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City, Police

Department of Embarrassing Coincidence, Whitewater, Wisconsin Branch Office

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Before a holiday now connected in popular culture with a film, Groundhog Day, in which someone seems destined to live the same day over and over again, could there be any greater irony than publicizing that Whitewater’s police chief is again looking for another job?

Here, gone, here, gone, here again.

We have lived through this day more than once.

How all this turns out I cannot say, although I can guess. It speaks clearly on its own about Chief Coan’s low level of commitment and interest in this community.

See, Mankato picks four finalists for public safety director.

Update: Finally reloaded above the Sheridan post, after a reader alerted me that she had not noticed it originally. The draft did not load with the actual time of posting as I had wanted (but rather of drafting), and I have now moved it above the Sheridan post.

Daily Bread, Holiday

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 2-2-10 (Groundhog Day Edition)

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Good morning,

It’s a day of light snow in Whitewater, with a forecast high of thirty degrees.

In the City of Whitewater today, there will be a Downtown Whitewater, Inc. meeting at 8 AM, and a Common Council meeting tonight at 6:30 PM. The Common Council’s agenda is available online.

On this particularly festive and happy day, a clip from the Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0YLD_9lRGU more >>

Holiday

Groundhog Day — Celebrating the Holiday Right

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Tomorrow, February 2nd, is no ordinary day. It’s Groundhog Day, one of America’s most endearing holidays. I observe the holiday, one that’s among my very favorites.


Over at Groundhog.org, the Official Website of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, visitors can learn about Groundhog Day, sign up to receive a text message of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction, send a free e-card, and watch a streaming webcam video of Phil’s prediction.

(“…to get a text of Punxsutawney Phil’s Febuary 2, 2010 Weather prognostication from Gobblers Knob via your moble device by texting “Groundhog” to 247365 between now and Groundhog Day….You are so in the know, it’s like being in the burrow.”)

Here’s a video of Punxsutawney Phil’s 2009 prediction:

Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=234N-3o55SE&feature=player_embedded

The website also offers the precise GPS coordinates of the tree stump from which Phil emerges:

  • N40.93027 W78.95772 (hddd.ddddd°)
  • N40 55.816 W78 57.463 (hddd°mm.mmm’)

For those wondering, last year Phil predicted 6 more weeks worth of winter, and he was absolutely, positively, completely and entirely correct.

Please, always remember: Celebrate responsibly. more >>

Economy

Federal Deficit to Hit All-Time High

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Over at the Wall Street Journal, there’s a troubling story from Jonathan Weisman entitled, Deficit to Hit All-Time High.

The situation is so alarming that a scholar from a left-leaning think tank is alarmed:

Isabel Sawhill, a budget expert at the Brookings Institution, criticized the president’s goal – a deficit of 3% of GDP long after the recession has ended – saying it amounted to “defining deficits down.”

“The pay-go rules will make it more difficult for Congress to dig the hole deeper but won’t affect currently projected red ink; and the commission will likely be a paper tiger,” she wrote on Friday. “In short, these proposals will still leave us with unsustainable deficits as far as the eye can see. It is depressing to discover that we can no longer even aspire to balance the budget once the recession is over.”

No matter how troubled our national finances, one cannot reasonably and honestly say that these problems began in the last year. When the previous federal administration abandoned a prudent policy of fiscal restraint, the path to even greater profligacy was made clear.

There’s a local version of this situation in small-town Whitewater, Wisconsin. Several so-called conservatives sitting on our common council, community development authority, or tech park board (sometimes the very same people serving on more than one) have developed a taste for spending tax money and issuing municipal debt for public projects.

They will point with pride to how much public money they’ve spent, asking sensible people to believe that if they’ve spent these sums – often millions – in tax dollars, the expenditure must, absolutely must, have been a wonderful idea.

Some of these same people undoubtedly decry the Obama Administration’s national policies while committing our town to a local version of the same. The rank hypocrisy of their approach is simultaneously disgraceful and laughable. The desire to fit in, go along, and abandon principle for the sake of a pat on the back is nearly irresistible to the weak-willed and weak-minded.

It takes nothing so extraordinary as the Sirens to tempt men of this needy ilk; they cast principle away for no more than the flattery of others as unreasonable and vain as they are.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 2-1-10

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Good morning,

The forecast today is for a slight chance of snow this afternoon, with a greater chance tonight, and a high temperature for the day of twenty-five degrees.

In the City of Whitewater, the Parks & Recreation Board meets today, at 5 PM.  The agenda for that public meeting is available online.

In our schools today, there’s a Music Parents meeting at 6:30 PM in the high school choir room.

In Wisconsin history on this date, the Wisconsin Historical recalls that on

1860 – Ma and Pa Ingalls Married

On this date Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner were married in Concord, Wisconsin. They were the parents of noted Wisconsinite Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the “Little House” series. [Source: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum]

City, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Planning, Press Release

On the Innovation Center’s Anchor Tenant, Part 2

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An official’s weak arguments don’t become better or more convincing on repetition. On the contrary, stubborn repetition only reveals additional errors and mistakes, offering more opportunities for a robust critique.

Last week, I wrote about the selection of CESA 2, a taxpayer-funded agency, as the anchor tenant for Whitewater’s upcoming Innovation Center, a taxpayer-funded and debt-financed building in a planned tech park. See, On the Innovation Center’s Anchor Tenant. On Tuesday, Whitewater’s Tech Park Board issued a press release touting the selection of the agency as anchor tenant.

In my original post, I offered four arguments against the suitability of CESA 2 as an anchor tenant for the Innovation Center. The Tech Park Board’s press release both strengthens the argument against that selection of anchor tenant, and reveals how flimsy is the case in favor.

First, a summary of my initial, four arguments against a schools agency as an anchor tenant in a tech park:

  • What’s an Innovation Center and Tech
    Park?

    • America has excelled at this sort of private,
    entrepreneurial initiative time and again. For it, we are the envy of the world. It distorts and stretches the meaning of both innovation and technology to apply it to any organization, anywhere, at any time.

  • CESA 2 is not a Reasonable Choice for a
    Tech Park Anchor Tenant

    • CESA is, I am sure, a fine organization. It’s just not a technology concern, and it never will be, by any reasonable definition. It’s not even a private organization — CESA itself discloses that “[t]he leading source of CESA funds, in all cases, was revenue from member school districts which totaled $68.1 million, or 63% of all monies received. Revenue from federal ($16.7 million, 15% of the total) and state governments [sic] ($14 million, 13%) were the other major sources of funds.” CESA isn’t a technology concern — not one bit. It’s a state-mandated agency, feeding from tax dollars, that will fill up space in a technology park built on tax dollars and public debt

  • Carts Before Horses

    • Having departed from a commitment to following private demand, and thus addressing true community
    needs, the City of Whitewater embarks on a presumptuous project of public debt to accommodate a public agency anchor tenant.

  • Press coverage has been unquestioning and fawning
    See, CESA 2 tenant for Tech Park. The story presents unquestioningly city manager Brunner’s opinions on the topics therein.

There’s now a press release, issued January 26th, from the Whitewater University Technology Park Board that touts the CESA 2 as an anchor tenant. See, CESA 2 to lease space in Whitewater University Technology Park.

I’ll consider the contentions contained from the release, and reply to them. The release’s text is in italics, my replies are in a regular font:

The Whitewater University Technology Park continues to take shape
as CESA 2, the state’s largest Cooperative Educational Service Agency….The agency offers extensive training for more than 70
school districts in southern Wisconsin …. Brunner said. CESA 2 serves more than 135,000 students and 7,200 teachers in 74 school districts in the seven counties of Dane, Green, Jefferson, Kenosha,
Racine, Rock and Walworth. The agency provides professional development opportunities for teachers and helps school districts with its regular and special education programs. Last year, nearly 3,000 students went through the agency’s various driver education
programs.

