Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset is 6:49, for 12 hours, 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01142, Public Domain, Link.
On this day in 1846, astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
Yesterday, I considered the problems of a local news desert. Today, the focus turns to possible solutions.
If nothing ever happened in a community, then there would be no need to record the passing of events. If only a few events took place, then only a little effort would be required to chronicle those events. In a community experiencing new dynamism, there’s a greater need to record developments accurately.
A news desert, with limited information, allows misinformation to spread.
Whitewater has become a place of increasing dynamism, and notably and undeniably of greater thoroughness in policy from the municipal government. This should be universally acknowledged (although it won’t be universally acknowledged): the city’s general municipal policy and community development policy are more thorough than those even of a few years ago, let alone a decade ago. (Failure to say as much may have many causes, including the stubborn pride of a few.)
Whether one supports or opposes, intellectual honesty should compel this acknowledgment.
A talented municipal government (comprised of capable officials) deserves from the many talented private residents of the community1 work as thorough as that municipal government’s2. That’s the loss (and the sadness) of a news desert: government work deserves consistent, thorough, accessible reporting on topics, as chronicle and as the basis for commentary. Whitewater has some of those qualities in its news reporting, but not all of them from one publication. Having all of those qualities from a single publication makes it easier to build a knowledgeable readership. (As yesterday and forever: FREE WHITEWATER is a site of commentary; it’s not a site of reporting the news, but of commenting on the news.)
Perhaps someday a Whitewater publication with all of these qualities will come along. Today is not that day.
In the meantime, as the community entertains policy discussions consistent with best practices elsewhere, there are a few steps possible to present proposals plainly and accurately.
First, there have been evident gains in communicating city initiatives on social media. That’s all to the good, reminding again and again about upcoming meetings. Press on.
Second, a written proposal in a memo or PowerPoint should offer reminders of where to look online for more information.
Third, although the city has begun to collect its website more nicely into categories (e.g., Economic Development, City Services and Government, etc.), presentations and memorandums should include a reminder to visit those links. A visual reminder on a slide, or even in a memorandum (e.g., “click here, then here, then here”) may seem too much, but it’s not. It’s a news desert, after all. It’s valuable to supply regularly what no one else does. Keep going.
Fourth, presentations should recap what’s been done on an initiative before, in a single sentence (at least) for each prior step in that initiative. (There was a solid, longer presentation like this on economic development at the 9.16.25 meeting of the Whitewater Common Council.) The government should continue these efforts even in shorter presentations, with a quick, 30-second reminder of past work. (One can say a lot, simply, in 30 seconds.)
Fifth, and critically, this city needs someone to play an ombudsman’s role when misinformation crops up at a municipal meeting, even if in public comment. Residents have a right to speak, they should and must be able to exercise that right should interrupted. Sometimes during those public comments, however, they offer statements that are simple, factual errors. Those errors should be (and undoubtedly are) known to everyone in the government (both elected and in the administration) and knowledgeable residents listening to the council session.
It is a mistake for the government to let others’ simple mistakes go uncorrected. Deference and politesse are not reasons to allow factual misstatements to go uncorrected.
I’ll offer two examples (and in both cases I’m sure the mistakes were made in good faith).
At the 6.17.25 council meeting, a resident spoke about a development project (remarks at 20:46):
But it’s kind of upsetting to me that we’ve sat through your very good presenters [through the winter and spring of 2025] that you gave, like five or six of them, whatever you had, and that’s great.
I got a lot of information. That’s what I came here for is to learn information. But when I see here on this here, this 128 units is gonna break ground already in June or July of this year. Is that what I’m assuming? That’s what I’m assuming is June and July of this year. So this was already a done deal way back when. So when did that all come out? Because I don’t remember ever seeing that until it came out in the public eye and that’s when I got that back in the beginning of this year. So this is already a done deal.
In fact, the development that the resident is describing was the subject of multiple public meetings, and commission and council approval in 2024 (at the Community Development Authority, Planning Commission, and Whitewater Common Council). These were publicly-noticed meetings. The presentations in 2025 were informational for future policy. They were not (obviously) a necessary preliminary to the 2024 lawful actions of three local public bodies.
Here’s a resident who’s specifically asking (“when did all that come out?”) and yet no one offers a simple answer at any point in the council session. A simple answer would have given her the information she sought, and dispelled the notion that the 2024 actions for the development were somehow surreptitiously advanced.
A second example comes from the remarks of a former Community Development Authority member following a development presentation (remarks at 40:43):
I think the other piece that I had on this is that something I heard tonight that I have not heard before. I know that the city council went on record approving homes on the Hoffman property with a fairly significant TIF increment plus 60 apartments, and taking $400,000, putting that into the program from the 75, the 25% housing money. I’ve never seen anything officially that that project has been canceled. I did hear tonight that there was no other apartments after this Pre-3 [a residential project]. And so it’d be very nice if you guys would take action, either rescind that major project, or at least to let the community know.
In fact, on two separate occasions (dated June 10th, part of the June 17th council packet and again as part of the Community Development Authority packet of July 17th) the Interim Economic Development Director did note plainly that “Neumann was considering a project on the Hoffman property; however, that deal did not go through.”
Perhaps the notice should have been more plain, but then perhaps a resident who had been on the old Whitewater CDA might have read the meeting packets more thoroughly. In any event, someone in the room on 9.16.25 might have pointed out the prior public written announcements about the end of this project.
Correcting errors during the meeting prevents them from echoing in chambers, recordings, and the wider community. Respectful, reasonable correction makes everyone more knowledgeable. If someone will not accept respectful, reasonable correction, then at least one knows with whom one is dealing.
There’s no reason to shy from making the effort. Something like a minimal ombudsman’s role, from someone.
In the inevitable interstices of a thorough but complex policy, the information gaps in a news desert make misunderstanding and misinformation more likely.
Residents and their government must manage as well as they can within the gaps of this news desert.
____
- Whitewater is chock-a-block with sharp, talented residents. Not few — many. ↩︎
- I’m writing here about the city government only. The local school district requires a separate discussion. ↩︎
Partial solar eclipse over New Zealand. See a time-lapse: