Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:44, and sunset is 6:49, for 12 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 63.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 6 PM, and the full board in regular session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1846, astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
Whitewater once again has a stand-alone supermarket, and like so many residents, this libertarian blogger is pleased to see ALDI in town. Note well: the public policy of recruiting a supermarket is not the matter of a single business, but of how local public officials have managed through public bodies (like the Whitewater Community Development Authority) under public laws and principles. However hard it has been, and remains, for Whitewater’s declining old guard to grasp, each of them (or any of us) is no less — but no more — than 1 of 15,000 in the city.1
Of a supermarket, consider these two claims:
From FREE WHITEWATER on 9.19.24:
Unquestionably right. The old Sentry closed in ’15, and Whitewater went years fumbling with old-guard CDA attempts to bring a dedicated supermarket. They accomplished nothing of the kind.
ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here.
As part of a post at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner on 9.20.24 :
Larry Kachel indicated that the prior property owner [DLK related] had been in discussion with ALDI beginning in 2017, but the company had concluded that the traffic counts and population did not meet their minimum criteria. Kachel hastened to add that the late Jim Allen’s persistent efforts over many years to attract a store should also be recognized. Tom Howard, ALDI’s regional real estate developer, told the Banner that the city became a viable possibility for a store as a result of the success that the company has recently enjoyed with other stores in rural areas. Jon Kachel indicated that discussions have taken place with a variety of prospects regarding the property located between ALDI and Culver’s, but nothing has come together yet.
I’ll offer six remarks:
First, the City of Whitewater — through its taxpayers — had to spend $500,000 of public money to remediate — to clean up — the site of the prior private property owner, DLK Enterprises. In the language of a consultant’s assessment:
The existing structures on the property will be demolished and the site remediated, including the removal of asbestos and lead in the buildings. This cost is significant and potentially cost prohibitive for any new development.
I’m glad the City of Whitewater accepted this proposal, yet one should be clear about what this means: ordinary people had to pay to clean up the prior, local owner’s mess. The local business did not pay this money — ordinary people did. This municipal administration, under law, through the Community Development Authority and the Whitewater Common Council, had to pay this money up front to make the deal possible.
See Letter on Developer Agreement (two pages) and Development Agreement (forty-three pages) that I received in June through a public records request.2
Second, It seems likely, if not certain, that the publicly-funded remediation has made the remaining area more suitable for sale. (The Brothers Kachel are free to thank the taxpayers of Whitewater at their earliest convenience.)
Third, and admittedly, the Banner‘s paragraph is a poor specimen on which to rely. There’s nothing quoted here; it’s a conversation or conversations related from one person to another, as though people were talking along a fence line. There isn’t even a claim to word-for-word accuracy: it’s an account of what someone “indicated,” not what someone said verbatim. It’s also told from a narrow perspective in which every reader should know the local people mentioned and in which the local men cited should be taken at face value3.
Fourth, the corporate real estate developer for ALDI, at least as recounted here, reasonably states the obvious about why ALDI would pick this city (once the property was cleaned up, of course). That statement says nothing about the many prior, fruitless local efforts to find a supermarket.
Fifth, I have no idea why someone from ALDI, whether in Batavia, Illinois, or an office in Germany, would want to be pulled into a discussion that’s more about local public policy over the last generation than ALDI (or whether he was even told accurately what the local issues are before he was asked to comment). ALDI’s corporate representative is presumably unfamiliar with the public policy mistakes at yesteryear’s Whitewater Community Development Authority, or the controversial past actions of Whitewater CDA (and the role of local landlords on that body). See Meeper Technology Loan Investigation Memo, professional reporting from WhitewaterWise, City officials: Internal investigation finds CDA engaged in ‘lack of proper documentation, communication and transparency’ when it ‘wrote off’ more than $750,000 in loans, and blogging from FREE WHITEWATER, Meeper Technology Loan Investigation, Memo and Documents.
