Property values in Walworth County are up, over last year; taxes are up even more. Meaningful gain, but a tax burden growing even faster.

The story’s in the Walworth County Gazette.

The story includes a link to a Public Policy Forum study. For Whitewater, both our property values and tax levy increased less than the Walworth county figures.

(Walworth County: property values up 5.9% and tax levy up 6.5%. City of Whitewater: 2 % increase in property values and 3.4 % increase in the tax levy. For Walworth County, the tax levy rate increase was about 10% more than the percentage property value increase; in the City of Whitewater, the tax levy rate increase was about 70% higher than the percentage property value increase.)

See, Walworth County property taxes, values up.

This is the second of two posts on the Whitewater Tree Commission. The first appears immediately below.

Terms of Law.  One finds a quick willingness for some speakers and bureaucrats to rail about harassment, or maligning city workers, by some on — or off — the TC.  Whether all of the circumstances involved justify those terms, I cannot say.  Quite frankly, I’m not sure anyone else is sure, either. 

If violations of law have been committed, then charge; if not, stop using the terms as though they have been committed.  (It’s foolish to pretend, too, that everyone here would he held to the same standard, in any event.  No one, at least no one serious, thinks Whitewater works that way.) 

Personal and Political.  Often — very often — Whitewater’s elite cannot tell the difference between the personal and the political.  Someone criticizes policy, and in Whitewater, that’s a personal attack, justifying an overheated personal response or an overheated policy response, and probably both.  Many of the policy concerns about the TC were already in the past by the time of the meetings; personal animus continued on, very much alive.  It’s just a joke — a bad, feeble one — to pretend otherwise.  Personalities clashed, these clashes were not addressed properly, and policy (abolish it!) became the instrument of an overwrought reaction.  

Now, I’ve been a critic of a few Whitewater politicians and bureaucrats.  No reason for surprise — it’s true.  Yet, you’d think that I’d desecrated a sanctuary for all the difference it makes.    

Dissent.  Look, Whitewater’s elite, wholly apart from events at Council –dislikes the kind of dissent that’s completely normal and conventional in — wait for it — the rest of America.  They dislike it because policy and debate is debased by personal sensitivity in Whitewater.  All across America, for centuries, our people has been known for its free and vigorous debate.  Attributed, anonymous, you name it.  It’s one of the many reasons were are — rightly — the envy of all the world, of all history.  

Whitewater’s few hundred don’t see the world that way, and they gather to themselves bureaucrats, local and transplanted, who are likewise unable to see the difference.  

That’s why the Japanese saying should be our town’s motto — the nail that sticks up gets pounded down.  

Yet, this isn’t Japan.  (In that regard, some of Japan’s not Japan, so to speak.)  No matter how much a few want to define part of a America as all of America, it’s not true.  Individual liberty and fundamental rights don’t stop at our town line.  

One of the people reportedly involved in this drama, scarcely mentioned in these meetings, is someone about whom I have written much, strongly and in satire.  I have no idea about the truth of personal conduct in these events, but I do see an irony.  (I take no pleasure in it; I merely see it.)  Ours is a status quo that can only be defended as a few hundred insist that it must be defended.  If not their way, then all other ways are wrong, bad, and intolerable.     

These controversies over the Tree Commission could have been resolved without abolition or suspension of that body, without so much personal animosity, and without distorting policy for hurt feelings.  If not, if they were forever beyond the reach of our local elite, then what hope have they for significant problems? 

Our political life and culture remain as distorted as they have ever been. 

There’s a Japanese expression that says, “The nail that sticks up gets pounded down.”  Some in Whitewater don’t like dissent, and conflate the political and the personal, in ways detrimental to both. 

You may have heard, if you’ve bothered to look at a local headline (and who could blame you if you’ve not?), that Whitewater’s Common Council first considered abolishing, and now seeks to suspend, its Tree Commission.  Long discussions, at both the Common Council meetings of July 21st and August 4th, took place on whether to abolish or suspend the Tree Commission (TC). 

Video of the Meetings.  I watch and record my own videos of Common Council meetings, but I like to refer to a recording that others can see, too.  Our public access station posts video recordings of these meetings, and other public meetings, at www.blip.tv.  

Here are the recordings from the two sessions on the TC, about which I comment below.  

7/21/09 

8/4/09 

Citizen Commissions.  The TC’s members are citizen volunteers.  They deserve more, not less, deference than office holders (especially officer holders who are paid.)  Imagine being someone other than the few hundred who think they own this town, define its culture for everyone, and may not be questioned.  If you’re someone else, with a different point of view, why volunteer if you’ll be tarred with accusations that may have no immediate connection to you?  

Some of the complaints from city workers about the TC may be justified, but by the time of the Council meetings, many of these complaints concerned matters in the past.  That didn’t stop speakers from complaining as though these problems were continuing, often ignoring what the new chair of the TC had just said.     

(I’m not interested in being part of any of these boards or commissions; for those who are interested, watching these sessions with a prospective interest in service must be discouraging.  You want to be part of … that?) 

Really, though, the whole abolition effort serves as an early valentine to insiders, upset over how they had been treated.  Making an example of citizen volunteers, by abolishing their commission, really sends one message: you’re not one of us, and you can go to Hell.  

I cannot believe — truly cannot believe — that this would escape someone.  Perhaps it did.  For some, it may not matter; for others, it assures that those who serve will only be the ‘right’ people, familiar and thus similar.  

It’s true that Whitewater does not have to have a TC; other cities function differently.  So what?  We do have a TC, and the question for us now, is: since we have one, what will we do? 

Abolition or Suspension.  I was surprised, truly, with the discussion on July 21st, at which the Council considered a proposal to abolish the TC.  I’ve teased about trees, and the TC before, but it struck me among the most innocuous of citizen commissions.  Then, I’m not the Lorax, and I don’t speak for the trees.  I know that trees are important to many, and that they’re an important part of our ecosystem; then again, I once proposed planting cactus in Whitewater to reduce maintenance. 

Abolition was a precipitous proposal, even for someone who’d prefer fewer political bodies.  If I were to start with abolition, that start would begin elsewhere. 

It says nothing good about a majority on our Common Council that they voted to abolish a citizen commission so quickly. Two weeks later, Council settled on the more sensible (but still serious) step of suspending the TC.        

Next: Part 2 more >>