The size of the tenant across many counties will not benefit Whitewater — services in other counties, or — wait for it — the number of students in driver education programs! — offer no gain for Whitewater.

We have a McDonald’s in Whitewater, but no one would be foolish enough to claim that the billions of hamburgers that chain sells nationally benefit Whitewater’s local economy. McDonald’s employs countless thousands, but no one would say that these are jobs for Whitewater.

Touting the size of a taxpayer-funded agency across distant counties doesn’t demonstrate a local benefit. It certainly doesn’t justify millions in federal spending a municipal public debt.

“CESA 2 is a great match for the Whitewater Innovation Center,”
said University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer. “CESA 2’s mission of providing education and training support services for the area districts is a natural fit with the work already being done on campus in the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s College of Education. We look forward to partnering with CESA 2 and the many school districts it serves.”

Well, I am sure the university gains from a bond (public debt) issue on the city’s tab. I can see why Chancellor Telfer would like an educational tenant for the park. This tenant doesn’t match, however, the Tech Park’s own Mission Statement attributes.

Either Chancellor Telfer hasn’t read, doesn’t remember, or otherwise ignores the attributes of the board’s own mission statement, a board of which he is president.

Here’s what they are:

Attributes

  • The park will establish an innovation center which offers space, facilities, expertise and services to
    technology-based entrepreneurs and businesses.
  • Scientific and technological advancement will be promoted through the development of green and sustainable facilities.
  • The Whitewater University Technology Park is established to enhance the area’s quality of life, provide higher property values through improved building standards, and to strive for living wages and sustainable economic development.

Emphasis in red added.

(See, Mission Statement, three attributes.)

This anchor tenant is neither a technology-based business nor an
entrepreneur. It’s not a business, at all — it’s a publicly-funded agency.

[Gary] Albrecht [CESA 2 administrator] said 30 employees will work in the Innovation Center space.

Thirty? That’s 30, a whole number between 29 and 31. I am sure that the CESA 2 administrator, whose agency is renting the space, would know the correct number of employees who will need taxpayer-funded accommodations.

How very odd, though, that only a week ago, Whitewater city manager Brunner gave an interview with the Daily Union, and declared that CESA 2 would have “50 full- and part-time employees to work at the Innovation Center.”

See, CESA 2 tenant for Tech Park.

Brunner’s number is two-thirds higher than the figure that the very administrator of the anchor tenant cites in the Tech Park’s own press release.

Let’s assume that Brunner really meant fifty full-time employee equivalents, and the figure can be reconciled. I’m not sure that’s what the city manager meant, but let’s be charitable. If that’s true, then the earlier declaration of 50 is confusing, and exaggerates the effective number of employees, with a bigger-sounding, but erroneous, number. The earlier interview claim is grand; the actual number is considerably more modest.

Perhaps Brunner keeps a bottle of Miracle-Gro in his desk. In his Daily Union interview from last week, cited above, Brunner contends that the Innovation Center will host daily teacher and administrator training sessions that typically have between 20 and 100 attendees. In the Tech Park Board’s press release, there’s the claim that “upwards of 100 people per day visiting the facility.”

It only sounds impressive until one considers how vague the claim truly is. What does it mean that upwards of 100 people will daily be visiting the facility? To what do these visits amount, and how upward is upwards of 100? Are they the same as the 20 to 100 attendees Brunner cited a week ago, or would that bigger number include anyone — delivery people, lost motorists, vagrants, etc.?

The cost of the facility has been going upward, too, from its initial proposal. That cost, though, will finally settle on a definite amount to taxpayers in federal and local debt. The benefit remains vague and those numbers remain less credible than ever before.

In a more recent interview about the Tuesday press release, one finds that Brunner implicitly acknowledges that CESA 2 is not a traditional business candidate for a tech park.

