FREE WHITEWATER

City, Development, Free Markets

Planning Commission Meeting for December 10, 2007 (Part 1)

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Two items stood out for me from the December 10th meeting: (1) a discussion of a sign for a downtown restaurant, and (2) a request of an owner to rent a first floor apartment in the back of the old Hallmark store location.

I’ve mentioned before that while one’s opinions should not change from forum to forum, one’s manner and presentation should fit the forum. I write polemically (that’s perhaps an understatement), but what’s possible on the page way not be effective in person. Anger plays poorly in person, and on television. Sometimes I’ll use an italic font to emphasize a word in print, but I might not emphasize the word when speaking. Different forum, different manner: same point.

At the same time, the world’s a messy place, and sometimes people will get angry, make faces, etc. That may be, by turns, ridiculous or frustrating. There is something satisfying and reassuring about a person who stays calm while those nearby lose their cool.

Restaurant Sign. A local restaurant in our downtown wanted a sign for its window. The plans for the sign were in black-and-white, and did not specify colors. Planning Commission member Rick Gilpatrick asked this question, “Wouldn’t the city have interest in having a record of what the colors are?”

It’s a rational question, and one typical of planning meetings in all sort of places. It’s certainly a conventional request and a conventional outlook.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. What if we lived in a society where a restaurant owner could display a sign without filing a colored drawing with the city? If a shopkeeper decided one day that teal would be more suitable on the sign than navy, must a municipality know (and approve)? My question is not about conventional practice — it’s about the possible, about what could be.

I do not believe that this level of planning and municipal oversight is necessary for a town to function, let alone function well. This isn’t planning to compete, it’s not even reasonable planning for aesthetics (an often dubious concept, to my mind), it’s just planning. If the restaurant owner said that she thought orange and gold would make a good sign, what would one say? Orange, but not — absolutely not — tangerine orange?

I know full well planning commissions often ask questions about color, etc. My question is why it’s necessary of the city to inquire. Refraining from inquiry wouldn’t mean disaster; it would be an improvement. It’s not planning for order, but planning merely necessary to permit a spontaneous order, that we should favor. The true advantage of more spontaneity is not a calculated efficiency or cost savings; it’s liberty and the creative, unpredictable, amazing possibilities that liberty affords us. At the end of the day, I am convinced that a less-structured, less-inquisitive municipality is a better one, for moral and prudential reasons. It’s not that the current system is all bad; it’s that a less inquisitive system would be better.

I believe in a community where ordinary judgments about beauty are left to individual homeowners and businesses. Neither my neighbor nor my community’s elected representatives should, for example, restrain or restrict my ability to paint a house or sign a given color. (That hasn’t happened to me, by the way; my point is general.) I favor a world with the freedom to choose the shade I want, without filing a document, or asking permission of a committee. Left on their own, people will typically choose wisely, and its patronizing to think otherwise. If they don’t, then I’ll not trouble myself about the result. Most choices will be as good, or better, than managed choices. That these choices will have been made without intrusion or oversight makes them even better.

We should be strong enough to accept the free aesthetic choices of others.

City

Common Council Meeting for December 4, 2007

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I’ll make two quick comments on the Common Council meeting for December 4th, 2007.

First, there’s a serious point to be made about how tax incremental financing is less advantageous and riskier than appears. That’s not apparent until years after a district is established. Tax incremental financing — old or new — should be a last-ditch effort.

Second, get your tape measures out — the Baymont Inn’s sign might be too big! Too funny. As against, for example, the golden arches of McDonald’s? What’s nearby? A gas station, a bowling alley, a Wal-Mart, a hardware store, and an auto dealership. The Baymont’s blue sign is as suitable as what surrounds it. It’s just silly quibbling to waste time on the matter.

City, Development

Planning Commission/Architectural Review Board for November 26, 2007

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I’ll catch up on my coverage of the Planning Commission with a post on its November 26th meeting. One topic stood out: should the Planning Commission meet once or twice a month? Under the rules of the Planning Commission, the chairman can make that decision, but he sensibly allowed it to be a board decision. (How often one meets is something that all members should have a chance to discuss.)

I have advocated previously that less is more, and that meeting once a month would be a good idea.

Common Council president and voting member of the Planning Commission Marilyn Kienbaum favored keeping a twice-monthly meeting schedule, as (1) it would provide more opportunities for developers to meet the Commission, (2) more opportunities would allow a greater number of approvals, (3) Attorney Mitchell Simon — who handles fair amount of real estate work, and whose opinion she respects — supports the current, twice monthly-schedule, and (4) hinted that Whitewater might not need a city planner if the Planning Commission met only once monthly.

(Ordinarily, one might expect that I would be inclined to the view that we could do without a city planner. When someone says that the city might not need a planner, it’s almost like date music to a libertarian. I do not think that it was meant as a serious suggestion, however. In any event, it’s not the main question, but rather a possible, and only possible, consequence of deciding the main question. The main question is about how often to meet.)

The idea of meeting once-monthly is the more reasonable position. Kristine Zaballos noted, among other points, that (1) other communities’ commissions meet monthly, and (2) meeting monthly would provide an incentive for businesses and developers to submit complete, informative proposals (lest they have to wait another month). Presumably, it’s also an incentive for the planner city planner to gather all needed information for the commission (lest he be accused of inefficiency).

