Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset is 8:29 for 15 hours 12 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 77.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, in a speech at Harvard University, Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe, a proposal that would come to be developed and known as the Marshall Plan.
It says nothing good about the quality of prior leadership in this city that a former school board president and former chairman of the Community Development Authority has been perseverating for months over a contrived, counterfactual scenario. Embedded below are this gentleman’s relevant public comments from the February 3 and June 2 meetings of the Whitewater Common Council.
In December of last year, on 12.16.25, the Whitewater Common Council heard a presentation from residents about using a portion of the Innovation Center for an early childhood project. While the Council did not act on the proposal itself, at that very meeting the municipal administration proposed to confer with the United States Economic Development Administration (EDA) about that possible use of the Center. (A portion of the funds to build the Center came from the Economic Development Administration; such grants often have conditions on their use.)
Here is an accurate timeline of events:
12.16.25: Presentation from leaders of the early childhood project.1 See Video 2025-12-16-Common Council at 3:14.
12.16.25: Statement from the city administration that they were drafting a letter to the EDA inquiring about the permissibility of a childcare operation within the Center. See Video 2025-12-16-Common Council at 50:46.
12.22.25: Letter from City of Whitewater to the EDA. See Common Council Meeting Agenda Packet, Item 15, Status of Innovation Center EDA Grant and ECEC (Feb. 3, 2026).
1.26.26: Email reply from the EDA informing the City of Whitewater that “childcare centers are not within EDA’s authorities, and using the proposed portion of the building for this purpose would take the grant out of compliance.” See Common Council Meeting Agenda Packet, Item 16, Request for EDA Review and Guidance on Innovation Center Use Modification (Feb. 3, 2026).
1.26.26 and 1.28.26: City of Whitewater tells proponents of the early childhood project and existing tenants, respectively, that the early childhood project would not be a possibility for the Innovation Center. See Common Council Meeting Agenda Packet, Item 15, Status of Innovation Center EDA Grant and ECEC (Feb. 3, 2026).
2.3.26: City of Whitewater describes this account of events in open-meeting remarks during that evening’s session. See Video 2026-2-03-Common Council at 14:36.
2.3.26: Despite the accurate account in the Common Council packet for 2.3.26, the former school board president and former chairman of the Community Development Authority claims, despite the explanation earlier in that very meeting, and contrary to the matter-of-fact EDA response to the city, that the city might have faced a claim for return of a portion of the Innovation Center’s grant money. See Video 2026-2-03-Common Council at 24:22.
6.2.26: Four months later, the former school board president and former chairman of the Community Development Authority continues to claim that the city might have faced a claim for return of a portion of the Innovation Center’s grant money. See Video 2026-6-02-Common Council at 37:03.
This gentleman’s argument rests on a hypothetical so contrived that it tells more about manufactured contentions than about real events. A weak claim is a weak claim no matter how often it’s repeated, and no matter how much it satisfies the claimant.
There was never a genuine risk to the City of Whitewater for loss of the Innovation Center’s grant money. Not even the risk of a single copper coin: the Council entertained a single presentation on the use of the Center, the administration thereafter inquired promptly of the EDA, received a cordial, businesslike reply from the EDA, and the matter was thereafter closed.
Claims to the contrary are like insisting that a woman who carried an umbrella would have become wet if she hadn’t carried the umbrella. And yet, and yet — she did carry the umbrella, she did open it promptly, and so she did stay dry.
Well done.
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- This libertarian blogger saw the presentation that evening; I am familiar with the claims presented. Today’s post, however, does not address the project; this is a post on the city’s inquiry about locating the project at the Innovation Center, and parade-of-horribles accusations since. My purpose should be clear. ↩︎
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, Outcome-Driven Argumentation, and a New Ethics Ordinance.