Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast calls for a sunny day, with a high of eighty-four degrees.
The Board of Directors of Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets today, from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The agenda is available online.
The agenda’s a fine substitute for a crossword or other puzzle, but a deficient and embarrassing public agenda. Consider these items:
6. Discussion and Possible Action on Whitewater’s TIF District #4
a. Pro-forma
b. Project Plan
c. Timetable
What would that mean to a resident? He or she would have no idea what action was being considered. This is vague language that’s written as though it were code, not the public agenda for a public meeting of a public entity, conducting a meeting under Wisconsin law. One would know more about tax incremental district 4 if one were simply to say that the district is gasping for air, so many decisions already having been botched.
Read on still farther, and one finds this:
12. Adjourn to closed session at approximately 5:45PM to reconvene approximately 6:00PM per Wisconsin State Statutes 19.85 (1)(e). Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the
investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session
a. Economic Development Loan 1421 W Main Street, Whitewater, WI
Closed sessions are a part of our law, but about what would this closed session be? One sees only that 1421 W Main Street is seeking an economic development loan.
This is surprising to me — in the history of the world, I know of no instance where a street address was able to ask for a loan. If this should be the first, one would think that Whitewater’s city manager, Kevin Brunner, would want to publicize the astonishing fact.
(Brunner, in addition to serving as city manager, also acts as head of the CDA. He is, I’d guess, compensated for both roles. This raises two points. First, there cannot be a truly independent CDA where a city manager runs both a city and a CDA. Second, current compensation must not be related to the performance of tax incremental district 4, because then Brunner would owe the city money.)
These are gentlemen who run public entities — legally obligated to the public — as though they were private clubs, speaking cagily, without true and normal candor, as though the public were a burden in the way of their vain dreams of ‘vision’ and ‘development.’
Where’s 1421 W Main Street, Whitewater, Wisconsin? It’s right here:
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