FREE WHITEWATER

149 search results for "boosterism"

City, Holiday

Boo! Scariest Things in Whitewater, 2020

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Here’s the fourteenth annual FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest things in Whitewater. (The 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 editions are available for comparison.) The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening. 10. Radicals and Rhinoceroses. So there’s an idea, having bubbled up over…

Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Conflicts of Interest, Coronavirus, Culture, Ethics, Local Government, Politics

Social Capital and Hardship

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What role does social capital play in a community’s health? Adam Gopnik, in The Paradoxical Role of Social Capital in the Coronavirus Pandemic, ponders whether there’s a relationship between communities with high social capital and a community’s public health. Gopnik uses a traditional definition of social capital as the “parts of society that, without being…

Coronavirus, Education, Public Health, School District

Whitewater School Board Meeting, 8.10.20: 9 Points

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At last night’s meeting of the Whitewater Unified School District’s board, the board heard presentations from a consulting epidemiologist and also a former Jefferson County school administrator who now works with Jefferson County. After comment & discussion, the board voted 6-1 to extend the September 1-11 teaching format through 9.25, with the present expectation of…

City, Coronavirus, Local Government, Public Health, Radio, University

Radio Interview on UW-Whitewater’s Plans for the Fall

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Yesterday, UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor, Dr. Dwight Watson, and Communications Director, Jeff Angileri, gave a radio interview with WCLO about their plans for a fall semester during a pandemic. The interview is available online as an audio file. A few remarks: A College Town. There’s a difference between a town with a college and a college town,…

Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, City, Culture, Economy, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Police, Press Release, School District

Built Against Substantive Change

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Over time, no matter how small the city, national conditions and trends make their way to the edge of town. Some towns will address these conditions, but others will be resistant to substantive change. For those towns in the latter category, business as usual and rhetorical feints suffice in response to powerful forces to which…

Blogging, Culture, Local Government, Newspapers, Politics, Press

After a News Desert

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A news desert is a community without coverage from a daily newspaper. If coverage means timely newspaper reporting on a city’s principal public meetings and events, then Whitewater has been a news desert since the nearby Daily Jefferson County Union stopped reporting on Whitewater’s common council & school board meetings. If coverage means timely, insightful,…

Boosterism, Newspapers

Saving What’s Left of the Janesville Gazette

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The nearby Janesville Gazette is ending its Saturday and Sunday print editions. See The Gazette to cease Saturday, Sunday print editions. The Saturday edition should have been canceled years ago; ending a Sunday edition, however, is a sign of a grave illness.  For any paper, even one treading water, the Sunday edition should be a mainstay.…

Advertising, Business, Newspapers

That’s Not a ‘Community Grant’ – It’s Half-Off Advertising

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One of the saddest traits of local newspapers is how those publications condescend to readers. Another example of this comes from the Janesville Gazette, where that publication is contending that half-off advertising is somehow a community grant. Splashed all over the webpage of that paper yesterday, one found ads for the so-called community grant program.…

Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics

Local Voting & Voting Locally in Whitewater

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The spring election, conducted during a pandemic, is now behind Wisconsin. There’s little question that statewide, it was a good night for Jill Karofsky and Lisa Neubauer. (I supported both candidates.) Whitewater – the city proper – also supported these candidates. A majority of the city’s voters did, in fact, prefer these voters even while…

City, Demographics, Television

Broadband Gaps

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There’s a story over at Wisconsin Watch that reports on the broadband gap in rural Wisconsin communities. Peter Cameron reports Broadband gap leaves rural Wisconsin behind during coronavirus crisis (‘Wisconsin’s dearth of high-speed internet in rural areas makes virtual schooling, remote health care and working from home even more difficult’): Already, Wisconsin lags behind the…

Conflicts of Interest, Local Government, Newspapers

APG Was Always Going to Play a Vulture’s Role

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One reads that APG, the out-of-state newspaper chain that purchased two local family papers (Janesville Gazette, Daily Jefferson County Union) is slashing the salaries of those papers’ employees. A few remarks — I’m not a newspaperman, and have never aspired to be one. Bloggers are modern-day pamphleteers, reviving a tradition that was robust during our…

Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Poverty, School District, WEDC, Wisconsin

Local Public Policy as if Charitable Assistance

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Whitewater’s policymakers, and those of other small, rural cities, should – in these times of economic stagnation, a lingering opioid crisis, failed business welfare, and an approaching recession – view their principal obligation as if it were charitable outreach. (It’s not charity, of course, but that’s how policymakers should view it: as both palliative and…