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City, Elkhorn

Judicial Candidates for Walworth County Circuit Court

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A sharp reader wrote, and asked me about the upcoming Walworth County election, as judge Michael Gibbs is retiring from office. There are four candidates in the race: Mark Bromley, David Danz, Scott Letteney, and David Reddy. The Judgepedia has a page that lists candidates for judgeships across the state.

See, Wisconsin Judicial Elections 2010.

Wisconsin has a spring primary election on February 16th, and a spring general election on April 6th.

Whoever wins this race will have to work in Elkhorn, our county seat, and a place that brings to mind Ben Kenobi’s description of Mos Eisley: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Some of these candidates already work in Elkhorn, and yet they are willing to stay even longer. At its most charitable, that’s confirmation that the Stockholm Syndrome is more than just a theory. County government is a place of mediocrity and mendacity matching that of my own town of Whitewater. No easy feat, but there must have been enough self-important, selfish bureaucrats left over after Whitewater’s leadership payroll was set, and I suppose they wound up in Elkhorn.

Mark Bromely is an attorney in private practice, and a member of the Walworth County Board. He’s from Whitewater, and is the only candidate living in this part of the county. He’s a private practitioner, and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School.

I first noticed his campaign signs in December, I think, before any of the other candidates. Ironically, despite the early campaign presence (he had a car in the Whitewater Christmas Parade, too), I could not find one of his signs in our downtown when looking for one last night.

I thought there were quite a few at one time, but I couldn’t find one in town yesterday. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong spots. In any event, residents are likely to recall them: blue and red, and a larger, blue version with Bromley’s picture. They’re sharply done, and are the only signs in the race give voters a picture of the candidate.

Scott Letteney is a municipal judge in the county for Geneva Township, and works as a deputy city attorney in the city of Racine. I haven’t seen any signs for him, that I can recall. I am sure he has some; I just don’t recall. It’s also possible that he has placed many of them in parts of the county that I avoid. Letteney is a graduate of Marquette Law School.

Candidate David Danz is a private practitioner in Elkhorn, and a graduate of the University of San Diego Law School. You have surely spotted his signs, if you’ve walked about Whitewater, and don’t require a seeing eye dog.

They’re unmistakable. It’s not really a matter of asking for one’s vote, as much as insisting upon it. If signs could talk, this one would be shouting.

The same sharp reader who asked me to comment on the judicial candidates also correctly observed how this town will hector every private merchant who’d like to put up a sandwich board, but candidates for the public payroll can put up huge signs without challenge. I favor a rule that allows merchants the same opportunities as candidates. If there are to be large signs, they should at least be for productive private citizens trying to make a living on their own, as much as candidates looking for a salary and benefits from the taxes of others.

The fourth candidate is David Reddy, a Walworth County Court Commissioner, who has worked in private practice and another county’s district attorney’s office. Reddy was graduated from the Thomas Cooley Law School. Reddy has a conventional campaign sign, a photograph of which appears below:

Totally apart from Reddy, look carefully at the location of the sign. It’s a familiar location to anyone in Whitewater — the law firm of which Whitewater’s city attorney, Wally McDonell, is a named partner. That’s his name, McDonell, listed as the final in the sequence of names on the firm’s sign.

McDonell’s been city attorney for a long time, and I believe that he’s actually paid as a city employee now, as a municipal cost-saving matter.

It would, and should, be obvious to anyone that this sign creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. The named partner of this firm, the city attorney, should not be displaying a sign with his preference in this race, on the firm’s lawn. It doesn’t matter that McDonell would insist that he doesn’t think it’s a conflict — reasonable people can easily see as much.

There’s so much talk about what the city manager and others ‘appreciate,’ and what’s ‘appropriate,’ etc. These gentlemen fuss over propriety only for trivial matters when it suits them.

I surely don’t expect these insiders to change, or do what’s right; they shouldn’t — and can’t — expect that I’ll not mention as much.

Press Release

Press Release: Local Conference for Woodland Owners

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On Saturday, February 27, 2010 the Madison Area Woodland Owners Conference will feature presentations in the morning that examine invasive species identification and management, continued care for established trees in woodland and an update of emerald ash borer and how to best manage for it. The afternoon program will highlight how to conduct a successful timber sale and explore woody biomass harvesting and markets. The day will close with a presentation on Wisconsin bats. In addition to the program there will also be educational and commercial exhibits to view. If you are interested in being an exhibitor, contact the number given below.

The February 27th conference runs from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and includes coffee and rolls, lunch and handout materials. The registration fee is $35 (couples are $65) if you register before February 17th and $40 (couples are $75) for a late or onsite registration. The conference will be held at the American Family Insurance Headquarters Training Center which is located between Madison and Sun Prairie, off of Highway 151 on American Parkway.

The sponsors for the conference include Dane County UW-Extension and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. If you have questions about the conference, would like to receive a registration brochure, or are interested in having an exhibit at the conference; contact Mindy Habecker at Dane County UW-Extension (608)224-3718.

Poverty

Janesville Gazette: Hunger up dramatically in southwest Wisconsin

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From the Gazette story, the difficult circumstances nearby communities face:

Dan Stein, president and CEO of Second Harvest of Southern Wisconsin, said the number of people facing hunger has increased across the state, but the situation is particularly dire in the southwestern part of the Wisconsin.

“Throughout the state, the numbers were between 30 and 50 percent, but here, it’s 83 percent,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons for that.”

Stein said unemployment has wreaked havoc on many communities in southwestern Wisconsin, particularly in communities such as Janesville and Beloit. More people know someone—a relative, a friend, a neighbor—who has lost a job and is struggling to make ends meet, he said.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 2-4-10

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a cloudy day, with a high of thirty-two degrees.

There are no municipal meetings scheduled for the City of Whitewater today, at least to my knowledge. There will be more, soon enough, I wouldn’t wonder.

On this day in 1902, Charles Lindbergh was born, and twenty-five years later, he flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

City

Real Data Describe Real People

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Although small towns like Whitewater are supposed to be places of
clear thinking and straight talk, in a small town like Whitewater, bureaucrats will flack any aparently positive data over the actual conditions of life in town. It’s how simple-minded cheerleading has replaced honesty and integrity as the lingua franca of Whitewater.

Consider, for example, how the city manager of Whitewater touted, and an incumbent politician and online publisher scurried to republish, a Moody’s bond rating as proof of the city’s supposed economic strength and fiscal management. The value of the bond rating was predictably exaggerated, and deceptively presented. It wasn’t hard to critique and to place in an honest, realistic perspective.

See, On Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Recent Bond Rating.

An even more egregious example of city manager Brunner’s sophistry was his flacking of a study that referred to Whitewater (population 14,000) as a dreamtown, when the actual subejct of the survey was the entire county (Walworth County, with more than
one-hundred thousand people)!

Brunner’s a man banking on people reading only what he writes, and delving no deeper than his often erroneous and superficial analysis.

See, Municipal Exaggeration: Dream Towns.

When I write about conditions in Whitewater, or America, I refer to actual conditions that affect people’s lives, like unemployment and child poverty, both high in our area.

See, Poverty in Whitewater, Part 2 (How many of our families have been in poverty recently, since the last census data?).

When pushing a bond rating over the truth of conditions in town, Brunner is like a man who confuses the outward depiction of someone with that person’s actual health:

It’s wrong to allow the superficial to distract us from actual conditions, commonly lived.

The strength or weakness of an economy is measured in how conditions fare for common people, not a lucky few, and certainly not for taxpayer-supported, big-talking bureacrats. It’s even worse when officials flack false claims, like conflating the city with the entire county.

The latest gross domestic product numbers are out, and the preliminary figures show seemingly impressive growth of 5.7% in the fourth quarter. I’m surprised that I have not heard the crack economic team at our municipal building contend that 99% of all national growth took place in Whitewater, in response to the visionary planning that the city manager offers Whitewater. Perhaps I just missed those remarks in the latest Whitewater Weekly Report.

In fact, the 5.7 number isn’t so impressive, when one considers that most of it amounted only to replacing depleted inventories.

Here’s a more careful assessment:

….over 60% (3.7%) of the growth came from inventory rebuilding, as opposed to just 0.7% in the third quarter. If you examine the numbers, you find that inventories had dropped below
sales, so a buildup was needed.

Increasing inventories add to GDP, while, counterintuitively, sales from inventory decrease GDP. Businesses are just adjusting to the New Normal level of sales. I expect further inventory build-up in the next two quarters, although not at this level, and then we level off the latter half of the year.

While rebuilding inventories is a very good thing, that growth will only continue if sales grow. Otherwise inventories will find the level of the New Normal and stop growing. And if you look at consumer spending in the data, you find that it actually declined in the 4th quarter, both annually and from the previous quarter. “Domestic demand” declined from 2.3% in the third quarter to only 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Part of that is clearly the absence of “Cash for Clunkers,” but even so that is not a sign of economic strength.

See, We are So Screwed from the Business Insider. (The title’s less impressive than the analysis, an analysis that is more serious and detailed.)

There’s company in the view that the worst is not over, from economists Nouriel Roubini of NYU and Lawrence Summers, now a White House economic advisor:

The headline number will look large and big, but actually when you dissect it, it’s “very dismal and poor,” Roubini said in a Jan. 30 Bloomberg Television interview following a U.S. Commerce Department report that showed economic expansion of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter. “I think we are in trouble.”

Roubini said more than half of the growth was related to a replenishing of depleted inventories and that consumption was reliant on monetary and fiscal stimulus. As these forces ebb, the rate will slow to 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010.

Roubini, who chairs New York-based Roubini Global Economics LLC, has become famous for his pessimistic projections. In 2007, he correctly predicted a “hard landing” for the world economy. He said last year that the global recession would shrink through 2009, only for growth to resume in the middle of the year.

“Feel Like Recession”

He says now that while the world’s largest economy won’t relapse into recession, U.S. unemployment will rise from the current 10 percent amid “mediocre” growth.

“It’s going to feel like a recession even if technically we’re not going to be in a recession,” he said in the interview. Also speaking in Davos, Summers, director of the White House National Economic
Council, said that the statistical recovery won’t mask a “human recession.”

See, Roubini Sees Very Dismal and Poor Expansion

There’s a path to good and substantial growth for Whitewater, and an economy that lifts children and families out of chronic poverty. That way requires reform, and the simple rejection of puffery and cheerleading. A significant reduction in the size of the city of Whitewater’s budget, with a meaningful decrease in the tax levy, the easing of crippling regulations, the end of wasteful multi-million dollar schemes that feed on taxpayer money and public debt, and honesty instead of dishonest cheerleading would uplift our community.

When we embrace, in the words of a great organization, “individual liberty, limited government, [and] free markets” our city will find lasting prosperity. We’ll find even more: an end to dishonest and selfish leadership.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 2-3-10

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Good morning,

Whitewater’s weather forecast calls for a partly sunny day, with a high of twenty-eight degrees.

There are two public, municipal meetings scheduled for today.  At 5 PM, the Landmarks Committee will meet, in municipal building.  Here’s the agenda for the meeting:

I. Call to Order

II. Roll Call

III.     Approval of Agenda and Possible Rearrangement

IV. Approval of Minutes of January 6, 2010 Meetings

V. Set date of next meeting (Wednesday, March 3, 2010, at 5:00 PM)

Old Business

VI.     Report from Friends of the Mounds Meeting (Helmick)

1.  Article in The Wisconsin Archeologist by Stekel, Johns, Scherz

2.  Possible future activities, events, tours

VII.   Action on  Landmark Commission Bylaws (McDonell, Singer)

VIII. Update on Train Depot Renovation (Lashley)

X.     Update of possible moving or demolition of James and Ella Rockefeller House at 837 South Janesville Road (Scott)

XI.   Report from Indian Mound Task Force Meeting (Scott)

XII.  Report on implementing the New Provisions of Chapter 17.  (Scott)

1.  Discuss establishing criteria for designation

2.  List of possible items

XIII. Update National Certified Local Government Reports (Scott)

XIV.  Discuss possible events and projects for Historic Preservation Month

1.  Library Display Case

2.  Local Landmarks Tour

New Business

XV.   Discuss possible projects  and events for 2010

1.  Local Landmark Designations

2.  Historic Districts

XVI.  Future Agenda Items

1.  Congregational Church Clock Tower

2.  Whitewater Historical Survey Recommendations

3.  Leaflets and Educational Materials

XVII. Adjournment

Later, at 7 PM, there will be a meeting of the Cable TV Committee. The meeting agenda is available online.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that this day, in 1959, was

1959 – The Day the Music Died

Bad winter weather and a bus breakdown prompted rock-and-roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper to rent a plane to continue on their “Winter Dance Party” tour. Icy roads and treacherous weather had nearly undermined their performances in Green Bay and Appleton that weekend, so after a show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2, 1959, they boarded a four-seat airplane. The three performers and pilot Roger Peterson perished when the plane crashed about 1:00 AM on Monday, February 3rd (“The Day the Music Died,” according to singer Don McLean in his song “American Pie”) . [Source: Mark Steuer; Wikipedia]

