The forecast is for heavy snow, with a high of 33 degrees. Predicted accumulation during the day is for about two inches, with considerably more tonight.
There’s a scheduled Police and Fire Commission meeting tonight, at 7 PM, and I have no idea how inclement weather may affect the meeting. The agenda is available online.
A few points worth considering:
1. Why keep meeting in a small, cramped conference room, rather than in the spacious area where Common Council and the Planning Commission meet? Everyone in Whitewater can guess correctly why the room is small, and uninviting to ordinary citizens.
2. Why not televise? If Planning is televised, if School Board meetings are televised, then why not the Police and Fire Commission?
3. Part of the meeting will be closed to the public, for interviews of patrol officer candidates. Will Chief Coan and other police leaders leave the room during those interviews, so that the PFC will interview properly and independently?
4. Why fax the notice to the Whitewater Register? Yes, I know it’s a paper of record, but why not just call up the two reporters who were part of the Citizen Police Academy, and ask them to flack whatever story you want? How much fun is it to report on the Whitewater Police Department after that weeks-long public relations effort citizen class?
5. What use to Whitewater has a member of Common Council been on the PFC? Everyone in town knows that answer. Well, probably ‘everyone’ except one.
6. Highlight of the agenda? It’s Chief Coan’s rabbit-out-of-a-hat opportunity. How about this —
B. Chief’s Report
1. Personnel/Staffing Update
Who knows what he’ll say?
It’s a sad anniversary in Wisconsin history, as the Wisconsin Historical Society reports:
1917 – Inventor John F. Appleby Dies
On this date the inventor of the twine-binder, John F. Appleby died. Appleby was raised on a wheat farm in Wisconsin and searched for an easier way to harvest and bundle grains. His invention gathered severed spears into bundles and bound the sheaves with hempen twine. His invention, which was pulled by horses, was a great success. In 1878 William Deering, a farm machinery manufacturer secured the right to use Appleby’s patent and sold 3,000 twine harvesters in a single year. In 1882 the McCormicks (of the McCormick reapers) paid $35,000 for the privilege to manufacture Appleby’s invention. Appleby spent the rest of his life in his shop trying to create additional successful machinery. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes]