It’s a chilly October in Whitewater, Wisconsin, but the political climate has never been milder. That must seem odd, in a time of economic hardship with rising unemployment. There’s a gap, though, between the condition of ordinary residents and their interest in the plans and schemes from our municipal building.

The political climate in the city has never been more compliant, complacent, almost somnolent. There has never been a better time for the municipal administration to do whatever it wants.

On the Common Council, there are two votes assured – in the end – to accept any proposal the city administration offers. Of the remaining five, two members will either not follow or grasp the issues very well. Find just two more out of that five, and anything’s approved. Anything.

I’m sure you’ll hear how dire is the political situation, how high are the stakes. Not at all – it’s the economic situation that’s dire, not the political stakes in Whitewater.

Compared with past councils, our current group is as quiet as any in memory.

Part of this is likely because hard times have left many residents weary and worn with personal matters.

There’s more, though, than that. We live breathing the perfumed atmosphere of non-stop cheerleading, where everything is the best, the greatest, the most extraordinary. Bureaucrats at 312 W. Whitewater Street are quite sure that we’re one tech park away from perfection.

It makes sense that thousands of people in Whitewater would have less interest in local politics than ever before; sensible people shy away from the ridiculous and self-deluded.

We suffer from high unemployment, widespread and above-average poverty, and live in a community with large numbers in distress.

Mark this: no big-budget building project from our municipal administration will reduce poverty in the city. Brunner could build twice as much, and it would make no difference.

The problem is not that the city schemes and spends and regulates too little; it is that it schemes and spends and regulates too much.

Any politician walking around the city bemoaning the hard choices we face is right; any politician walking around bemoaning the hard choices he faces should be thankful for a weary and discouraged electorate.

There’s never be an easier time to pass anything, anything at all.

It’s not true that marquee projects make no difference to life in Whitewater, Wisconsin. They do make a difference, just not enough to alter the high poverty and slow growth that besets our community.

Several big projects may have a comforting influence, and offer a cumulative lift, to those who use them.

Outside that orbit, though, the benefits are scarcely noticed, if at all. The same is true of town politics: a few hundred care, several hundred may participate, and the overwhelming majority abstains.

There’s rationality in that abstention – one does not participate where one feels no impact, benefit, or change.

Change of the most meaningful sort will come from America’s steady evolution, from beneficial but impersonal forces, and not from within.

If one thinks about Whitewater over the last several years, all of its principal offices have changed hands once, or more, with the exception of the city’s police chief (who left briefly, but returned).

No one else from 2000 yet retains a leading political or appointed office. Those who were front and center a decade ago have retired or moved on.

What is the same, though, are our stodgy town fathers. They’ve not budged a bit. Leaders have come and gone, but the same narrow faction endures; Whitewater is not, ultimately, a leader-driven culture.

It’s reason to doubt that a few marquee municipal projects and their backers will effect noticeable change, however many millions are spent.

The stubbornness of the town’s stodgy few hasn’t failed to overwhelm its elected and appointed leaders.

Whitewater, Wisconsin has any number of official public bodies and ad hoc committees. We probably have too many, working on too many tasks, at once.

They’re often composed of the same people, something more common than even our small size makes necessary.

Use of the same people, over and over, serves two advantages. First, no group acts too far from the watchful eye of a bureaucrat’s oversight, lest it propose too innovatively.

Second, once the group decides, rapid approval is assured, as those who need subsequently to endorse and authorize the proposal may already have been among the initial group’s members.

Use of the same, well-known members on committee after committee acts as both a governor and an accelerator, regulating and rushing forward.