I promised earlier a summary of principal arguments made about a (mostly) publicly-funded transit bus that benefits (mostly) one multi-billion-dollar corporation. Here’s that post, with a summary of points about the project at Whitewater’s Common Council sessions of 3.20.12, 11.20.12, and 11.5.13.
For each date, I’ve included a link to a Vimeo page with a video recording of that council session. (Each point listed includes a reference by time to the moment on the respective recording when someone made that point.) The left-hand column of the table offers points made; the right-hand column my remarks about that point.
Council Session of 3.20.12
Video Link: http://vimeo.com/38990709 from 4:30 to 6:45
| Points Made | Comments |
|---|---|
| Generac seeing interest in employees commuting from their homes in Janesville/Beloit area. City Mgr. Brunner facilitating meeting with Janesville transit to establish commuter line – Whitewater public financing in future if line is successful. [4:50] | Public financing in the future? That future turned out to the very same year – 2012. City Mgr. Brunner must have meant the near future. |
| Over half the initial cost borne by state and federal government, about one-fifth from fares, and about three-tenths from ‘local sponsorship’ (that is, funds local governments or businesses) [5:50] | It’s mostly taxpayer-subsidized, although one big corporation gets most of the benefits for its employees. |
| Generac is very interested in starting this fairly quickly [6:05] | Of course they are – it’s their gain on others’ tab. |
| City Mgr. Brunner ‘at this time’ doesn’t think an agreement would require a financial commitment, but that’s ‘still to be negotiated’ [6:30] | Oh, brother – @ 4:50 in the video Cty. Mgr. Brunner claims public funding was in the future, but @ 6:30 he contends a financial commitment was ‘still to be negotiated’ One supposes he when he said ‘in the future’ meant one minute, forty seconds later. |
| University has gone on record saying they will support it and put money into the system [6:40] | Now, however, one sees that they’ll only support the project if WW does – it’s conditional, contingent, and provisional support only – tepid and hardly an affirmation at all |
Council Session of 11.20.12
Video Link: http://vimeo.com/54486419 from 0:10 to 45:37
| Points Made | Comments | |
|---|---|---|
| Generac contends it has to go outside of Whitewater for workers [0:20] | We have many unemployed here, too | |
| Generac does not consider itself in the bus business [0:25] | No, of course not – they want taxpayers to be in the bus business for them – they want you to be in the bus business | |
| Generac will hold big job fair in WW within next week [0:50] | And yet, a year later, they’re still bringing in out-of-city workers | |
| Generac employees eat lunch in WW [1:10] | They don’t leave the Generac campus and everyone in town knows as much | |
| Generac’s commitment will be similar to prior year at $26,000 [1:38] | A three-billion-dollar company offers .0007% of its total wealth to to the project. | |
| Generac seeks entry-level workers [2:30] | We have workers like that here, but they’re hiring and busing workers from out of town | |
| Generac partners with high-school drop-outs in a second chance program [3:15] | It’s a small effort that ignores the larger pool of local laborers | |
| Generac brings food vendors to its building [3:43] | There’s Generac’s idea of community partnership – their campus, their terms, even assuming they do this regularly (and they offered no data whatever) | |
| Eric Levitt, (then) City Manager of Janesville contends it takes courage to support the program [5:00] | Yes, because it’s bad for Whitewater. Why would a good program of obvious benefit require courage? It only required courage to ask Whitewater’s Council to benefit Levitt’s city over our own | |
| The bus is called an ‘Innovation Express’ because it’s an innovation in tight times [5:15] | There’s nothing innovative about a bigger city (Janesville) fleecing a smaller but more vibrant one (Whitewater) | |
| Economic development is a regional effort [5:45] | Only if by regional Levitt meant a bigger city (Janesville) fleecing a smaller but more vibrant one (Whitewater) Levitt, by the way, was so committed to our area’s regional development that he took a much higher-paying job in affluent Simi Valley, California | |