There is no competitive disadvantage where our commission would meet with the same frequency as others’ commissions. I do not believe that meeting more frequently has given us an advantage; in fact, it seems that meeting more frequently has led to less respect for the submissions process, the tendency to carry items from meeting to meeting, and more discussion of small matters. Part of Mrs. Zaballos’s point was that a change in process (meeting monthly) would lead to a change in behavior (more thorough submissions and less small-talk). She’s likely right. It’s reason enough to move to a monthly schedule. (Significantly, it does not depend on mere promises of better submissions and better review; the incentive is in avoiding a month’s delay.)

The decision at the November 26th meeting was 5 – 2 in favor of meeting monthly.

City, Elkhorn, Police

Cat Has Your Tongue?

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Last week, I criticized a policy of confidentiality in municipal litigation. I offered seven reasons that a city should not seek or receive confidentiality as a condition of settlement. Confidentiality in municipal litigation is a bad idea, principally, because it deprives citizens of information about the conduct of public officials, on the public payroll, in the conduct of their public duties.

In this matter, the City of Whitewater, federal civil defendant Larry Meyer, and any number of leaders in Whitewater and Elkhorn would likely wish that expert witness reports, depositions, settlement details, and the suit itself be concealed from public view. I oppose that approach.

I also see the self-serving contradiction of city officials in an agreement that imposes confidentiality in municipal litigation. I am an advocate of free speech, and of assembly. I favor it generally, not merely when it suits me. The same is not true of so many officials in this town and their friends in Elkhorn.

The same men who loudly boast of every accomplishment when it serves them want to hide this matter now.

Our police department will tout any self-serving statement it wishes, no matter how small or trivial. Chief Coan will tell anyone who’ll listen how his officers are the finest, noblest, best-trained men and women on earth. He just doesn’t want anyone else to be able to tell you anything to the contrary.

The City of Whitewater website is littered with any number of laughable documents dedicated to Coan’s self-promotion.

Newsletters. Coan’s department produces a quarterly newsletter singing the praises of, well, Coan’s department. It’s a seasonal exercise in smug, self-satisfaction. Recent editions are available on the city website, and each is a like tiny romance novel from Chief Coan to Chief Coan.

Travelogues. Coan offers readers a four-page account of his ride along with the New Orleans police department after Hurricane Katrina. That community suffered greatly from the storm, and Coan’s humanitarian instincts led him to there as a passenger in a local police vehicle. It’s not Travels with Charley, but it is revealing reading. Coan’s account acknowledges that policing in New Orleans has limited resemblance to policing Whitewater. One might have guessed as much, but still Coan made the trip. The New Orleans account is part 4 (yes, part 4) in Coan’s Parallels in Policing series. He’s also been to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Perhaps one might also remind Coan that in Euclidean geometry, parallel lines do not intersect, and the cities he’s chosen are about as far removed from ours as one could expect in America.

If Coan likes traveling in a car so much, perhaps he would like a bus even better. Greyhound offers reasonably priced, one-way tickets to Arizona, and it’s beautiful there this time of year. Why wait?

A mature man or woman would be embarrassed by these narcissistic reports and newsletters. Coan must be proud of them, or he wouldn’t write and post them.

Our city manager’s weekly report offers quotations from figures great and small, sometimes interesting, but otherwise inapt and puzzling. I would be more inclined to these small nuggets of purported wisdom if they came from an administration that advocated openness more comprehensively. Confucius, whatever his value, is of slight use in a city that would audaciously favor a confidentiality agreement in a federal lawsuit against its employees in their public actions. Instead of printing t-shirts for city workers sporting a quotation from deceased hamburger magnate Ray Kroc, perhaps something more apt: “We Have Nothing to Hide. Really.”

The promotional videos that the city places on its website would be more credible if they came from a town that did not rush to shove legitimate public information from the public view.

Our city finance director gave an interview at which he declared a settlement that may amount to tens of thousands will cost the city nothing. He justified his statement by telling a local paper that our city is insured, and that the policy has a zero deductible. I will, for the moment, accept that statement at face value. (Even though I know that there cannot be a resolution to the case without cost to the city, as Larry Meyer has cost us too much already.) Let’s assume that Saubert’s right that the carrier will cover the cost, and future premiums will be unaffected.

Yet it’s clear that Saubert admits in that same interview that he was not familiar with the terms of the settlement. Saubert’s statement about zero-cost served to lessen the disgrace that Larry Meyer’s caused this town. Not long after, Jim Coan turned the budget on which Saubert worked upside down in two weeks’ time. Saubert’s comments in the interview served Coan’s interest, by minimizing the impact of the lawsuit against Coan’s investigator, but Coan didn’t return the favor.

Our neighbors, beyond our city in Elkhorn, have their interests in this, too. I am sure that an affidavit from a former member of the prosecutor’s office pointing out the ways Larry Meyer disregarded prosecutorial direction must be embarrassing. Embarrassing, twice over: (1) it bolsters the contention that Meyer acted contrary to direction, and (2) it raises questions about the circumstances under which the affidavit’s author – then an assistant district attorney, now with the Wisconsin attorney general’s office – left his position in Elkhorn.

