FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 9.23.24: Six Points on a Supermarket in Whitewater

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:44, and sunset is 6:49, for 12 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 63.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 6 PM, and the full board in regular session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1846, astronomers Urbain Le VerrierJohn Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.


Whitewater once again has a stand-alone supermarket, and like so many residents, this libertarian blogger is pleased to see ALDI in town. Note well: the public policy of recruiting a supermarket is not the matter of a single business, but of how local public officials have managed through public bodies (like the Whitewater Community Development Authority) under public laws and principles. However hard it has been, and remains, for Whitewater’s declining old guard to grasp, each of them (or any of us) is no less — but no more — than 1 of 15,000 in the city.1

Of a supermarket, consider these two claims:

From FREE WHITEWATER on 9.19.24:

Unquestionably right. The old Sentry closed in ’15, and Whitewater went years fumbling with old-guard CDA attempts to bring a dedicated supermarket. They accomplished nothing of the kind. 

ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here.

As part of a post at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner on 9.20.24 :

Larry Kachel indicated that the prior property owner [DLK related] had been in discussion with ALDI beginning in 2017, but the company had concluded that the traffic counts and population did not meet their minimum criteria. Kachel hastened to add that the late Jim Allen’s persistent efforts over many years to attract a store should also be recognized. Tom Howard, ALDI’s regional real estate developer, told the Banner that the city became a viable possibility for a store as a result of the success that the company has recently enjoyed with other stores in rural areas. Jon Kachel indicated that discussions have taken place with a variety of prospects regarding the property located between ALDI and Culver’s, but nothing has come together yet.

I’ll offer six remarks:

First, the City of Whitewater — through its taxpayers — had to spend $500,000 of public money to remediate — to clean up — the site of the prior private property owner, DLK Enterprises. In the language of a consultant’s assessment:

The existing structures on the property will be demolished and the site remediated, including the removal of asbestos and lead in the buildings. This cost is significant and potentially cost prohibitive for any new development.

I’m glad the City of Whitewater accepted this proposal, yet one should be clear about what this means: ordinary people had to pay to clean up the prior, local owner’s mess. The local business did not pay this money — ordinary people did. This municipal administration, under law, through the Community Development Authority and the Whitewater Common Council, had to pay this money up front to make the deal possible.

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See Letter on Developer Agreement (two pages) and Development Agreement (forty-three pages) that I received in June through a public records request.2

Second, It seems likely, if not certain, that the publicly-funded remediation has made the remaining area more suitable for sale. (The Brothers Kachel are free to thank the taxpayers of Whitewater at their earliest convenience.)

Third, and admittedly, the Banner‘s paragraph is a poor specimen on which to rely. There’s nothing quoted here; it’s a conversation or conversations related from one person to another, as though people were talking along a fence line. There isn’t even a claim to word-for-word accuracy: it’s an account of what someone “indicated,” not what someone said verbatim. It’s also told from a narrow perspective in which every reader should know the local people mentioned and in which the local men cited should be taken at face value3.

Fourth, the corporate real estate developer for ALDI, at least as recounted here, reasonably states the obvious about why ALDI would pick this city (once the property was cleaned up, of course). That statement says nothing about the many prior, fruitless local efforts to find a supermarket.

Fifth, I have no idea why someone from ALDI, whether in Batavia, Illinois, or an office in Germany, would want to be pulled into a discussion that’s more about local public policy over the last generation than ALDI (or whether he was even told accurately what the local issues are before he was asked to comment). ALDI’s corporate representative is presumably unfamiliar with the public policy mistakes at yesteryear’s Whitewater Community Development Authority, or the controversial past actions of Whitewater CDA (and the role of local landlords on that body). See Meeper Technology Loan Investigation Memo, professional reporting from WhitewaterWise, City officials: Internal investigation finds CDA engaged in ‘lack of proper documentation, communication and transparency’ when it ‘wrote off’ more than $750,000 in loans, and blogging from FREE WHITEWATER, Meeper Technology Loan Investigation, Memo and Documents.

Sixth, equally puzzling is why anyone at the Whitewater Community Foundation’s Banner would look for answers from ALDI before seeking public documents from his or her own city. The foundational issue is about years’ long local policy to seek to a supermarket, and conduct at the Whitewater CDA across a decade’s time, not any given business arriving recently.

What portion of this libertarian blogger’s contention — ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here — is accurate?

All of it, every last word.