Laughably, he tries to evade the selection of an unsuitable anchor tenant by contending that CESA 2 really is a support ‘business’:

City Manager Kevin Brunner said CESA 2 might not be a small startup business – a typical tenant of a business incubator – but it offers support to other business and could help attract small businesses to the park.

“We recognize the need for support businesses,” he said. “CESA 2 has the potential to offer support, and we’re already seeing interest from other education-related business in being a part of this.”

CESA 2 is not, itself a support business at all, as it’s not a private business. Using the word ‘business’ does not make the choice any more reasonable, as they designation is itself unreasonable.

(I am sure CESA 2 is a fine and needed taxpayer-funded agency — I don’t doubt they do good work. They’re just not a business. Here’s what they do — CESA 2 is a state-created agency “to assist districts in providing quality educational opportunities for students….[to] help school districts share staff, services and purchasing, and provide a link between local districts and the state.”

More about CESA is available at the following link:
http://www.cesa2.k12.wi.us/about/)

Selection of this anchor tenant is a poor decision, poorly defended.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 1-29-10

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Good morning,

Today’s forecast for Whitewater calls for a mostly sunny day, with a high of eleven degrees.

A smattering of stories available this morning:

  • Unemployment is up in Walworth County, yet again: Walworth County’s unemployment rate hits 9 percent.
  • Walworth County Today has a brief item about a diversity mural at Whitewater’s Lincoln School: “Students, teachers, parents and staff dedicated the mural, Celebrating Diversity and Community recently at Whitewater’s Lincoln Elementary School. Artist Reynaldo Hernandez helped dedicate the mural, which he created with the help of art teacher Jean Buckingham and the more than 300 students who attend Lincoln Elementary School.”
  • State Senator Judy Robson has decided not to run for re-election.
  • Meanwhile, Democratic Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan of Janesville declared that he does not intend to resign his position.
  • The Whitewater Register, a weekly newspaper available in town, was free yesterday.  I’d make a joke, but it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead.

On this date in 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame selected its first members: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.

Today is also the anniversary of the publication, in 1845, of Poe’s The Raven.

….But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 1-28-10

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Good morning,

It’s a chilly forecast for Whitewater, with a predicted high of ten degrees, and blustery skies.

There’s a story over at the tech blog Ars Technica about Pope Benedict XVI, entitled, “Pope: Priests Should Blog, Tweet the Gospel Too.” Naturally, the blogging to which he refers doesn’t concern politics, but rather faith, as the story explains —

The Pope’s speech was posted in advance of the World Day of Communications set to take place in May, and it’s clear that this year, the Pope’s message is all about being active online. He emphasized that it’s not enough to merely be present on the Web—”Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”

Priests should also make sure they’re getting on board early, becoming familiar with these tools while still in seminary. The Pope noted that the Internet isn’t just an artifact of the past in digital form, but rather a present and engaging medium.

Today’s also a sad day in American history — on this day in 1986, the space shuttle challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all on board:

Cape Canaveral, Fla. Jan. 28 — The space shuttle Challenger exploded in a ball of fire shortly after it left the launching pad today, and all seven astronauts on board were lost.

The worst accident in the history of the American space program, it was witnessed by thousands of spectators who watched in wonder, then horror, as the ship blew apart high in the air.

Flaming debris rained down on the Atlantic Ocean for an hour after the explosion, which occurred just after 11:39 A. M. It kept rescue teams from reaching the area where the craft would have fallen into the sea, about 18 miles offshore.

It seemed impossible that anyone could have lived through the terrific explosion 10 miles in the sky, and officials said this afternoon that there was no evidence to indicate that the five men and two women aboard had survived.

We recovered from that disaster, and another than followed, and we will recover from these listless years of uncertainty and official indifference to exploration. There are good ideas and private ambition, true innovations, and only the beginning of what’s possible, that will assure a future of space travel and exploration.

City, Press

For Whitewater, Wisconsin: No Reckless Pranks Needed

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Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, a group blog of law professors and academics, there’s a post about the unfortunate conduct of James O’Keefe, an activist.

In a post entitled, “One Sting Too Many,” Jonathon Adler writes about allegations against O’Keefe:

It’s one thing to pretend to be a pimp when interviewing ACORN employees. It’s quite another to pretend to be a telephone repairman to gain access to a U.S. Senate office and its telephone system. Apparently noted ACORN-sting film maker James O’Keefe and some compatriots did not see the difference, and are now facing federal charges and the possibility of significant jail time. Politico reports. here.

See, One Sting Too Many.

It’s odd about all this, because the best opportunities for reform – and the only acceptable ones – are lawful avenues of inquiry.

Wisconsin and America offer citizens rights of lawful inquiry seldom exercised in Whitewater. Our Open Meetings Law (WOML, Wis. Stat. ss. 19.81-19.98) and Public Records Law (WPRL Wis. Stat. ss. 19.31-19.39) provide fair and clear rights of information and access.

We have no need for misguided pranks and supposedly daring conduct.

There are problems receiving full and complete compliance under our laws, but there is recourse through the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office, and through supportive press inquiries. It’s not hard, either, to demonstrate officials’ third-rate efforts at obstruction and evasion. Hiding one thing typically reveals others.

Tenacity is required, but only lawful tenacity is necessary, permissible, and worthy of respect. more >>

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 1-27-10

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Good morning,

The forecast calls for a partly sunny day today, with a high of twenty-two degrees.

Over at the Janesville Gazette, there’s a story about a settlement in an case involving charges against Darien Village board members for violations of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law, “Darien board settles in open meetings case.” (Wisconsin Open Meetings Law, Wis. Stat. § 19.81-19.98.)  

There likely aren’t enough cases like this in Wisconsin, as I’d guess violations are sadly common, and committed with near-impunity.

Helpful information on the Open Meetings Law is available from the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Wisconsin Attorney General’s  Office.

It’s a happy anniversary for exploration, discovery, and science: on this day in 1888, the national Geographic Society was founded.  Wired recounts the anniversary:

1888: Bound together by an enthusiasm for geography and travel, a small cadre of distinguished businessmen, explorers, scientists and scholars officially incorporates the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.

What began 122 years ago as a small, elite society for “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge” is now one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions. Today its mission has a broader theme: “to inspire people to care about the planet.”

….The society’s publication, National Geographic magazine, began printing just 10 months after that founding meeting. It was initially a drab-looking scholarly journal sent to 165 charter members. Now its hallmark photography and more mainstream writing reach the hands of more than 40 million people per month….

From 1899 to 1910, membership grew from 1,400 to 74,000, and in the following 10 years advanced to to 713,000, and then continued to skyrocket. As a result, the society has become one of the largest and most inclusive in the world.

The explosive growth in membership is largely attributed to Grosvenor’s shift in the editorial direction of the magazine at the turn of the 20th century. Inspired by travelogues such as Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast, he made the magazine more accessible by including first-person narratives and the use of more straightforward, simple prose.

Grosvenor’s other game-changing decision was to feature photography prominently in the magazine. Surprisingly, National Geographic’s hallmark photojournalism began as a desperate attempt to fill 11 pages of the January 1905 issue before it went to press.

There is no tyranny so absolute as a printer’s deadline, but I simply did not have a good manuscript available. A large and rather bulky envelope lay on my desk. Still brooding about the unfilled pages, I opened the package listlessly … then stared with mounting excitement at the enclosures that tumbled out. Before me lay some 50 beautiful photographs of the mysterious city of Lhasa in Tibet.

Grosvenor considered the images so extraordinary that he used them despite the belief that they might cost him his job. But membership response was so positive that it became the genesis of the magazine’s popular appeal.