These different people are not the only ones who have, or who should have, the right to discuss. They want to talk when it favors them, but they want to silence others when the discussion turns to subjects they find unfavorable. more >>

City, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Press

On Nosek on Student Housing, Part 3 (McCann’s Story in the GazetteXtra)

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In this third post, I’ll address the quality of the GazetteXtra story from Carla McCann entitled, “Neighborhoods Oppose Housing for UW-W students.” It’s one of the worst stories on Whitewater I have read in months, and is the same league as the biased and misleading stories from the Whitewater Register. The Register cuts short the lives of too many trees, and McCann’s story needlessly sacrifices countless electrons.

I am not sure how long McCann has been writing about Whitewater, but I have not noticed her work before.

First, I’ll offer a quick explanation of the GazetteXtra. It’s a web-based publication from Bliss Communications, publishers of the Janesville Gazette. Some of its stories may also appear in print, but not, I think, McCann’s story on Nosek’s crusade against student housing, and the students he so evidently despises. That makes McCann’s story truly ‘extra’ as superfluous and unworthy of print. I am an independent publisher and author, and it disappoints me that Bliss uses the web to run second-tier stories that are unworthy of its print efforts. Our medium deserves better than McCann’s feeble, second-rate copy.

I’ll list some of the reasons that the story’s a poor effort.

The Headline. McCann’s story is entitled, “Neighborhoods Oppose Housing for UW-W Students.”

In many large newspapers, reporters do not write the headlines to their stories. I am not sure if that’s true for the Gazette or the online GazetteXtra. It does not matter; the headline’s biased for vagueness and generality. Which neighborhoods oppose student housing? Does the headline mean all neighborhoods, some of them, and with what intensity and consensus is this true? It’s like writing a post-election headline that said, “States Oppose Kerry,” or “States Oppose Bush.” Some did, some didn’t. Even within states, many people were divided. The headline of McCann’s story obscures – to the point of the laughable – the nature of opinion.

When did Roy Nosek become a universally acclaimed champion of all people in all neighborhoods? I must have missed that development. Last I knew, he was a dentist-politician who barely won a single council district by a mere – ready? – two votes. Two. In the GazetteXtra headline, one would think that Nosek was leader of a city-wide majority. He’s not.

(Note to all the stodgy members of the town clique: you need to get yourself a champion who can win city-wide while keeping his cool. You may be able to find someone like that, but it’s not Dr. Roy Nosek.)

Inadequate Sourcing. McCann offers only three sources: Nosek as the leading opponent of student housing, a council member who shares some of his views (if not manner), and a university official. Where are the students, landlords, homeowners who have renters, homeowners who have good relationships with students, etc? They’re nowhere in her poorly sourced copy. (They exist, to be sure, but she couldn’t trouble herself to the true reporter’s task of interviewing them.)

Opinion as Fact. Worse than inadequate sourcing is the way that McCann passes off Nosek’s statements, or other odd conclusions, as fact.

McCann writes, gullibly, that

The city has two ordinances, however, that could help eliminate the student-housing problem.
One of the ordinances prohibits more than three unrelated people from living together in a house zoned for a single family, while the other ordinance prohibits more than two vehicles from being parked regularly in the driveways or in front of those homes.

McCann accepts, implicitly, Nosek’s assessment of the ‘problem.’ There’s not even a suggestion that he might be wrong about the ‘problem.’

Even more egregious is her full support – more editorial than news story – that Nosek’s enforcement scheme will solve the supposed problem. His proposed solutions will solve nothing, as his enforcement schemes will exacerbate the tension between residents and worsen the lack of student housing. As I noted in Part 1 of this series, Nosek grasps imperfectly the close relationship between supply and demand. His restrictions on use and sale of property create shortages, as they leave existing homeowners without the same number of potential buyers, and will ultimately lead to a decline in property values and housing options that will impoverish the community.

These ordinances will also exacerbate tensions between people in the community, and foster a climate of tale-bearers and informants, whining to the police or city authorities at every turn. It’s a character-destroying way for a mature man or woman to live.

McCann presents no alternative side to this story, no proponent of an alternative plan. It’s just Nosek’s way, after an overly-credulous acceptance of all Nosek’s contentions. It takes a biased reporter to offer as undisputed views such gems as “It’s an old problem that has spread beyond the central university area into all districts within the community” and “They are parking illegally across sidewalks, hosting loud parties and failing to keep their lawns free of litter and trash.” Can’t you almost hear Nosek grumbling, “those vulgar, shiftless, no good punks?” It’s a one-sided story, of the sort that one reads about in high school newspapers, slanted press releases, and the Whitewater Register.

Poor Writing. What’s aesthetic beauty, by the way? Beauty would be more than enough. If it looks beautiful, then it’s a thing of beauty, and aesthetic beauty is unnecessary.

McCann’s story’s exaggerates Nosek’s importance, is biased, poorly sourced, and poorly written.

City, Development, Economy, Free Markets

On Nosek on Student Housing, Part 2 (Culture)

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In this post, I will consider the cultural aspects of Roy Nosek’s opposition to student housing. I am convinced that’s really where his opposition rests; he has no coherent economic theory that describes and addresses student housing demand in Whitewater. He does, however, have a clear cultural opposition, and that’s what I will consider here.

What is his cultural opposition to student housing, and students themselves? GazetteXtra reporter Carla McCann relates them, and Nosek himself has related them in the past. (I’ll have more about the quality of McCann’s journalism in my third post in this series.) Nosek dislikes the supposed noise, disruption, and damage to the beauty of the neighborhoods that he believes students create. He also claims to champion the cause of young families seeking to buy homes.

As for noise and disruption, Nosek’s definition of those nuisances is surely more expansive than others’ definitions. At the council meeting during which he played his slide show of supposed housing ordinance infractions, Nosek spared no additional car in the front yard, no stray trash-can. At that meeting, he reminded listeners that checking for violations is part of his Sunday, before church activities. If, on a Sunday morning as you prepare for church, you notice a cranky dentist skulking about with a camera, then you’ll know that your neighborhood is under his vigilant defense. (A man with more self-awareness would not have made this sort of announcement – more of an admission, really – in public.) That’s wouldn’t be Roy Nosek, D.D.S., though; he’s a true crusader against the depredations of shiftless, marauding students. To paraphrase a headline from the Register, “What Would We Ever Do Without Him?”

This community should expect more tolerance than that of a fussy, overly sensitive dentist-politician. (No one questions the wrong of a few, shameful incidents of property damage. I have written against that damage in the past. The problem is Nosek’s grossly expansive definition of a problem.)

As for his aesthetic objections, I find Nosek’s complaints unconvincing, in the same way that I would find the complaints of a glutton about others’ overeating unconvincing. Has anyone seen the professional office of Roy Nosek, D.D.S.? Anyone? It’s one of the least aesthetic buildings in Whitewater. That’s least aesthetic buildings, which translates for you and me as one of the ugliest buildings. It’s dull and drab, with overly large letters displaying his name and occupation. The letters are in a style unsuitable to a professional building, but commonly found carved in wood in children’s nurseries and kindergarten classrooms.

I was sorry to hear that the fraternity house next door to Nosek’s office caught fire. It’s fortunate that no one was more seriously injured. The owners and occupants of that fraternity house do have, however, one consolation. Even in its fire-damaged condition, the fraternity still looks better and more interesting than Nosek’s office. Much better.

I have decided not to offer a picture of Dr. Nosek’s office, as I am concerned that my camera lens might break.

What of Nosek’s contention that he seeks to help families with young children buy homes, and thereafter add their children as students to our school district’s enrollment? I advocate home ownership, too. I am convinced that the best way to give young families the chance for a home is through a vibrant, free market in real estate.

I would not target a certain group for preference as home buyers, however. I advocate home ownership not merely for families with children, but for single adults, married couples without children, and unmarried couples without children, too. I am not about to say, in advance, that some would make better neighbors than others. Each should be free to enter the market without an advantage beyond strength as buyers. (Only in that way will the market grow large enough to satisfy demand of all sorts of potential buyers.)

In fact, adult couples without children often make the best of opportunities to rehabilitate a home. They have available more time and disposable income to devote to a home, and through their efforts the entire community may be made stronger. They’re not Nosek’s apparently favored buyers, so to speak, but the law does not allow that they be excluded. Even the ordinances that he seeks to enforce recognize that they cannot lawfully be excluded from any residential district in the city (‘no more than three unrelated persons’).

Ultimately, the oddest part of Nosek’s crusade is his undisguised antipathy toward students, and his encouragement that citizens tattle on each other to municipal authorities at every opportunity. I have satirized Nosek as a small town Ahab after students, and as a Carrie Nation, complaining about alcohol and boozing and partying college kids.

Feel free to dislike what you want, but I cannot help but think that these dislikes are petty and beneath a serious man. That’s why I have also described Nosek as a modern day Mrs. Kravitz, worried too much about his neighbors’ minor misconduct.

Nosek’s not the worst character in town, but he is one of the most visibly irritable and angry. There’s not a bit of poise, subtlety, or charm evident in him. He frequently violates most of my Tips for Meetings suggestions with his cranky rants and lack of grace. Worse still, he’s not especially articulate, and the angrier he gets, the less articulate he is. His halting, stammering frustration only makes him seem angrier, crankier, and less reasonable. A poised and calm opponent could gently provoke Nosek and watch him fall apart in reaction.

It’s not his concerns, it’s his recourse that’s worst of all. He encourages his fellow citizens to report infractions wherever they see them, turning this small town into a petty, intrusive place. (I note that there’s a difference — at least in public presentation – between Nosek and Marilyn Kienbaum. Nosek wants ordinances enforced, and violators caught and fined. Kienbaum, as the GazetteXtra quotes her, recounts only her own efforts to talk to her noisy neighbors. Kienbaum might often side with him, but her actions as she recounts them are preferable to his. An elderly woman who deals with her neighbors face-to-face is more admirable than a man who asks his neighbors to tattle on each other at every occasion.)

Our municipal enforcement culture is broken, inefficient, and biased. The perception of selective enforcement is so rampant that it’s even a topic at council meetings. (So obvious is the problem that recently, no less than Miss Kienbaum – herself favored by many of the town clique – mentioned it during a discussion of enforcing signage restrictions).

It’s that broken enforcement culture, with too many small people trying to act big, on which Nosek bases his plan for community preservation. The consequence of his plans is community stagnation, ossification, and a town of finger-pointers. He wants to freeze life as he wants it, the wants of others notwithstanding.

What’s Roy Nosek’s idea of a beautiful Whitewater? It’s the entire city under a giant snow globe, forever frozen. Perhaps someone might remind him that ordinary people cannot live and thrive that way, and neither can our city.

City, Economy, Free Markets

On Nosek on Student Housing, Part 1 (Economics)

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Last week, a reader emailed me about a post over at the GazetteXtra.com, entitled, “Neighborhood Oppose Housing for UW-W Students.” The story highlights the views of Whitewater dentist-councilman Roy Nosek, on student housing, the housing market, aesthetics, and neighborhood quiet. I’ll address the GazetteXtra.com post with three of my own: Part 1 addresses the economic aspects of Nosek’s views, Part 2 will address the cultural aspects of his views, and Part 3 will address the quality of the GazetteXtra.com post from Carla McCann.

In this post, I’ll focus on the economic aspects of Nosek’s views on student housing. It’s not an easy subject, as Nosek betrays not the slightest real understanding of markets, supply and demand, or growth.

Nosek sees a problem with students living in his district, and other districts, their presence being to him (as he has said publicly) a death-knell for a district. For Nosek, student housing represents, in summary, three problems: (1) disruption to peace and quiet, (2) impairment of the beauty of a neighborhood, and (3) demand for student housing drives up home prices.

To solve these problems, Nosek proposes greater code enforcement of (1) ordinances against unrelated persons living together, and (2) ordinances against too many cars in a front driveway of a home.

What’s wrong with his economic approach and understanding?

Disqualifying Demand. Nosek dislikes student housing, so he asks the community to enforce ordinances that would limit student off-campus apartments in homes. He knows that there is a demand for student housing; he just doesn’t like it. His approach effectively ignores this demand by making it unlawful to fulfill it with the existing supply of real estate. Nosek would prevent the satisfaction of that demand — that is, student need for housing plus ability to rent — from being satisfied. And yet, these students are there, they have the ability to rent, and homeowners will rent to them or sell to landlords who will. It doesn’t matter; he does not recognize student housing needs as legitimate market demands. They’re not his kind of buyer (or renter), so to speak.

Nosek’s like a man who thinks that he’s eliminated unemployment because he’s made it illegal for the unemployed to look for work.

These students are not going away, and Nosek offers no alternative to where they should go. I joked once that Nosek wanted these students out of the city, or inside the campus behind a high wall. I was unfair when I said that about his dislike of student housing: I was too generous to him. Those two outcomes would be infeasible and wrong, but they would constitute a plan. Nosek offers no plan of his own half as credible as those two ridiculous ideas.

Assumption of Alternative Demand.More than once, Nosek has said that his goal is home ownership for young couples with families. That’s a goal for young couples with families, too. He complains that home prices are higher because of demand for student housing, and so young families cannot afford buy homes. His solution: disqualify, so to speak, student or landlord buyers, leaving young families better representing among remaining potential buyers.

How many of the homes then up for sale would go to young couples with children? Nosek cannot tell you, because no one knows. Currently, there are three scenarios for young home-buying couples: (1) none are bidding now, (2) some bid and sometimes win, (3) all those bidding lose. (Since Nosek complains about too many student dwellings, we know that young home-buying couples cannot be bidding and always winning.)

If landlords and students would not bid on homes (assuming it would be pointless to do so if enforcement were 100% effective, as Nosek wishes), then does that mean that all the homes for sale would go to young families with children, etc? No, of course not.

If I tell you that you cannot sell a home to a brunette, it doesn’t mean that you’ll sell your home to a blonde. Without brunettes who want to buy a home in the bidding, you may not have any good buyers at all.

Restricting Buyers Only Impoverishes Sellers. This brings us to Nosek’s inability to understand fully the implications of restricting the pool of buyers. He understands it in part, however. When he tells us that homes are too expensive now, and that he wants to make homes affordable for his preferred buyers by disqualifying other buyers, he implicitly — and correctly — assumes that a reduction in the number of available buyers will likely stagnate or depress home prices.

If this were not his assumption, then there would be no point in his complaining that home prices were presently too high for young families. When he reduces the number of available buyers, then he will almost certainly reduce the price that existing homeowners would otherwise be able to command as sellers.

Existing homeowners will be able to command less for their property for sale, or refinancing for remodeling, etc.

Misunderstanding Demand and Supply. I cannot tell if Nosek understands that demand and supply are wholly interdependent. When he speaks, he seems to be someone who thinks about altering the number of buyers (demand), but only with a partial understanding of how that would affect sellers (supply). Tinkering with one affects the other in ways that Nosek does not acknowledge.

Reduction in demand would depress supply, as fewer homes would be offered on the market, and fewer would be renovated or preserved where they would command less in the marketplace. With fewer homes sold, there would be fewer opportunities to create demand and for newer and larger homes (those trading up, or moving into different properties, like condominiums).

In fact, when I write ‘disqualifying buyers,’ I could as easily say ‘restricting sellers.’ A supply of one thing is merely satisfaction of another’s demand. They are neither separate from each other nor easily modified without — often — unintended consequences.

Stagnation as a Way of Life. The consequence of disqualifying purchasers through municipal ordinance is fewer buyers, stagnant or depressed prices for existing homes, and reduced investment in student housing or new single family homes. Lifting restrictions on sale would change the community, in positive, voluntary ways: there would be more student and single family housing, and an end the present shortage. It is a shortage that zoning regulations have only made worse, and that unfettered transactions would only make better.

Beautiful Whitewater

Beautiful Whitewater: The Campus Before Exams

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Here are some photos of the snow-covered UWW campus, Thanksgiving having passed, and exams standing between students and Christmas. It may seem dark and forbidding, but that is appearance only. Inside the university’s library, and in dorms and apartments throughout the city, students are studying to fulfill part of the American promise, freely to read, study, and make one’s way in the world.

I was not educated at UWW; I mentioned once before that I went to college elsewhere. My family have always looked with fondness on the promise of the American college experience, whether it takes place in Whitewater, Madison, Chicago, or beyond.

Best wishes to all for successful exams and a happy vacation thereafter.

City, Police, Press

Against Confidentiality in Municipal Litigation

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Longtime readers know that I have covered the federal lawsuit against Larry Meyer, a now-retired detective of the Whitewater Police Department. Plaintiff, Steve Cvicker sued Meyer federal court alleging violations of his civil and constitutional rights. In March, Cvicker’s Fourth Amendment claims survived a motion for summary judgment. In October, newspaper accounts reported that the case was close to settlement.

When the final settlement was not soon forthcoming, I speculated that the delay was the result of some sort of problem in negotiations between the two sides. (The public records in the case revealed that a possible settlement was brought to the court’s attention in September.) As it turns out, there is a challenge in reaching a settlement, and counsel for Larry Meyer has filed a motion to enforce a settlement agreement that the defense claims was reached, but with which the plaintiff allegedly will not comply. The Janesville Gazette this week ran a brief story on the motion to compel settlement. The Gazette story misses a fundamental public policy aspect of the case.

My interest — like all citizens — is in honest, responsible government and policing in this town. My interest is not, and cannot be, that of the plaintiff in this case. I have never met the plaintiff in this federal lawsuit, Steve Cvicker, and in fact, I have no idea what he even looks like.

When I speculated on the delay in this case, I wondered if the defendant in this case might want a confidentiality agreement as a condition of settlement. I was right: public records in the case reveal that a confidentiality agreement imposed on the plaintiff is one of the conditions of settlement. This is a critical detail that the Gazette did not report, but is the heart of public concern.

My position is against any confidentiality agreement as a condition of settlement in this case, a case about public duties of public officials and officers of the City of Whitewater. Asking a court to impose a confidentiality agreement in this matter is against public policy and good government.

Here is an excerpt from Defendant’s brief in support of the motion to compel settlement that refers to a confidentiality agreement (defendant’s counsel cites from a letter between the parties dated September 27, 2007):

“In exchange for a payment of Eighty-two Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($82,500.00), Mr. Cvicker will dismiss his claims in Case No. 05-C-576, on their merits and with prejudice, and without costs or fees to any party. Mr. Cvicker will execute a full and final release of any and all claims against Investigator Larry Meyer, the City of Whitewater Police Department, the City of Whitewater, and their officers, employees, attorneys, insurers, successors, assigns, etc. The release will contain a confidentiality provision. ”

Emphasis added.

I will offer seven reasons that a confidentiality agreement in this case — involving a public issue — is a bad idea, and contrary to good government.

First, this federal lawsuit against Larry Meyer involves a federal constitutional claim against public officials, and a municipality, in the course of public duties. The entire matter involves a claim about the legality and propriety of public action. This is the very definition of a matter of public interest. It should not be hushed up through a confidentiality agreement.

Second, citizens should know and understand how paid municipal employees, in the discharge of their official duties, actually conduct themselves. This allows citizens to (1) know the truth of employee’s actual conduct, (2) advocate for reforms when needed, and (3) be aware of the risks of misconduct where it has occurred, (4) or be confident in cases where it has not occurred.

Third, those public employees who claim that their conduct is upstanding should be willing to allow an open judicial process, available to the review of fellow citizens, journalists, and lawyers.

Fourth, defendants can, and do, settle cases — without an admission of wrongdoing — and also without confidentiality agreements. A public employee’s insurance carrier, or a municipality’s insurance carrier, need not admit the employee’s wrongdoing to settle. That insurance carrier should not hide the mere facts of a public matter from the very public that authorizes, pays, and relies on the public employee’s conduct.

Fifth, settlements in public maters, involving public officials, paid with public money that are hidden through confidentiality agreements constitute attempts by those officials to afford themselves the condition of private parties while simultaneously exercising public duties. It’s unfair to have both: a man may choose a private vocation, but he should not assume and benefit from a public one, only to ask that his public actions be hidden through a means more suitable in private endeavors.

Sixth, even in private matters, confidentiality agreements may be used, all too often, to allow corporations to hide the truth of their dangerous products from consumers, leaving consumers unable to evaluate the risk and rewards of purchasing goods at a give price. Markets work best when consumers receive information about the true functioning of a product.

Seventh, a confidentiality agreement in this matter would be contrary Wisconsin’s public policy commitment to open records. My point is not that it cannot be done, but that it should not be done.

Here is the clear test, the question of principle: Why should this public lawsuit, involving public officials, involved in the public exercise of their duties, be made confidential?

To each of the gentlemen involved on behalf of the City of Whitewater and its police department, this is the question that I pose to you. The defendants need not admit wrongdoing in connection with payment of settlement money. I am stunned, however, at the arrogance and audacity that causes the defendant to request that this public matter be hidden from view. It’s disgraceful that public employees and the City of Whitewater would request this unnecessary step.

Officials proclaim — at each and every opportunity — that their actions are beyond reproach. If that should be true, then why ask a court to make these public actions confidential and private? It does not matter what one thinks of the plaintiff, defendant, or their actions to see that this public matter should remain public, in all respects. Requesting that this public case be hidden from view is wrong, clearly and simply.

Inbox Reader Mail

Inbox: Reader Mail (On the Budget)

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I received the following email from a member of the Common Council. I have altered the letter to preserve the anonymity of the author. The email is in black, my reply appears in blue.

Mr. Adams,

I understand that you, like a fair number of others, do not like some of the provisions in the 2008 budget. However, I do not think that it is fair for you to completely blame Kevin [Brunner] for the Common Council’s actions. We voted 4-3 to hire an additional police officer, which obviously means a majority of the council. You cannot expect Kevin to question his boss’ decisions publicly in his weekly report, whether he agrees with us or not (which you should probably look into before claiming that he was in support of our action). It is true that he did not mention the contingency fund contribution loss, but he also did not mention several funding sources of the many of our projects, items, and services. If you want someone to blame for the the budget, blame me. I was one of the seven voting members and Kevin was not. I stand by my vote 100%, but I think that you should give criticism where it’s due, even if it means more heat on me…I can handle it.

Again, thank you for sharing your opinions with our community; it really does help me do a better job.

Adams:

Thanks very much for your email, and thanks for reading. You are correct that I do not favor some of the last-minute changes to the budget, and I think that the overall direction is misguided: more spending, a larger levy in absolute and relative terms. It’s a recipe for a less competitive city. I also believe the addition of another officer will achieve little except the perception of achieving something. As I wrote, I expected the vote to be 5-2 in favor of an additional sworn officer, elimination of other proposed positions, and spending of tens of thousands from the contingency fund.

My analysis about the odd process was, however, independent of the items in the amendment. In that regard, as an organizational matter, the process (in the weeks leading up to the vote) suggests something lacking. That’s the cardinal point of my criticism of City Manager Brunner in the post to which you refer.

The city manager oversaw the presentation to Council of the entire proposed budget. This process lasted for weeks, over several Council sessions. It is a process that in form and substance is a key part of a city manager’s job. Preparation and shepherding the budget proposal before Council is a core function of the city manager. This is true both in understanding and practice. The entire set of 2008 presentations of the budget shows how this is, in fact, the intended process – that the city manager (and through him his department heads) present the budget to Council.

If there were a great – long-standing — need for an additional sworn officer, then there is no real excuse for not having identified it sooner, prioritized it, and included it initially in the 2008 proposal. Here’s what this suggests to me:

(1) The need for another officer was not prioritized properly. That could be because Coan did not express the need clearly at the preparation stage, or Brunner did not accurately perceive the need as communicated.

(2) If the need arose after the initial preparation, then either Coan did not communicate it to Brunner, Coan communicated it to Brunner and Brunner rejected it, or Coan communicated it, and Brunner left Coan to go searching for votes on his, Coan’s, own.

(3) If Coan ignored Brunner, or went around him after objection, then it shows the challenge Brunner has managing the budget process when the police want something. I cannot imagine any other department head trying something similar.

In any event, the orderly process was upended in two weeks’ time, and that reveals a lack of managerial influence. You’re right that Brunner did not, and could not, vote for the amendment authorizing another officer. His challenge is different – how did Coan come to dominate this last-minute matter, and how is it that the city manager stood by, so to speak? Calculated only as a matter of strength, it would have been better for Brunner to take a stand – clearly – one way or the other than to give an equivocal answer (‘you don’t have to do this now.’) I was surprised that there was not, from our city manager, a firm recommendation one way or the other.

In any organization, one of the most telling developments is when someone’s management of one of his core tasks is circumvented, or ignored. Worse, by far, is when the manager allows that to happen with excessive deference.

I am, indisputably, a critic of Coan’s leadership. Nonetheless, I expected his favored amendment to pass. I did not expect – at all – that the city manager wouldn’t take a clear stand one way or the other. (Your implication that the city manager was opposed, I think, strengthens my argument. My point was not that he agreed inwardly; it was that he was too deferential outwardly.) Even if deference were his default position, so to speak, I would have expected that the need for clarity (win or lose) would have guided his actions. It didn’t, and that’s an odd turn. It would have been more advantageous to lose after a clear statement of principle. In his weekly report, I think it was foolish for the city manager to sugarcoat the result. It might have been better to say nothing than to describe it as was described in the weekly report.

There are worse things than taking a position on principle and losing; I was on the losing side of this issue, after all. I don’t feel bad about not being on the majority side. I feel that I make my views clear, even if I may not prevail on an issue.

Best regards,

Adams

City

2008 City Budget’s Disappointing Metrics

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The latest City Manager’s Weekly Report shows that, on principal fiscal metrics of the 2008 city budget, Whitewater is heading in the wrong direction:

Total city spending under the approved budget will increase 3.28% to $9,23,640 from 2007 and the city property levy will increase 4.27% to $2,718,958 up from this year’s $2,607,619. The city tax rate will increase a total of 4 cents per $1000 assessed valuation from $4.80 to $4.84 for the Walworth County portion of the City while it will rise 7 cents per $1000 for the Jefferson County portion (from $4.71 to $4.78).

By the way, how does City Manager Brunner describe Police Chief Jim Coan’s upending of his budget process, in which Coan grabbed a proposed contribution for a contingency fund, and forced elimination of other proposed positions, for another full-time police officer? Here’s how:

The Common Council at its meeting this week unanimously approved the City’s 2008 Budget but not without adding a new police officer while cutting a few items to accommodate this new position. The proposed additional community service officer position, part-time administrative assistant position for the CDA and Neighborhood Services and a classification/compensation study of city positions were all deleted from the Budget in deference to creating the new police officer position.

There’s no mention of the lost contingency fund contribution, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars….

If Wile E. Coyote dropped an anvil on Kevin Brunner’s head, would Brunner apologize for getting in the way of the falling object?

City

The (Nearly) Secret Career of Pierre St. Menteur

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You are doubtless familiar with many people in town, but it is those you do not know who may be the most interesting. Perhaps a few of us, here and there, have made the acquaintance of Pierre St. Menteur, a shadowy French national, reputed to be a planner, consultant, and schemer. Nothing of certainty can be said about him, and even his existence seems improbable. I can only relate, to the best of my imperfect recollection, occasional conversations with him.

I mentioned once, previously, that most people in my family spent time in Europe, and they all made good and lasting friends among people there. Europe for us always meant France. The French are hardly of a single type. Some might be inclined to an over-reaching state, but there are many liberals (that is, favoring a free market) there, and my family and I always looked fondly on the friends made from among that group. There’s much fuss and pretentiousness said about the French, but the truth is that the closer one gets to them, the more erroneous notions fall away in favor of admirable truths. I have always had happy times among the French, as others in my family have.

As for St. Menteur, one would find the formidable, but not the admirable. He is apparently middle-aged, educated, superficially charming, being committed to a world of managed economies, and cultural preservation through government regulation of speech and behavior. Many of the French reject these commitments, but they are the foundation of St. Menteur’s world view.

I cannot say what professional role he plays, if any, in Whitewater. A consultant of his echelon travels widely, but discretely, to many parts of the world. To my knowledge, he has never stayed overnight in our town; this is a man who would find Marcus’s Pfister barely tolerable.

I’ll relate part of a recent conversation, so well as memory serves. St. Menteur’s accent may seem odd, but then whole story’s odd. In any event, I would not tease through a caricature of the French if I did not love the real people so much.

Adams: What brings you back to our part of the world? I cannot say that it’s a pleasure, but it is a curiosity.

St. M: I love, just love, the people of Wisconsin. It is the adorable town, Whitewater, that says so much about America. All the happy little pilgrims, eating the turkey and watching football, it is super. I adore the unspoiled frontier. Wisconsin – it was ours once, non?

Adams: That was then, and this is now. Perhaps you’re working to get it back. You must have more on your mind than American holidays.

St. M: True, all true, Adams. I arrive to see the state of progress on regulation, on enforcement, eh…on propriety, in the small city. It goes well, does it not?

Adams: I doubt that you’re the behind of all this, but I believe that you’re mistaken about it all going well.

St. M: A budget municipal to the limits of the levy, a property owners’ group that defeats sales of the downtown property, a true vigor for the regulation and enforcement of the undesirable behaviors — all a direction positive and favorable.

Adams: There’s a limit to these directions, directions that I consider neither positive nor favorable. The City of Whitewater cannot spend our town out of above-average poverty, it cannot draw sufficient retail to overcome a lack of light industrial employment, it cannot persuade retail to locate through cosmetic or marketing efforts, and it cannot offer good governance without budgetary and law enforcement reform.

St. M: You would like the pigs to fly too, non? What you want will not happen.

Adams: What you favor will not last. These efforts you cite are inadequate to uplift more than a few. They’ll prove inadequate, and what seems promising through spending now will prove disappointing three years from now. A managed economy is typically mismanaged; smart growth is typically slow-going and slow-witted; our educational technology plan will prove ignorant.

St. M: What you call prove is the wish of the minority viewpoint, that’s all. These little few, they are not the city. The city it is for the decent, the proper, the citizens upstanding, with their police guardians. The student, the foreigner, the destitute – these are the blight of the city. The marketing, it does not mention these people.

Adams: Interesting that you’ve mentioned marketing. I know that our city will soon announce a new marketing effort. Is that your doing?

St. M: The credit, the honor, comes only after the success, Adams. This you must know. For now, I am merely the visitor and spectator to these developments.

Adams: Sound fundamentals would be of better use to us than publicity. If our taxes are low, and spending constrained, and our regulatory approval rapid, we will have something fantastic to market to Wisconsin and the region. We can employ more, more productively, through expansion of light industry and grey collar services than though a push for retail that will prove cosmetic.

St. M: The marketing is the perception, and the perception, it is the reality. Is this the foreign interloper, the scrounger, the looker for work? Non, I do not see this man; he is not here. Is this the student, the maker of trouble and trash? Non, he is not free in the streets; he is inside the school only. Is this the neighborhood pig-sty, the dirty dwelling? Non, this is the Services of the Community that defends against the little pigs.

It is clean and beautiful in the video and the pamphlet. This is the little city.

Adams: Anyone will see that there’s more than that to the city. No one will build on marketing alone — visits will be more important than promotional efforts and chaperoned stops to specific areas of the city.

St. M: This you say, but I do not believe. It is the marketing that I believe …. à la prochaine.