I’m glad ALDI is here — one should be clear about how she’s here.


  1. Denoted as a fraction, these aged men of the old guard would each look like this: 1/15,000 or 0.000067
    ↩︎
  2. The request, submitted and received under Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39, has more than one use.
    ↩︎
  3. The Banner‘s author writes in his paragraph with a credulousness that suggests no awareness or no appreciation of the challenges to the modernization — normalization, truly — of local government over the last two years. ↩︎

Daily Bread for 9.22.24: National Geographic’s Thunderstorms 101

Good morning.

Fall begins in Whitewater with thunderstorms and a high of 70. Sunrise is 6:42, and sunset is 6:51, for 12 hours, 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 73.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, Pres. Lincoln releases a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation


There is beauty and power in the natural order. Today’s storm is a fitting beginning to Fall in Whitewater. Quite lovely. National Geographic offers a primer on thunderstorms:

At any moment, about 2,000 thunderstorms are occurring worldwide. Learn how thunderstorms form, what causes lightning and thunder, and how these violent phenomena help balance the planet’s energy and electricity.

Via Cats of Yore:


Daily Bread for 9.21.24: Vice President Kamala Harris Campaign Rally in Madison

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 6:41, and sunset is 6:52, for 12 hours, 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 83.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1942,  the Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.


Friday’s Vice President Kamala Harris Campaign Rally in Madison, Wisconsin:

Vice President Kamala Harris in Madison, Wisconsin, as she speaks about what is at stake in this election. Help Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz protect our fundamental freedoms and defeat Donald Trump. Take action at go.kamalaharris.com.

Cats with jobs:

Daily Bread for 9.20.24: Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:40, and sunset is 6:54, for 12 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 91.0 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2011, the United States military ends its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.


Eric Hovde’s banking deal with a troubled Mexican bank is in the news. Dan Bice of the Journal Sentinel writes:

Banco Azteca, the 10th largest financial institution in Mexico, has had its share of problems in recent years.

Accused in past news stories of having links to the Mexican drug cartel.

Dropped as a financial partner by some U.S. banks because of “risk and compliance concerns.”

And now caught up in a Texas bribery scheme with an American congressman.

But Sunwest Bank, the Utah-based financial institution run by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, doesn’t mind doing business with it.

In December, Banco Azteca sent $26.2 million in cash to Sunwest on four airplane flights as part of a massive currency conversion called “repatriation,” records show. Hovde, who is running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, is chairman and CEO of Sunwest.

Oh, brother: nothing says Wisconsinite like a California-livin’ CEO of a Utah bank making deals with a cartel-linked Mexican bank.

Previously at FREE WHITEWATERHovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle,  It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a TherapistTim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Runand Another Vanity Candidate.  


Austrian team claims victory in hot air balloon race across Europe:

Friday Catblogging: Cat Travels 900 Miles Back to Owners

Gabriella Rudy reports Cat lost in Yellowstone travels almost 900 miles to reunite with owners 2 months later (‘Benny and Susanne Anguiano are looking for clues as to how Rayne Beau made it all the way from Yellowstone National Park to Roseville, California’):

Benny and Susanne Anguiano, a couple from Salinas, California, were reunited with their missing cat after he mysteriously traveled that far. 

On a trip to Yellowstone National Park in early June, the couple’s beloved house cat Rayne Beau was spooked and ran off into the dense trees. 

Distraught, they spent the rest of their trip desperately scouring the forest for him, at times getting lost themselves. They laid out his favorite treats and toys, hoping to lure him back to their campsite. 

Benny Anguiano told NBC News that a Yellowstone employee came by their campsite to warn him that a pack of coyotes had attacked a small dog in the area — and that the couple would be lucky if their cat made it through the night. By the time the trip had concluded, Rayne Beau was still missing, Benny Anguiano said. 

“We had to leave without him,” Susanne Anguiano said in an interview with NBC affiliate KSBW of Salinas. “That was the hardest day, because I felt like I was abandoning him.”

Film: Tuesday, September 24th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Thirteen Lives

Tuesday, September 24th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Thirteen Lives @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Docudrama/Thriller

Rated PG-13

2 hours, 27 minutes (2022)

The true story of the June 2018 Thailand Tham Luang Cave rescue of 13 young boys and their coach, trapped in a cavern with rising water. A emotional story that riveted the world. Directed by Ron Howard; starring Colin Farrell, Viggo, Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton.

One can find more information about Thirteen Lives at the Internet Movie Database.



Daily Bread for 9.19.24: Whitewater Again Has a Dedicated Supermarket

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:39, and sunset is 6:56, for 12 hours and 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 96.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1796, George Washington’s Farewell Address is printed across America as an open letter to the public.


After years without a dedicated supermarket, Whitewater has an ALDI @ 1380 W. Main Street.

There was a ribbon-cutting this morning.

Before today’s grand opening, I stopped in last night and found ALDI clean, well-organized, with wide aisles. (I had never been inside an ALDI before, although we have ordered from the Janesville location through Instacart.)

Quite sharp, and a welcome business addition to Whitewater.

Updated, morning of 9.19: I added a reply to a post comment. I’ve also reproduced that reply below:

Unquestionably right. The old Sentry closed in ’15, and Whitewater went years fumbling with old-guard CDA attempts to bring a dedicated supermarket. They accomplished nothing of the kind. 

ALDI is in Whitewater because the city has a new municipal administration that brought ALDI here.


Bear sends group running after climbing out of car’s window:

Daily Bread for 9.18.24: Now’s the Time

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:39, and sunset is 6:57, for 12h 18m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 99.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Library Board Development Committee meets at 4:30 PM and the Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1942,  Spring Valley endures a flood:

On the evening of September 17, 1942, after a day of heavy rain, water began rolling through the streets of Spring Valley, in Pierce Co. The village, strung out along the Eau Galle River in a deep valley, had been inundated before, but this was no ordinary flood. By 11:30p.m., water in the streets was 12 to 20 feet deep, flowing at 12 to 15 miles an hour, and laden with logs, lumber, and dislodged buildings. Throughout the early morning hours of Sept. 18th, village residents became trapped in their homes or were carried downstream as buildings were swept off foundations and floated away. One couple spent the night chest-deep in water in their living room, holding their family dog above the water and fending off floating furniture. The raging torrent uprooted and twisted the tracks of the Northwestern Railroad like wire, and electricity and drinking water were unavailable for several days. Miraculously, there were no deaths or serious injuries.

On this day in 1945, General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo.


Now’s the time for Whitewater to make good on improving national conditions. (The best way for the city to do so is to set aside the low-quality work but above-average sense of entitlement of the aged special-interest men who have kept Whitewater back for a generation1. See of yesteryear’s serial mediocrity Whitewater’s Still Waiting for That Boom.)

Of those improving national conditions, Jeff Cox reports The Fed’s biggest interest rate call in years happens Wednesday. Here’s what to expect:

For all the hype that goes into them, Federal Reserve meetings are usually pretty predictable affairs. Policymakers telegraph their intentions ahead of time, markets react, and everyone has at least a general idea of what’s going to happen.

Not this time.

This week’s gathering of the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee carries an uncommon air of mystery. While markets have made up their collective mind that the Fed is going to lower interest rates, there’s a vigorous debate over how far policymakers will go.

Will it be the traditional quarter-percentage-point, or 25-basis-point, rate reduction, or will the Fed take an aggressive first step and go 50, or half a point?

Fed watchers are unsure, setting up the potential for an FOMC meeting that could be even more impactful than usual. The meeting wraps up Wednesday afternoon, with the release of the Fed’s rate decision coming at 2 p.m. ET.

“I hope they cut 50 basis points, but I suspect they’ll cut 25. My hope is 50, because I think rates are just too high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “They have achieved their mandate for full employment and inflation back at target, and that’s not consistent with a five and a half percent-ish funds rate target. So I think they need to normalize rates quickly and have a lot of room to do so.”

A rate cut of either size will be good for all America, including small-town Whitewater.


  1. One might wonder why these aged men didn’t have more time to choose well for Whitewater when they were younger. Wonder not: exaggerating, tale-bearing, pretending, posing, scheming, memorizing trickle-down jargon, and shoving themselves to the front of the line takes a lot of time, for goodness’ sake. ↩︎

Daily Bread for 9.17.24: Good News on UW-Whitewater’s Enrollment

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:36, and sunset is 7:02, for 12 hours and 25 minutes of daytime. The moon is full tonight, with all of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM on the UW-Whitewater campus.

On this day in 1787,  the United States Constitution is signed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, bringing the Constitutional Convention to a successful end.


Whitewater received good news yesterday as did a few other Universities of Wisconsin campuses. Corrinne Hess reports Universities of Wisconsin enrollment up overall (‘8 UW campuses see enrollment increases over last fall’):

Preliminary enrollment figures released Monday show eight colleges in the Universities of Wisconsin system have more students this year than last fall. 

….

UW-Whitewater’s enrollment is the highest it has been since 2020. The Rock County campus, included in Whitewater’s 11,784 headcount, is expected to hold steady at nearly 700 students.

“We’re thrilled that more students are choosing to join the Warhawk family,” said Jackie Briggs, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment and retention. “UW-Whitewater’s commitment to student success, great teaching, inclusivity, and affordability continue to resonate. 

Preliminary headcount enrolment: 

  • UW-Eau Claire: 9,969
  • UW-Green Bay: 10,749
  • UW-La Crosse: 10,438
  • UW-Madison: 51,729
  • UW-Milwaukee: 22,517
  • UW Oshkosh: 13,127
  • UW-Parkside: 3,875
  • UW-Platteville: 6,419
  • UW-River Falls: 5,093
  • UW-Stevens Point: 8,263
  • UW-Stout: 6,870
  • UW-Superior: 2,756
  • UW-Whitewater: 11,784

This is good news for Whitewater. Enrollment gains in the present demographic environment are hard-won. This community will be better off leaving the last decade’s mistakes(1, 2) behind us. To support education is not to support anything or anyone but to support worthy endeavors and leaders. As always, the heart of the university experience lies in the relationship between professors & students and between students and their peers.

Whitewater’s social and economic health depends on a healthy campus. See Arrive for the Campus, Stay for the City. One hopes for continuing gains free of yesteryear’s errors.


Partial Lunar Eclipse September 17-18, 2024:

Daily Bread for 9.16.24: It Might Have Been Us

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 86. Sunrise is 6:37, and sunset is 7:01, for 12h 23m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1908, the General Motors Corporation is founded.


Someone sees a burning house in the distance, and wonders whether it might be his house on fire. Perhaps, in those moments, he offers a prayer: Dear God, let this not be my house. And yet, and yet, there is a fire, and someone’s house is burning, and so asking that another might instead bear the loss is a selfish request. A more loving request of the divine: Dear God, let no one be injured and the damage be slight.

Note well: For all the dark publicity and fear-mongering about immigrants in Whitewater, worse lies about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, might have befallen us. See of Whitewater The Local Press Conference that Was Neither Local Nor a Press Conference. The scheming politicians who came to Whitewater were simply less ambitious than the ones who have afflicted Springfield.

I’ll not say that I am grateful misery has struck an innocent population in Springfield, Ohio, as I would not want suffering elsewhere. It is right only to hope that the racist lies told about Springfield cease, and that that town’s Haitian residents suffer no further injury.

Of human affairs, however, one can say this: those who came to Whitewater with matches might have caused a worse fire for us, and we need look only to Ohio to see how a few more matches, a few more lies, might have engulfed us.


Springfield on edge after lies:

Daily Bread for 9.15.24: Continuing Threats Against Wisconsin Election Officials

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:36, and sunset is 7:02, for 12h 26m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, the Ho-Chunk and the United States sign a treaty stipulating that the Ho-Chunk cede lands lying to the south and east of the Wisconsin River and around the Fox River of Green Bay. (More than one nation was involved in these treaty councils with the United States in 1832: “with the Ho-Chunk (Sept. 15) and the Sauk and Fox (Sept. 21). The Ho-Chunk ceded all their remaining territory south of the Wisconsin River; the Sauk & Fox ceded the Iowa shore of the Mississippi.”)

On this day in 1835,  HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.


How threats are escalating for Wisconsin’s public officials:

From local clerks to state Supreme Court justices, elected officials in Wisconsin are being threatened and harassed — in person and online — fueled by tense political rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

Jurors help detain a man fleeing a courthouse in handcuffs:

A man convicted of assaulting a 14-month-old child was seen on surveillance fleeing a #courthouse in #Maine. He later appears to trip and fall in a yard where two jurors and a detective apprehend him.

Daily Bread for 9.14.24: A Food Truck Festival @ the Lakefront

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:35, and sunset is 7:04, for 12h 29m 36s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1994, the rest of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.



Britain’s Red Arrows soar over Niagara Falls on Canadian tour:

The UK’s Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, flew over Niagara Falls’ trio of waterfalls as part of a tour of Canada marking 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force.