Public Meetings

Landmarks Committee

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I. Call to Order

II. Roll Call

III.     Approval of Agenda and Possible Rearrangement

IV. Approval of Minutes of January 6, 2010 Meetings

V. Set date of next meeting (Wednesday, March 3, 2010, at 5:00 PM)

Old Business

VI.     Report from Friends of the Mounds Meeting (Helmick)

1.  Article in The Wisconsin Archeologist by Stekel, Johns, Scherz

2.  Possible future activities, events, tours

VII.   Action on  Landmark Commission Bylaws (McDonell, Singer)

VIII. Update on Train Depot Renovation (Lashley)

X.     Update of possible moving or demolition of James and Ella Rockefeller House at 837 South Janesville Road (Scott)

XI.   Report from Indian Mound Task Force Meeting (Scott)

XII.  Report on implementing the New Provisions of Chapter 17.  (Scott)

1.  Discuss establishing criteria for designation

2.  List of possible items

XIII. Update National Certified Local Government Reports (Scott)

XIV.  Discuss possible events and projects for Historic Preservation Month

1.  Library Display Case

2.  Local Landmarks Tour

New Business

XV.   Discuss possible projects  and events for 2010

1.  Local Landmark Designations

2.  Historic Districts

XVI.  Future Agenda Items

1.  Congregational Church Clock Tower

2.  Whitewater Historical Survey Recommendations

3.  Leaflets and Educational Materials

XVII. Adjournment

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.

Uncategorized

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Sheridan’s Shameful and Laughable Self-Absolution

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Not far from Whitewater, little more than twenty miles away, sits the City of Janesville, a small city of about sixty-thousand people. The city has had all manner of economic problems, and it has unemployment among the highest in Wisconsin. If life itself were just a bit easier, and kinder, one might hope that Janesville would have a representative committed to the care of his fellow citizens, and all Wisconsin.

Neither Janesville nor Wisconsin has such a representative in Mike Sheridan, speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly. Consider what Sheridan offers to Wisconsin, as a recent story,
Sheridan: “It’s not a conflict” recounts:

JANESVILLE – Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan said he doesn’t believe dating a lobbyist for the payday loan industry was inappropriate, even though legislation to regulate the industry is pending in the Legislature.

Sheridan, who filed for divorce in October, said he plans to steer a strong bill through the Assembly yet this session.

I don’t care in the slightest what Sheridan does in his private time; it’s his public obligations that matter. If he worked as a lounge singer, and met a lobbyist, it would be of no concern to me. That
he’s speaker of the assembly, and has an obligation to the entire chamber, and to the Democratic caucus, is a concern. It should be every citizen’s concern.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but I have a genuine sympathy for supporters of the Democratic party who have a representative like this. They deserve far better.

How does Sheridan explain his conduct? He has a simple, clear explanation: “I have dated a gal who is a lobbyist,” Sheridan said. “It’s not been a conflict, and I have no problem saying that.”

Are you not relived, that Sheridan tells you that dating a lobbyist opposing his caucus’s legislative agenda isn’t a conflict, and that he has no problem saying as much?

There is no circumstance under which a person of normal ability and reasoning would take the word of this smooth-talking heel that there’s no conflict because he declares that there’s no conflict. A man with powers so great, to make things simply vanish, might concentrate on eliminating atomic weapons from North Korea, and explosives in the hands, and pants, of Islamic fanatics. Those would be worthy uses of the magical powers Sheridan must possess. Chatting up lobbyists, and absolving himself of conflicts of interest for having done so, is shameful and disgraceful conduct.

You can guess that Sheridan has a few colleagues who will try to defend him. Consider, for use as an example of what not to say in someone’s defense, representative Gordon Hintz’s remarks: “He’s [Sheridan’s] not involved at all in the work group,” Hintz said. “There are six people who know what’s in the bill, and Mike isn’t one of them. There’s nothing he could be reporting back to anyone.”

Sheridan can’t have a conflict, according to Hintz, because Sheridan’s ignorant of the details of legislation. Mike Sheridan is
speaker when he wants someone’s attention, and simpleton when he wants to avoid responsibility.

It’s also infuriating, because Sheridan asks people to accept something false merely because he says it. Of course he has “no problem saying it,” as he’s too stupid to see how stupid he sounds.
He really dares normal people with this question: are you as foolish and stupid as I hope that you are?

I have mentioned before this same problem in my small city of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Politicians and bureaucrats will insist that something’s not a problem because they don’t think that it is, or that it’s not what they meant. A child would be ashamed to think that that excuse might work, but in Whitewater, it works all too well.

Self-regard trumps understanding, reason, and fairness.

One abercrombie or another, with too much time on his hands, simply declares that the rules shouldn’t apply to him, because he’s not the sort of person for whom the rules need apply. Even if he thinks that the rules might apply to him, and he’s caught violating them, then he simply declares that it’s not what he meant.

I have before teased that this is like walking around with a ‘get out of conflict, free’ card in one’s pocket.

Now, I don’t know, and would prefer not to know, what’s in Sheridan’s pocket, or the pockets of responsibility-evading politicians and bureaucrats in Whitewater. I wonder, though, if he and they carry around something extra, for that special moment when the time is right.

Something like this —

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 >>