Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:14 and sunset 6:04 PM for 10h 49m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1803, the United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
On October 17th, four members of the Whitewater Common Council (Allen, Gerber, Hicks, and Stone) voted to give Councilmember Jim Allen the sole authority to bring an offering of lawyers before the council.
The August 15th meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, however, reveals the dodginess of Allen’s representations and claims to the community.
Look at the claims Allen makes at the 8.15.23 council meeting about the need for a third attorney, and in the space of 6 minutes he offers 5 justifications:
Transcript and Video.
1. At 0:28 on the video, he says “All right, I’ll second it” to this motion: “I move to authorize the council to retain a separate attorney for common council’s use in regard to personnel matters or employees that council oversees.”
2. Fewer than three minutes later, at 2:57, Allen says “We need separate representation when doing John’s performance evaluation.”
3. At 5:48, Allen then declares representation will be “Only as needed.”
4. At 5:52, Allen then declares “No. We don’t have a use for it right now, I don’t believe.” (If it’s “only as needed,” or he felt the council didn’t “have a use for it right now, I don’t believe,” then why did Allen make the clear declaration only two minutes earlier that there was a specific and concrete purpose for the attorney?)
5. Then at 6:10, Allen says he’s entitled to hire another lawyer because “It’s just discretion.” (If that should be true, and hiring a lawyer doesn’t require a specific purpose, then Allen must believe that he can say and do anything.)
Allen’s 8.15.23 claims look like a child’s pretexts, the way young children will offer any number of consecutive justifications for whatever they say or do. In those cases, however, an adult guides the child to a more direct way of speaking and behaving.
And yet, and yet, this is the councilmember in whom Gerber, Hicks, and Stone placed authority for compiling an offering of lawyers on 10.17.23.
A reminder: Whitewater deserves better from its common council majority; this city is better than its council majority. Whitewater deserves better from its community development authority’s majority; this city is better than that authority’s majority.