I once read that one should offer solutions, not problems. Funny, something like this passes as …. insight.

(I’m not sure where I read it. It might have been on a motivational poster, in a fortune cookie, or perhaps from an email I saw from a former city employee, writing to Chief Coan, discovered during an open records request. Somewhere…)

In any event, I’m here to offer a quick solution for municipal meetings where career bureaucrats, city employees, and consultants talk and talk with abandon.

One would think they’re paid by the word, or even more likely, by how long they can stretch every word.

How about a fee for every word uttered after the first 100? There could be an extra charge for long pauses, stuttering, or repetition.

Career bureaucrats would do better to say less in any event. Consultants already cost this city too much; here’s a chance to recoup some of Whitewater’s costs.

When city bureaucrats wonder, by the way, why attendance at an event might be low, they might also consider what happens when someone tries to speak during public comments at a meeting.

Far too often – and that would be more than one occurrence – a citizen will be interrupted as a jumpy politician tries to refute something being said.

It’s a sign of a politician’s weakness – not strength – to interrupt this way. If there should be a time limit on citizen comments, then the least a politician could do would be to let the citizen conclude his or her remarks, and respond later.

If interruptions to citizen comments were based on skill and insight of those interrupting, then no politicians in all America could be more unjustified than those who interrupt citizens in Whitewater.

Over at the Daily Union, there’s coverage of the first of two scheduled municipal budget listening sessions. In a story entitled, “No Input at Budget Hearing,” Whitewater City Manager Kevin Brunner comments on the lack of attendance, and his own trailblazing listening session concept.

It’s not that Brunner receives hard questioning from the newspaper; that’s not to be expected, really. It’s that, even when quoted at length, and apparently unchallenged, his remarks just don’t add up. (There’s my obligatory numerical reference.)

Brunner on attendance: “We thought that by coming out to the community, to a place like Fairhaven, that maybe we could attract some folks. But people are very busy and, unfortunately, until they get a tax bill or see a headline in a newspaper for what might be going on, that is when they will react.

“We’re trying to engage them ahead of time, to get their ideas so we can generate ideas on how we can balance this budget,” he added. “I am disappointed, but I think next week will be better.”

You ingrate slackers! You were supposed to be at Brunner’s poorly-publicized event. You didn’t show, and you’ve let him down. There’s nothing in his quoted remarks in which he takes responsibility for a simple mistake, along the lines of “We didn’t publicize this well, and should have done better, but will try next time.” Nothing like that at all.

Note, that when he says that people won’t react until they get a tax bill, he fails to see that reacting only then may be a rational response to a string of ambiguous, lengthy, or confusing municipal meetings.

Brunner on his unique approach: “This is new,” Brunner said of the process. “I am not aware of another community that is trying to do this, to get in front of the budget by engaging the citizens.” By this, I presume he means holding listening sessions before a budget is presented.

Is Brunner serious? He’s not aware of other communities that have a similar process?

Of course they do. The City of Madison has a process like this, with public input before the introduction of a budget. The City of Franklin has a process like this.

Now I’m a common blogger, not some well-heeled, never-wrong, super-sophisticated city manager, but even I know that this process was not invented in Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Why imply that it might have been? Why pretend to be so unique and special? Why not simply say that we’re trying to do what others are doing, and that it didn’t work out? The refusal to admit any mistake, or to imply we’re so unique, is laughable, and ruinous to the city.

Wouldn’t anyone, hearing this statement, wonder about it?