Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 5:57 for 10 hours 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.
These many years, writing about policies and claims whether local or state, this libertarian blogger has used the expression ‘no and no again.’ Regrettable, truly — it’s simply false (and ignorant) to contend that someone who loves this small town has ever wanted to use an expression of disapproval. On the contrary, each and every use has been, to my mind, necessary — and sadly so. One speaks and writes as the occasion requires.
On the evening of October 21st, at a meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, at a little over fifty minutes into the meeting, an official of the local government offered this observation of municipal finance:
If a community wants stable services, but also insists on low taxes, then the only way to balance that equation is through greater density, meaning more homes, businesses, and taxpayers sharing the cost of those services. If we want to keep low density and stable services, we must accept higher tax rates for them. If we want low density and low taxes, then we have to be prepared for service cuts because there simply isn’t enough revenue to maintain current service levels. The point here is not to say that the one preference is right or wrong, but to show that choices have consequences. So our community’s fiscal sustainability depends on understanding this balance between services, taxes, and growth. So as we move forward with our budget discussions, the framework that we’ll keep in mind is what balance does Whitewater want to strike?
Those one hundred, forty-three words, spoken plainly as part of a meeting of many more words, compel one’s attention. They ask for a reply.
And so, and so — ‘yes and yes again.’ Expressions change with changing times.
The words spoken in that meeting are not cold words, they’re warm; they’re not stagnant but rather they require an appreciation of the dynamic nature of a prosperous community. Too much of our local policy these last two decades has reflected only one need, often expressed insistently and at other times demanded imperiously. We are not one action, not one need, but thousands of actions and interactions among fifteen thousand people. Not one person’s prosperity, not one faction’s prosperity, but that of all the city.
That common prosperity requires foresight and calculation among many options on behalf of many thousands of people.
See the Milky Way’s stellar nurseries in this amazing animated 3D fly-through video: