirlwind of demographic shifts.”
Indeed.