Sixth, equally puzzling is why anyone at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner would look for answers from ALDI before seeking public documents from his or her own city. The foundational issue is about years’ long local policy to seek to a supermarket, and conduct at the Whitewater CDA across a decade’s time, not any given business arriving recently.
What portion of this libertarian blogger’s contention — ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here — is accurate?
All of it, every last word.
I’m glad ALDI is here — one should be clear about how she’s here.
- Denoted as a fraction, these aged men of the old guard would each look like this: 1/15,000 or 0.000067
↩︎ - The request, submitted and received under Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39, has more than one use.
↩︎ - The Banner‘s author writes in his paragraph with a credulousness that suggests no awareness or no appreciation of the challenges to the modernization — normalization, truly — of local government over the last two years. ↩︎
Good for you. Yeah, that says it. Context is key right? It’s a bad look these guys and for the Banner for sure. Either these guys took Banner for a ride about a key fact that Banner didn’t know OR he took his readers for a ride by concealing the fact. Hysterical that he inserted this paragraph into a grand opening story. Small town guy helping out small town guys right?
We are coming to the end of an era in Whitewater but the guys who shaped/controlled that era are having trouble accepting that the city’s not the same. It’s not a new city manager or whatever. It’s a change of generations but they are the last to see the old techniques/tricks don’t impress/scare the way they once did. Heading into Sunset Boulevard territory. People used to be worried/scared of them but they can’t convince/badger much anymore.
In some ways, I’m late to the critique. I’ve felt that these old-guard men were to be taken literally (they meant what they said) but not seriously (trickle down schemes and business-speak platitudes). It never occurred to me that the old guard that failed to understand the Great Recession would carry on for as long it has, or make such a shambles of the CDA in the 2010s, as they did. They wasted money on failed startups but worse even than that were evident conflicts of interests now plain.
True but sad anecdote: Someone last week, a longstanding observer of the local scene, speculated to me that they simply came up in a local environment where they didn’t know any better, didn’t know that their pretensions to expertise were far below normal expectations, and didn’t understand public-private distinctions in policy. I’m skeptical.
And yet, that’s quite striking: it’s like saying someone didn’t know the Earth was a sphere because his tiny social circle taught him that the Earth was flat (and that he had no need to ask anyone outside that circle, or verify the Earth’s dimensions for himself).
They have one great power, however: a shameless expectation of being taken seriously (and with exquisite deference) no matter how clear the evidence to the contrary.
omg look who has receipts. the commenter last week was right the landlord oligarchs 2.0 version doing what they do but sucking at it.
The arrival of ALDI in Whitewater reflects the competence and persistence we’re seeing now, a stark contrast to the opportunism and ineffectiveness of past years. This development symbolizes the positive change and focus on the public good that’s finally taking root. While private interests may benefit, the entire community and surrounding area stand to gain as well.
The old guard represents a bygone era that struggled to move the community forward.
Yes, quite a stark difference. It’s not too much to ask, but rather the least the community deserves, that Whitewater should have a modern & normal public policy.
People want a more modern way. You can’t run the city or the campus the way it was 20 years ago! Turn the page, Whitewater!
There’s a good exhortation: Turn the page, Whitewater!
I have been here my whole life but i get that the town is differnet than it was in 2000. The same old fogeys want to run the place forever like they were on a supreme court. We have had a last few better years in a row than the last 20. Things are moving now. Why go back?
That’s a fair question: Why go back? No reason at all.
The fuss of the last few years is about people who won’t let the city evolve. There are definitely problems but the old tricks never worked anyway. In spite of it there has been some real progress. Credit to you that you acknowledge progress and have a more updated outlook. When better came along you did recognize it. These men are stuck in the past. We can make more progress too. Everyone can play a role. Keep pointing out the differences between old and new ways. You are much better at your points than the other side is. It’s not even close honestly. Thank you for taking a stand. Happy autumn!
Many thanks for your kind words. Happy Autumn, the best season of the year.