| The bus will capitalize by leveraging some pubic money to get a larger amount in state & federal money. | That is, it was a grant grab at taxpayers’ expense | |
| Jnsvl City Manager Levitt admits its a ‘difficult decision in a difficult time.’ [7:34] | Why yes, bad ideas do make difficult decisions | |
| Jnsvl Transportation Director Mumma lists 2013 federal/state cost at $245,000 [8:26] | A quarter of a million even without local public money | |
| Generac will contribute $26,000 [8:54] | A tiny fraction | |
| 2009 study about bus concerned primarily students not general public [9:20] | A years’ old study that ignored much of the community | |
| 2009 study finds that half of students would use bus ‘at some point’ [9:40] | ‘At some point’ may be found between the ’12th of Never’ and ‘I’ll call you sometime’ | |
| In 2009 study, 27% of those who would use bus ‘at some point’ would ride ‘a couple of times a week’ | A minority of an indeterminate number | |
| The study found a ‘very small number’ that would use it on a daily basis | Well, there you are | |
| Jnsvl transportation director observes that ‘What we have here is an opportunity to say: Does this concept work?’ | It only works if by working one means few riders now and more riders to Janesville stores later | |
| 10% of student body was part of 2009 survey [11:15] | A small slice of only a slice of the whole city | |
| State/federal money covers 80% of the bus’s operating deficit (that is, what fares don’t cover), and local sponsors (WW, UWW, or Generac) ay the rest [11:45] | Most funding is taxpayer money | |
| Riders in 2012 pay about $2.75 per ride in fares [13:40] | And yet, most funding is taxpayer money | |
| The bus will need 20,000-25,000 passengers in 2013 [13:47] | 25,000 | |
| Of 2012 passengers, 5,000 were from Generac [13:50] | That number would mean most were from Generac; a year later, it’s still predominantly Generac riders | |
| For 2012, one will not see a lot of riders other than Generac based on how the schedule is constructed [14:52] | A year later, it’s still predominantly Generac riders | |
| Jnsvl transportation director claims 5-10 inquiry calls per day about the bus [15:13] | There’s no way to confirm any of this | |
| Bus will not operate at full potential until it operates at a time that’s more convenient for more people [15:20] | It’s still often empty, so convenience must still be an issue | |
| More trips will be added in 2013 [16:00] | It’s still often empty, so more trips aren’t working out so well | |
| Trips in 2012 align with Generac’s shift schedule [16:35] | Of course | |
| Very difficult to estimate the actual number of riders. “It sounded to me like you worked backward from your estimate of how many dollars you need to the number of riders, instead of the other way around. Am I wrong about that, I hope?” [17:11] | That is exactly what the Janesville transportation director did | |
| Survey data admittedly four years old, and don’t take into account anyone other than students [17:25] | So, why use old data? | |
| An expanded bus schedule for 2013 will focus on university class schedules, businesses in the tech park, although not all have a schedule like Generac [18:33] | It’s still often empty, so convenience must still be an issue; It’s still often empty, so more trips aren’t working out so well | |
| Discussions will include the City of Milton [20:00] | Of course they will | |
| Jnsvl Transit Director Dave Mumma declares that “Mumma is not going to pull the schedule out of his hat, I can tell you that much.” [20:17] | I agree; I’d guess Director Mumma pulled this idea from out of somewhere else | |
| Jnsvl Transit will go to employers and to the university to develop transit schedule plan [20:38] | It’s still often empty, so convenience must still be an issue; It’s still often empty, so more trips aren’t working out so well | |
| Milton City Council will consider on 11/27/12 [21:36] | Their needs are different from ours | |
| Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Jeff Arnold pledges that university will commit to support the project with local government, and says money will not come from student fees [22:40] | Why not support the project independently from the city? It’s because the university doesn’t care enough | |
| Then-Director of Innovation Center Robert Young claims ten months of discussions about the bus [23:30] | But very little public discussion at that point | |
