Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset is 6:00 for 10 hours 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1962, President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval quarantine of the Communist nation.
On Monday morning, October 13th, FREE WHITEWATER published a post entitled Two Techniques of the Special Interest Men. One of those two enumerated techniques was to level
False claims about lack of transparency….
Listen closely, and a special-interest faction of small-town cronyism will do what it can to level charges that it was not told something, did not know something, was denied information about something. These are the same men who for years concealed information on the old Community Development Authority, e.g., unfavorable audits, a cease and desist order, lost paperwork, firings, the terms of wasteful deals, the reasons for wasteful deals, etc.
By Monday evening, October 13th, at a meeting of the Planning and Architectural Commission, they’d helpfully provided an example of that technique. This post presents and assesses an unfounded aspersion about supposed lack of transparency.
The Agenda Item. On the agenda for the Planning meeting that night, Items 6 and 7 listed a notice that there had been a change to the agenda, and cited Whitewater’s Transparency Ordinance:
The change, printed in red, lists the date and time (10.11.25 @ 9 AM), lists the nature of the change (“update to memo”), and cites Whitewater’s Transparency Ordinance (Whitewater Transparency Enhancement Ordinance, Whitewater, Wis., Code of Ordinances ch. 2.62).
A Question About the Change. The chair of the Planning Commission (and a councilmember) raised an objection to the consideration of Items 6 and 7 during the October 13th meeting (Video @ 4:12):
I will make a motion to remove items six and seven until the next meeting and my reasoning for that being it’s obviously a hot button topic for the city already. I don’t know if there was changes to the planner’s report. I would like to see those out to the city for the 72 hours to allow the public to comment and or digest them.
My motion is just to remove items six and seven to the next meeting. Is there any second? Second. All right. [Moved by Hicks, seconded by McCormick.]
An Explanation of the Change. Whitewater’s Code Enforcement Officer offered an explanation (Video @ 5:03):
The only change that was made was I expanded slightly on my review of the comprehensive plan amendment and I added in some more details pertaining to the reason for the project meeting our comprehensive plan amendment requirements. So, no changes to the application or no changes to what they’re requesting. The only change was my memo and adding in further detail and expansion on some bullet points in the first section of my memo.
Motion to Postpone Item Rejected, and so Approval of the Waiver After Explanation of the Change (Video @ 12:19).
The Accuracy of the Explanation. As it turns out, this libertarian blogger keeps his own record of municipal agendas and recorded videos. I have both the original agenda .pdf from Friday, October 10th and the memo-updated agenda .pdf from October 13th. Comparing the two documents, the only changes were exactly as Whitewater’s Code Enforcement Officer had described them. If they were otherwise, then I’d be the first person in this city to say so. The updates were not otherwise — they were as she has described them.
A Public Comment Much Later in the Meeting Complaining About the Update on Items 6 and 7 (Video @ 1:24:01):
I had a question that, that has troubled me. And that was the amended transparency ordinance for seven, six and seven. And I didn’t see this and I had a conflict. I wasn’t going to be here. But so the question I’ve got is when did that change get thrown in? And why are we rushing these? Why couldn’t this take time where more people could have possibly attended. But can somebody explain to me related to seven? Why was there a change 24 hour change in the agenda…I got here late because in fact, I canceled somewhere else. I was going to be here. What happened that created that issue?
An Assessment.
The motion to delay consideration comes even before an explanation of why the agenda was updated.
The motion to delay gives the game away by contending that it’s a ‘hot-button issue.’ A hot-button issue is not a procedural irregularity. One person’s hot-button issue suggesting delay is another person’s need to proceed with ordinary municipal and business transactions initially advanced in the Whitewater Common Council many months ago. This was not a new issue, it was not a rushed one.
The original agenda item was timely posted, and the changes here were minor (not involving the item itself, but only small changes to supporting materials). In fact, the aspersion against the update is only possible because the city was notably and admirably transparent.
This city government represents 15,000 people. Having posted an agenda properly, it does not owe a delay to one resident’s scheduling conflict.
In the video, one hears that same resident, having not noticed or managed his schedule properly, is troubled. In life, there are reasons that a man or woman might be troubled. I’ll suggest this is not one of the reasons to be troubled in one’s life. One would have expected that lobbyists were of stouter heart.
After receiving an explanation (that should have been clear by reading the document’s plain language of ‘update to memo’ or attending on time to hear an explanation when it was first given), all that accusatory energy (being troubled) fades away into “Okay, thank you very much” after the explanation was given a second time during the meeting.
Keel-billed Toucan Takes a Bite During Lunch: