FREE WHITEWATER

City, Police

Larry Meyer’s Disgraceful Legacy

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Over at the Janesville Gazette, and The Week, Mike Heine reports that federal civil defendant Larry Meyer has offered settlement to Plaintiff, Steven Cvicker. The settlement involves Cvicker’s claim that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated at the time the Whitewater Police executed a search warrant of his business. Cvicker’s Fourth Amendment claim survived a summary judgment motion earlier in the year. I’ll summarize where the claim stands (settlement is not yet final).

Best quote from the Gazette:

UW-Whitewater Assistant Professor of Political Science Jolly Emrey said most harassment suits settle because it is the quickest and cheapest. Settling could also save the city embarrassment from what could happen at a jury trial, Emrey said.

Here is some — but perhaps not all — of the evidence regarding Meyer’s conduct in this matter, from published accounts:

“Expert Witness: Investigator Led Crusade Against Businessman.” (Meyer — named defendant in a federal civil suit.)

Former Assistant District Attorney Krueger signed an affidavit that Meyer destroyed evidence in the investigation of Cvicker’s business. (Krueger subsequently left for a position with the Attorney General in Madison.)

Larry Meyer’s career has been bad for the city, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Larry back together again. For every empty but strident defense from Chief Jim Coan, to all the support in the world from his friends in Elkhorn, one truth remains: Meyer is offering settlement on a federal lawsuit about a citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights. That’s no simple mistake — he’s settling on a constitutional claim. He will contend that he’s admitted no wrong-doing, but that’s whistling past the graveyard. Meyer would not likely have settled — not Meyer, nor any other excuse-making, self-justifying member of the Whitewater Police Department — if he’d been more confident of his conduct.

Wait — I thought that this was a completely, entirely, wholly, unquestionably professional force, etc., etc? That’s only a smattering of what Coan likely tells his officers — and insists to the world — about his department. He speaks about them the way a righteous man speaks about a saint. We’re a city of ordinary men and women, doing the best that we can in challenging times. Citizens are neither saints nor prophets; nor do I expect that ordinary people will turn water into wine. It’s shameful, risible, galling, and impious how Coan elevates his staff. Small wonder that they perform poorly: they’re unaccountable.

I come from a solid libertarian background, but I never imagined that I’d write about life in our small town. Watching and listening to Coan compelled me to write, as much as anything else. No morally serious, mature man could possibly accept Coan’s excuses, distortions, and rationalizations without exasperation. He rationalizes conduct the way a child does; a serious man or woman should not let that go by.

I have grown old in this beautiful city. I look at the family tradition behind me, and find myself astonished. My father, and paternal grandfather, read and wrote widely and well. The gap between those men and someone like Coan is a chasm. In the place of their skillful facility with Whitman and Whittier, Paine and Jefferson, Hayek and Friedman, Coan offers only unconvincing justifications in a poorly written newsletter. This city has conferred police power on a mendacious excuse-maker.

If Coan doesn’t like what I write, then he shouldn’t do what he does.

He’ll likely wash his hands of failed leadership again and again, but I’ll not refrain from pointing it out.

(Notes to reporter Mike Heine: Great work on these stories. You’re the only reporter willing to write seriously and professionally about these issues. Whitewater has no paper within the city willing to do the same. Otherwise, these stories would not have been in print, but only on FREE WHITEWATER. One minor quibble — The order of the federal magistrate in this case never said that Meyer conducted himself ‘appropriately.’ The magistrate said that Meyer had a qualified immunity regarding some claims, and possible liability under a Fourth Amendment claim. There is a difference between the basis for qualified immunity and ‘appropriate’ conduct; Meyer could be the beneficiary of the former without exhibiting the latter.)

Libertarians

Who Died and Make You King? (Part 2)

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I posted previously about growing up in a libertarian household in “Who Died and Made You King?” I’ll add a few other remarks about that time, and our time.

Libertarians are often criticized as libertines, but that was hardy the case with us. I never once saw anyone drunk, or stoned, or otherwise substance-addicted. We had no hard rule against drinking or smoking, but no one drank to excess, and no one smoked. We never had beer on hand, and liquor only at the holidays. Wine, by contrast, was common, mostly red, but sometimes white. It was common to see wine at table, with dinner, or with crackers or cheese as a snack. Many adults in the family had lived for an extended period in Europe, and picked up some of the habits of time there. Wine was one of those habits.

I sometimes meet people, from those families in town most committed to every restriction or regulation, who rail against student drinking while their own children are among the worst offenders. Some of these same people expect perfect behavior of students in town, but excuse student behavior in colleges they attended, or that their children now attend. (I have no link to our local campus; I’m just not willing to kick people here because I studied elsewhere.)

No one in my family was fanatical about exercise, but — with one exception — no one was overweight. You were expected to be outside a lot, and a person who wasn’t active wouldn’t have fit in. Walking, running, cycling, hiking, swimming, climbing: diverse elements of the family regimen. Our one exception was someone who didn’t want to fit in, and was just plain lazy.

As I mentioned in a prior post, we would have considered someone who disliked students just crude and mean-spirited.

Everyone read voraciously, and many did crosswords. Most had a second language that they spoke well.

No one played cards, or gambled, but I cannot think of a reason we didn’t.

We had no dislike for either major political party, but skepticism about both, at times more of one, then more of the other. Like most people who grew up in the movement, we were never quite sure what to make of the Libertarian Party; many libertarians are quick to distinguish their leading lights (Hayek, Von Mises, Friedman) from the quirky, often embarrassing national Libertarian Party.

I meet all sorts of people who dislike, almost hate, conventional conservatives or liberals (depending on their own views). I have never felt this way, and neither did anyone in our family. Growing up, we read magazines and newsletters from libertarians, conventional liberals, and conservatives. We read works of the extreme, oppressive left, too. Almost everyone knew a fair amount of Marx, because it seemed necessary for debate back then. Marx seems a distant threat now. His ‘science’ was junk science, but it captivated many in academia, and ruined good minds. (I could stuff couches all day with the worthless theses and dissertations that took Marxism as valid.)

There are times when the libertarian seems to hew close to the left, and other moments when he seems closer to the right. In the end, he is an ally of both, yet neither. (How’s that for ersatz philosophizing? I’ll think I’ll have Café Press put it on a mug.)

We believed then, and I believe now, in sometimes hitting hard. Even more, we believed then, and I believe now, in a free discourse. One of the worst, but most obvious, traits of the town clique is that they don’t want discourse. When they complain about the free commentary on this independent blog, but ignore the real injuries to others they’ve rationalized away, they reveal only their own narcissism.

That’s brings up a final observation. When did men become so fussy, so easily concerned about small, physical inconveniences? We were a family of outgoing people, who would have been embarrassed to complain about minor nuisances. It would have seemed a sign of masculine or feminine weakness. Running to the police to report these small matters would have been ridiculous to us. It’s not ridiculous to some; it seems normal to any number of hidebound people that the police, city officials, etc., should investigate and enforce their needs, to the exclusion of others‘ interests. These selfish, stodgy few see themselves as the genuine citizens and residents, with a greater entitlement than others.

I might have stayed silent, but I could not have done so and been consistent with the family political tradition of which I am a grateful beneficiary.

City, Development, Economy, Free Markets

On the City Manager

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I’ll write this week, and afterward, about the 2008 proposed city budget. Before I begin, I’ll make a few remarks about our City Manager, Kevin Brunner. I’ve been asked if I dislike the City Manager because I’ve teased, occasionally, about his ‘inside-baseball’ manner. I do not dislike him; I have no strong opinion one way or the other. (One quick note: I understand from many people that he doesn’t like me, not one bit. I don’t care. My opinion of him does not depend on his opinion of me.)

Our current City Manager — and I mean this is a straightforward way — is very much the model of a competent, early twenty-first century planner. There’s strength in this for Whitewater, but risk, too. In style, manner, and thinking, he is similar to many managers in successful firms in Wisconsin. Whitewater has few people like him, but Wisconsin has many, and America still more.
He represents a clear departure from his predecessor, Gary Boden. Where Boden was publicly edgy and imperious, Brunner is publicly calm and controlled. Well-respected prior to his arrival, he’s well-liked now. That’s no easy feat in Whitewater: this is a town that too quickly turns on people, especially those from outside the city. Brunner exudes nothing so much as competence, and that’s meant to be a compliment.

I have three quick concerns about his approach. His presumptions rely too much on the public, and too little on the private. For better and worse, he has a public manager’s, rather than a private citizen’s, point-of-view. That’s why it’s easy for him to say that there are only ‘x’ number of development tools available, where ‘x’ is the sum of publicly-authorized financing tools. I cannot help but listen to him and think that he over-emphasizes greatly the importance of the public over the private.

Second, I doubt that all Whitewater will benefit as much from recent, publicly financed projects as Kevin Brunner, and others, hope. Our prior tax incremental districts have not lifted Whitewater from greater-than-average poverty, and I doubt that new ones will do so.

Finally, Whitewater has more than an economic problem; it has a regulatory, and enforcement-bias, problem. In this respect, we are more like the proverbial, flawed southern town than a responsible Midwestern city. Police and regulatory bias here is high, entrenched, and supported by a stubborn, selfish faction. No matter how serious the economic problems that we face, we have no challenge so great as the bias, over-reaching, and abuse of enforcement authority. Our City Manager is, first and foremost, a manager and planner, and not a reformer. In fairness, he lacks the authority that city-wide elective office would confer on a reform effort. In any event, it’s not his inclination. A commitment to politeness as a virtue, and not just a prudent behavior, leaves misconduct and bias unchallenged. More confrontation would not be a bad thing. Whitewater doesn’t need more Emily Post; we need more Hayek and Friedman. (There are ways in which libertarians look like conservatives, but others in which we seem more like progressives.)

A polite, well-planned future won’t break the hold of the town clique over life here; it will not produce a town large and vibrant enough to be beyond their control. They fear nothing so much as high growth, spontaneity, new people, and new ideas. Our polite and competent City Manager may not share their views, but it will take more than politeness and competence to turn this city around.

City, Development, Free Markets

Thoughts on Planning and Plants

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Here’s a quick post on the Planning Commission meeting from earlier this month. Weeks ago, someone sent me an email to remind me that not all members of the Planning Commission see things the same way, and that I should not lump them all into the same, small, well-planned and regulated box. Fair enough: as I mentioned once since that reminder, I know that not everyone on the Planning Commission has the same view.

I would like to remind readers, though, that at the latest Planning Commission meeting, one of the board members asked a property owner what sort of plants would be near a proposed building. It was meant as a rational, serious question. It was certainly rational: pondering, enumerating, cataloguing, and classifying are, typically, rational processes, at least at public meetings.

It was, however, hardly serious. I simply do not believe that it should be the concern of our city, or any city, to ponder what sort of shrubs, bushes, etc., a property owner proposes planting. It has become, in many places, the concern of planners, boards, commissions, and regulators.

Communities have thrived for centuries, in America and abroad, without worrying about what sort of plants a property owner uses. The bias of planning is that, almost necessarily, without government regulation there will be unruly, ugly development.

A community with less government regulation would look different from our own. It might seem unruly. I am not convinced it would look worse; I think that it would likely look even better. Not one of the principal, respected architectural styles common in North America came about by government committee; they were the product of creative and talented architects and their patrons. Freedom from municipal regulation will create a different aesthetic. It’s presumptuous to assume that a municipal board would produce a better result than hundreds of talented property owners with an interest in solid, expanding values for their property.

City

The October 16th Common Council Meeting

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There’s a Common Council meeting tonight, focused on Whitewater’s 2008 budget. I’ll offer an observation about last week’s council meeting.

Many businesses and firms have ‘on boarding’ or team-building sessions for new management teams, to increase cooperation and congeniality between co-workers. If anything, this sort of session is a staple of contemporary American white collar life. I’ve been part of about three sessions like this, and know the results of scores more of them. They usually work to increase team harmony and cohesiveness, but not always. They’re often a good idea.

I have never heard or seen a session like this for politicians. I’m sure Whitewater’s not the first city to try this; I’ve just never heard of it elsewhere. I wish the effort well, and the first council meeting after the on boarding seems to have gone well. There is a difference with modern business or professional life, though. In a business or professional setting, typically the team leader will be able to hold others accountable for not living up to the standards set at the session. For a legislative body, elected representatives have — rather than a single hiring-and-firing manager — different constituencies and legislative districts. Over time, they may decide that it matters more to them to please their districts and constituents than it matters to maintain the common standards of the on-boarding session.

We’ll see.

Uncategorized

Coming Attractions for the Week of October 22nd

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No matter how beautiful other places, with the adventure of unexpected travel, it’s a pleasure to be back home. Here’s what’s in queue for this week, with additional posts always possible.

• Thoughts on Planning

• Congeniality in Politics

• City Council Meeting for Tuesday, October 16th

• Inbox: Reader Mail

• Catching up with the Register

• Friday Cartoon Feature

City

Citizens, Fully and Completely

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Readers may have noticed that I did not review the October 2nd Common Council meeting. I’ll offer remarks, instead, on a single topic from that meeting.

Perhaps I should not be surprised that one council member, ill-disposed to student housing, is ill-disposed to a voting station on campus, too.

I am sure that citizen-students on campus, over the age of eighteen, are entitled to vote as a matter of state and federal law. I believe that the city should — as a presumption — make it convenient for them to vote. They have that right apart what anyone in Whitewater thinks of them, of their youth, or politics. These are settled matters of federal and state law; no one in Whitewater — no matter how self-important — should inhibit that right. It says much about the arrogance of a few that they feel no shame in posing every objection to voting on campus. Dislike of the campus, and its students, is a trait that many of the town faction share.

Students on campus should be able to vote smoothly and reliably, and a campus-based polling station will make that happen.

Most of these students will vote their conscience for conservatives, or liberals, and not libertarians. I wish there were more libertarian candidates, and that more voters would support those candidates. No matter; I do not fear the contrary preferences of others. Even if I were so weak that I did fear those choices, I hope that I would not be so wrong that I would try to limit the exercise of choice itself.

It’s sad, laughable, and infuriating to watch someone on council grope for ways to object to voting on campus. It’s an exercise in selfish preferences. Let’s consider one misplaced objection: the complaint that if hundreds of students could go across town for “Make a Difference Day,” then they could go to the Old Armory to vote. These two acts are not the same; they are wholly different.

When citizen-students go to the lakefront to work on projects, they confer a benefit on us; when we deny them a polling station on campus, we inhibit the exercise of a right of theirs. They are not obligated to go downtown to help the community, and we should be grateful to them that they do.

We are, by contrast, obligated to them, and all other citizens, to assure effective voting access. When the town faction says that they love Whitewater, they mean that they love it so much their way that they would debase the democratic nature of the community so that they could possess this town forever. They’re no more citizens than any others, no matter how much they want to flatter themselves with the false notion that they know more, count more, and are worthier.

Would someone remind them that they cannot simultaneously argue that students should not register and vote on campus, and contend that when students register and vote at the Old Armory, they make voting inconvenient for non-students. Pick one.

By the way, if you and your stodgy friends walk away from voting when you see too many students at the Old Armory registering to vote, then you’re more tired, and more dissipated, than I suspected. You should find their presence energizing; that you find it discouraging speaks poorly of you.

Inbox Reader Mail

Inbox: Reader Mail (Jefferson on the Register)

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Here is a recent email from Thomas Jefferson, who corresponded to FREE WHITEWATER previously, in July. (Great pseudonym, by the way.) His email is in black, and my reply in blue, regarding my post entitled, “The Register’s Echo Chamber.”

From Thomas Jefferson:

John,

I could not agree with you more on the quality, or lack thereof, in the Whitewater Register.

I thought last week’s Nosek articles were the pinnacle of absurdity. Not only were they not significant issues that generated little debate from the remaining Council, the article on the lot was inaccurate.

Ms. Dampier details how the Council was apparently provided a memo by City Manager Brunner on the options that could be pursued. She notes that the Council decided not to act on these. Someone should inform her of how Wisconsin Open Meeting law works.

The update on the property was placed on the agenda as a ‘Staff Report’, the Council was prohibited by law from taking action.

I am glad she covered other items such as the appointment of citizens to various boards, the 2008 budget assumptions or the stormwater utility credit policy. I guess these items pale in comparison to the correct mix of salt and sand in our streets put forth by an ‘expert’.

As someone who has attended meetings in the past it is interesting to note that many times Ms. Dampier does not stay for the whole meeting, if she shows up at all. She should always watch it from home and just rehash the agenda, which would actually provide more coverage than some of these recent write ups.

Regards,
TJ

Adams replies:

Thanks very much for writing. Your assessment is better than mine. I focused on the idea that Carrie Dampier of the Register was propping up one point of view. I think that she was, but that’s not as significant as the point you’ve made about the topics that she chose to describe. Her chosen focus could not have been, as you note, the subject of any immediate action, based on the those topics’ position on the agenda. Your observation is sound independent of Dampier’s point of view, whatever it may be. As you note, she picked subjects for the front page that weren’t ripe. The alternative topics you list would have been better choices.

Libertarians

“Who Died and Made You King?”

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“Who died and made you king?” is a wonderful expression, and one that many people have heard over the years. I grew up in a libertarian family, and have heard the expression since I was a small boy. (Typically for many libertarians of that time, no one used the term, “libertarian.”) Growing up in a libertarian environment is a wonderful, rich, and fulfilling experience.

My maternal grandmother would use the question, alternatively, as either serious rebuke and teasing inquiry. If, as small boys sometimes do, I would tell my grandmother what I would do if I ruled the world, she would teasingly ask me, “Who died and made you king?” Her point was clear, then and now: no person should want to rule the world, or imagine himself worthy of it.

We were a robust, vigorous family, that favored debate, feisty discourse, free markets, and personal liberty. It was a childhood steeped in love of liberty, free expression, underdogs, and a conviction that a person could do great and exciting things in private life. The state was merely a necessary evil, and viewed with healthy but level-headed skepticism.

Public service was, at best, a temporary pursuit before a return to private life. Every man in our family from my father’s generation served in the military during the Second World War. Each volunteered; no one wanted to be drafted. There were two reasons for volunteering: (1) they wanted their service to be a free choice, and (2) they all had a deep dislike of everything connected to German ambition. Decades after the war, there would still be debates about who in America or abroad had been soft on the Germans or Soviets in the 1930s. (If you mentioned — even as an obvious provocation — Beatrice or Sidney Webb, for example, you were guaranteed to hear at least a few choice epithets directed toward the Webbs.)

No one conceived of a career as a bureaucrat or civil servant; the vigorous, the bold, and the adventurous did not work in government service. I know there are fine people in that work, but the work itself always seemed confining to us.

No one ever worried what our neighbors were doing. That was their concern. God Himself would have to help the neighbor who pried too closely into what we were doing.

Libertarianism is — traditionally — a limited philosophy about the role of government. It doesn’t directly address theology, for example. Some libertarians are religious; some are not. We were certainly religious, and I grew up in family with a traditional, ‘high church,’ orientation. Scripture was far more than politics, but like many families with our politics, parables and passages that recounted God’s love for individuals were always special favorites. (Matt. 18:12-14).

A religious life meant first the gift of faith, and thereafter a desire to help others through private, charitable works. That’s true for me, and for my family, today.

There were no stuffy rules growing up, and no overly mannered requirements for discussion or demeanor. You were expected to be able to take a position and advocate for it; prissy concerns about taking the proper, socially acceptable position meant nothing. Squeamishness was disapproved. In cowboys and Indians, the Indians were always slight favorites, the popularity of their underdog cause being lessened only by their apparent dislike of private property. (That’s a joke, by the way.)

A science project or scale model could be constructed anywhere in the house that didn’t obstruct traffic. Pets could be anywhere, too, so long as they didn’t get underfoot, or threaten to devour another pet.

A good education meant the world. There was no one in the family who didn’t want and didn’t commit to academic success. Everyone was reading, all the time. There were working class families nearby, outwardly like ours, who disparaged academic life; aside from Nazis, communists, and anyone who thought wage and price controls were a good idea, they were targets of our particular scorn. It was always a good, not a bad, thing to be a student. The idea that students were wrecking a community would have seemed crude, and ignorant. Scholarship was evidence of personal and social fulfillment and success. Schooling was not the end, but merely the formative ground of education. You were expected to read all your life, so long as you could see the page.

An adult man or woman might be happy, sad, or angry, but never shocked. We often heard — and I believe it was true — that the twentieth century mostly took away our right to shock or surprise.

Other than small children, I cannot recall anyone crying; by contrast, we laughed often, and did not take ourselves too seriously, even if we took our positions seriously. There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in our family.

I know of other libertarians who had childhood experiences like this, and it was just a wonderful way to grow up, with clear commitments, but free from worry about stuffy, hide-bound social demands and pressures.