| Director Young claims that Generac’s CEO supports the Innovation Center [24:30] | If the Generac CEO supported WW, he’d (1) pay for all of the bus, (2) help the Innovation Center with its ongoing struggle to make payments to WW in lieu of taxes | |
| Cameron Clapper: Funding would be for 2013, not a long-term commitment: “It’s kind of wait and see before we would even think about committing any farther down the road.” [26:40] | And yet, here we are, with more schemes to make municipal funding possible | |
| A proposal appears before Council to reduce the amount of 2013 funding from $10,000 to $5,000. | It fails | |
| A council member suggests the university should contribute more than the city based on ridership; Chancellor Telfer reportedly contends that there’s insufficient ridership information to justify different levels of funding. [28:10] | UW-W students use the bus more than other city residents | |
| Chancellor Telfer reportedly contends that 2013 ridership estimates are mere projections. [28:20] | Ridership is still disproportionately for Generac and UW-W | |
| An anecdote about an election worker and rider with cerebral palsy. {28:50, 29:41] | There are existing transportation alternatives that even the bus’s own marketing plan acknowledges as ‘competitive threats’ (Brown Cab, Rock County Specialized Transit, Walworth County Health and Human Services Transportation) | |
| One should think about those who don’t have much money. [31:00] | I do; I write about poverty publicly more than anyone else in our city. This is no anti-poverty program – it’s a big corporation looking to take public money to subsidize its own business model and Janesville hoping to lure Whitewater’s consumers | |
| Council member hopes for better numbers in 2013. [31.27] | Ridership is still disproportionately for Generac and UW-W. One should be careful about those things for which one wishes – if ridership goes up, consumers go to Janesvile. | |
| Motion for reduction to $5,000 in funding fails for want of a second vote. [31:56] | Hard to resist an ill-considered idea | |
| A council member expresses concern about going from 5,000 to 25,000 for ridership [32:36] |
|
Council Session of 11.5.13
Video Link: http://vimeo.com/78821732 from 2:21:36 to 3:29:30
| Points Made | Comments |
|---|---|
| Additional documents received for Council: Marketing Communication Plan, Memo on Proposed Fares, 2014 Projections on Cost (increased costs, reduced state/federal funding). Cost of about $400K total, $112 for local groups, of which 42.6% from Generac, 24.6% is from Milton, and 32.8% from WW (50% WW and 50% UWW) UWW will match WW funding, Ridership figures for Sep & Oct [2:22:28] | Many docs supplied late – Janesville’s officials don’t respect our processes. It’s not an equal partnership. |
| Janesville’s in-kind contribution document [2:25:32] | They use an existing, old bus while Whitewater pays cash |
| October 2013 ridership numbers Generac 541, UWW 139, all others 89 [2:26:39] | A year later: Ridership is still disproportionately for Generac and UW-W |
| Claim of 150% of last year’s ridership [2:27:10] | Hardly five-times as much – as had been promised |
| Passenger boarding figures count riders twice: Board in Janesville, get off at Generac, counted two times – for Janesville and Generac, yet still one person [2:27:16] | Amazing – an admission that after a year of ads and touted figures that the so called passenger numbers count the same riders twice |
| Municipal administration offers no funding for bus in proposed budget for 2014 [2:28:20] | Sensibly so, but the administration needs to stand up to outsiders’ pressure |
| Possible ways to fund the bus: delay into two parts an employee wage increase, or reduce amount to building repair fund [2:28:53] | Not one of these ways of taking money from others is fair or sensible |
| Generac representative doesn’t attend the meeting, although WW city manager was notified and promised someone would attend [2:31:40] | Generac simply doesn’t care about or respect Whitewater’s municipal administration |
| Jnsvl Transit’s Dave Mumma tells Council and City Manager that Generac’s representative told him that she would instead attend event in Oshkosh where Generac recently bought another company [2:32:35] | Generac simply doesn’t care about Whitewater’s municipal administration; when they have something to say, they say it to someone from Janesville – then that Janesville bureaucrat tells Council after the meeting has already started. |
