Good morning.
Summer in Whitewater will begin with sunny skies and a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1898, the United States captures Guam from Spain. The few warning shots fired by the U.S. naval vessels are misinterpreted as salutes by the Spanish garrison, which was unaware that the two nations were at war.
Whitewater isn’t the oldest city in America, but it’s old. Whitewater isn’t wholly staid, but it’s not wholly modern.
One sees this in the city government, where the last municipal manager was not backwards, but did have moments of governmental somnambulance. Modernization will not come all at once, as the time required to review all current practices would consume time needed for daily services.
Last night’s meeting highlighted areas the city manager and common council have found that require either more information about prior practices or changes from prior practices:
- The city has an old fireworks ordinance that will require some reworking to avoid stifling restriction on ordinary residents’ small purchases. An ordinance that requires permits for sparklers is both outdated (and has fallen into desuetude in any event). See video @ 26:48.
- Whitewater has a policy for mobile home permitting, the performance of which both city employees and the city council expressed uncertainty. The agenda item was postponed to July to allow for more research. (The next council meeting is 7.18.23). See video @ 31:31.
- The way that Whitewater has previously reviewed her city manager, in frequency, procedure, and goals needs updating toward a better practice. There is at least one clear distinction to make: there’s a difference between procedure (how an evaluation is made) and goals (the standards by which an employee or institution are to be evaluated). Both procedure and goals require prior planning, with a written timeline, steps to take, and measurements that are available as a public record. See video @ 39:43.
These items from the 6.20.23 session are tasks to make municipal government more modern (where modern means more efficient, more transparent, or less burdensome). These steps take time, but it’s time worth taking: efficiency, transparency, and temperance are characteristics of good government.
BepiColombo spacecraft flies by Mercury for 3rd time – See the pics:
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew by Mercury on June 19, 2023. See multiple images captured by the spacecraft’s Mercury Transfer Module’s monitoring camera 3.
Full Story: https://www.space.com/bepicolombo-mer…