Here’s the first annual FREE WHITEWATER list of reassuring things in Whitewater. (It’s a companion to the eighteenth annual Boo! List of Scariest Things in Whitewater, 2024.)
The list runs in alphabetical order.
ALDI. This administration brought ALDI. Whitewater wanted a supermarket and the new administration brought one. Well done. The old guard mucked around for years and brought nothing (but they did benefit from the tax-incremental dollars they fight against elsewhere). See Six Points on a Supermarket in Whitewater.
City Administration (City Manager, Finance Director, Municipal Administration). Direct is a benefit, candor is a benefit, and high-level argumentation is a benefit to those who care about good policy. This municipal administration has those traits, and anyone else in the government (city, school district, or university) or those who follow this government (residents including this libertarian blogger) benefits from these traits.
And look, and look, it doesn’t matter whether I agree as much as I and others should expect (regardless of agreement) a high-level of discussion & presentation from this municipal administration. This city manager and this finance director deliver more and better argumentation than their predecessors. Far better.
Whitewater spent a generation with less; this is how a normal government operates. If that’s too hard for the old guard, then it should be a reminder (yet again) to them that they squandered their years on below-average work, above-average self-praise, and conflict of interest after conflict of interest.
Common Council. The new Common Council (since April) is far better run — smoother, more productive, less vindictively obsessive — than the majority before.
Community Development Authority (New Majority). An order of magnitude better than the old guard’s poor performance and ceaseless, dumb-show posing.
Government Speech. Go ahead, city team, keep writing the memos you want the way you want. (Demanding that it all stop and be “Done!” reeks of weakness.)
Let’s say that one day, for whatever reason, this city’s finance director writes a memo outlining 345 reasons that I’m wrong about a topic. (Quick aside: Ms. Blitch, that wouldn’t be economical — you should be able to refute me more quickly and succinctly than that.)
My response to a memo from the finance director (after utter surprise, as I have noting but love in my heart for everyone working in the field of municipal finance) should be either (1) to reply responsively to the points she raised (whether conceding or attempting to refute) or to (2) say nothing.
Whitewater needs more speech, including government speech, not less. Keep going.
Housing. Lots of new building. Keep building! The old guard interfered with market forces for a generation, and hijacked the CDA’s principal purpose for those years, to protect a few incumbent landlords. That’s not a market approach, it’s an incumbent landlord protection racket.
I’d rather there wasn’t tax-incremental spending for these projects, in the same way that I’d rather illness could be cured without major surgery. Major surgery is called for, however, to redress a generation-long oligopoly in this town. Note well: private does not guarantee free markets but can entail impermissible monopoly or oligopoly. (That’s why there’s anti-trust law.)
Individual Liberty. The library held firm against attempted censorship of a movie for teens, and the city and university (along with many businesses) have shown support for an annual Pride Rally. As it should be: individual liberty deserves a defense, and from that individual liberty springs the right to associate freely with others. Whitewater is, and must be, a place for all people. (The Pride Rally started, a few years ago, in the smaller area beside the Birge Fountain. It’s now by Cravath, in a larger and more spacious venue.)
Innovation, Generally. Plaudits are deservedly delivered for trying new things: a startup award and a pedestrian walkway come to mind. Not every new idea will work, but lack of fresh ideas will leave the city only with a stale & stagnant past.
Innovation, Specifically (Innovation Center, Tech Park). No one, no one in our city of 15,000, has been a more consistent (and correct!) critic of the Innovation Center than I have. Go ahead new municipal team (as I believe you’d like): make that Tech Park something beyond the reach of legitimate criticism. You’ve innovated elsewhere, and here’s your chance to bring real innovation to this part of the city. I’d much rather the Park succeed than for it to be a basis for further criticisms.
Referendums. Asking voters is a good idea. Let 15,000 decide (or express an opinion) for 15,000.
In many ways, good progress over the last year.
Keep going.
great list! aldi is a big deal. also good if we get a real tech park.
ALDI is a big deal for a small town, and a new team brought it about.
A more robust business-tech park is possible, and as much technology-related as we can get (I don’t know) will uplift the city. Some of the past proposals were mere mirages, never resolving to reality.
Tech, however, requires modern, and we’ve only had that in the last two years. Some patience and an equal helping of support will be required.
One point I’d not mentioned: I support tearing down dilapidated buildings that have failed year after year to attract anything other than vermin and mold. Those failed properties should come with, so to speak, an expiration date.
Things new and more suitable to the market can take their places.
Hello, Adams.
This list dovetails with the last one you wrote. No surprise for you that it is pro speech and pro speech heavy. The city has had a good new start and l;et’s hope it keeps going. There is a momentum that this town now has. Really need to keep it up.
Always pro-speech heavy, I suppose.
There is momentum, happily so, and momentum needs discussion and exchange.
Sounds about right but the tech park and housing need each other. If one gets jammed the other will be jammed. (Guess that it why you put it there. You did not make the connection explicit but it is at least implicit.) Long term hard agree.
Good evening. As a longer term matter, different parts of the economy need to grow for, and in, mutual support. Yes, not explicit, but you’re right to see that it was the implication.
Thanks for this fresh take with the list of reassuring things—there’s something about following the ‘scariest things’ with a positive perspective that feels right. For those of us who’ve been in Whitewater for decades, it’s clear that the evidence supports cautious and sustained optimism, even as we stay vigilant. The old guard won’t be scheming because they believe they can do things better—because they can’t. It’s all about taking things back to a time when they held the reins. The real irony is that they stand to benefit just as much, if not more, from the positive direction things are headed now. But they’d rather wrestle back control than support those better suited. As Aaron Burr in Hamilton, they’re desperate to be ‘in the room where it happens,’ caring more about control than the good of the community.
No, no – thank you. There are new perspectives to consider, try, and improve upon.
Quite true about this new direction benefitting all. A more securely and broadly prosperous city will redound to everyone’s advantage.
Hamilton is an extraordinary musical. One of those creations that upon experience exceed even advance praise. Beyond any room where it happens: a city of thousands, with many thousands of encounters and transactions each day, where across nine square miles the best happens. My best, as always, John.
Hi John. It made me smile when you said you have love in your heart for municipal finance. A person can be formidable and smart with a sense of self awareness that he/she is viewed as critical. It is also really really clear for a long time that you respect women in positions of authority. It really comes out in how you write about the finance director by seeing that you could be wrong if you had a disagreement. Not everyone on town is like that. It’s one of the best things about your website for me. Thank you and have a good day!
Hi Cathy. It has been a good day, and I hope for you, too. Good work is found in many places, of young and old, of men and women, knowing neither age nor gender. One should speak believing he’s right, but be open to being proved wrong. My best, John.