| Ridership on bus is 2.5 times what it was for 9 mos in 2012 over 8 mos. in 2013 [2:33:48] | That’s not the five-times increase promised in 2012 |
| Ridership goes up in fall, declines in summer [2:34:06] | Of course it does |
| Jnsvl transit director doesn’t know who the are, “could be university students, as I suspect a lot of them are” [2:34:30] | Of course they are |
| Generac’s ridership has remained strong [2:35:02] | Of course it has |
| Generac offered one week of free rides to employees in February [2:35:29] | Generac should pay for its riders and the whole program to support them |
| Jnsvl transit director contends bus ‘performing extraordinarily well for a new service’ [2:36:00] | Only if extraordinarily well means ridership is still disproportionately for Generac and UW-W. |
| Janesville Transit formed ‘partnership with university last spring’ that ‘ produced marketing plan which we have started to implement this fall’ ‘with direct marketing on campus’ ‘some of you may see the advertisements in the local newspaper,’ or ‘heard some of the radio spots’ ‘there’s more that needs to be done’ [2:36:14] | Janesville tells Whitewater it supports a plan to take Whitewater’s consumers to….Janesville |
| Document distributed that details Janesville Transit’s in-kind contributions to the bus [2:37:48] | They use an existing, used bus while Whitewater pays cash |
| Bus travels about 300 miles each weekday [2:39:56] | Often with few riders – that’s not green, it’s brown. |
| Jnsvl Transit Director contends that ‘local sponsor share’ is up 12% [2:44:55] | Transparently dodgy math – asking Whitewater for $18,000 after a year of $10,000 is an increase of 80%, not 12% |
| City Manager Clapper tells Council that everyone in business park knows about the bus [2:46:06] | Yet still few use it |
| Generac contribution in 2013: 26,000; Milton contribution in 2013: 15,000 [2:47:29] | Generac pays a small fraction |
| About the marketing plan for the bus, Jnsvl transit director declares items are ‘excellent…just haven’t had the time or manpower to pursue them’ all yet [2:49:35] | Be patient. Give Janesville Transit Director Mumma time: he’ll siphon off Whitewater’s consumers from our city and our merchants to his city and his merchants |
| On Generac’s specific, enumerated commitment to funding in a meeting with the city manager and others, ‘she didn’t say no.’ | There’s your multi-billion-dollar business partner – Whitewater will have to declare specifically and in advance; Generac will answer when she pleases |
| Jnsvl transit director concedes no effort to outreach to UW-W field studies students [2:25:05] | A wasted opportunity |
| Jnsvl Transit Director Mumma tells Common Council he has an ‘apocryphal‘ story to tell them [2:52:16] | Yes, he does – more than one, perhaps. Director Mumma, though, doesn’t seem to grasp that apocryphal means false. Perhaps he meant anecdotal, but I thought his malapropism satisfyingly ironic. |
| University will partner with WW; will not contribute if WW will not contribute [2:52:58] | They only care contingently and conditionally – that;’s hardly a genuine endorsement |
| Milton’s mayor touts the bus for his city, and its use to his city for Blackhawk Technical College [2:54:04] | Milton benefits disproportionately |
| Milton increases contribution from $15,000 to $27,000 [2:55:00] | Milton benefits disproportionately |
| Milton’s mayor contends there has only been a small sample of riders [2:55:31] | So much for success year over year |
| Milton’s mayor contends Generac draws to WW a workforce not residing in city or even local county [2:56:09] | Yes, they’d do better to hire here, as they’ve made it clear they’re looking for entry-level jobs |
| Milton mayor contends his budgeting reflects forward thinking and progress [2:56:38] | No, it’s yesterday’s crony capitalism and bad deals styled as progress – it’s a reactionary, old-school approach |
| Sixty percent of bus cost is driver [3:07:12] | Yes, as Janesville already has the bus in existing inventory |
| On right-sizing the bus for times of day, Janesville Transit ties to right-size, ‘but then it is never going to be the right size for a particular time or day of the week’ [3:07:50] | It’s not green, it’s brown |
| Jansvl Transit does not have data for individual routes [3:08:30] | Of course not, and if they did, one would see that some routes are empty – yet the bus still take burns gas on them |