FREE WHITEWATER

Culture, University

The University Gateway Near Whiton & Main

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Five years ago, this community considered whether there should be changes at the intersection of Main and Whiton, where there was then a stone gateway to the university.

One now sees that the gateway is being moved back from near Main, farther up the hill from the street. Moving the gateway assures greater visibility nearer the road.

It’s good that it’s being done; it should have been done years ago.

Now people are naturally proud of commemorative walls, and sentimental over them.  That’s understandable.  I was once at university, and there are spots on my campus that I will always recall fondly.

And yet, and yet, I and my friends – it is to be hoped – would not place a sentimental attachment to a wall over a practical concern for the human condition.

That’s why, five years ago, I wrote that it would be better to tear down the wall, adding a proper traffic signal if needed, and leaving only a small, unobtrusive sign nearby:

THIS SIGNAL IS A MONUMENT OF OUR DEDICATION TO PUBLIC SAFETY

CONCERN FOR OUR FELLOW CITIZENS IS OUR FINEST ART

RESPECT FOR THEIR BASIC WELL-BEING IS OUR MOST ADMIRABLE DESIGN

It’s better still, of course, if the wall can be moved and safety still be equally improved.

University life should amount to more than decorative objects, more than sentiment, more than stone and mortar.

If that’s not been clear to a few, those who argued against changes to the gateway wall years ago, then they’ve been at university in vain: the experience has been wasted on them.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The Donohue Firm’s Second Public Presentation of 7.15.14

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 35 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

In this post, I’ll consider the Donohue firm’s second public presentation to Whitewater on a wastewater upgrade.

Donohue Firm’s Second Public Presentation to Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked.  All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 205.)

205.  The twenty-five minute presentation begins with mention that it will be for approval of a contract with Donohue.  Why presume approval?

206. Donohue representative Mike Gerbitz mentions the forty-five-minute 6.17.14 presentation to Council (the only other one Donohue had yet made to the full Council) as “lengthy.”  Is forty-five minutes for a plan that would cost $18.6 million really lengthy?  Doesn’t it seem short, in fact?

207. At the 6.17.14 presentation, Gerbitz, Wastewater Superintendent Reel, or City Manager Clapper spoke for over 41 minutes of a 45 minute Donohue presentation.  How is less than four minutes of Council discussion due diligence for an initial public presentation?  (Even then, wasn’t part of that four minutes occupied with observations from a resident, rather than a questions from Council?)

208.  The whole presentation on 7.15.14 is 25 minutes, but aren’t 15 of those minutes just a rehash of the earlier, 6.17.14 presentation?

209. Gerbitz mentions that the digester complex is a separate project (presumably at this point under the aegis of Trane).  Later in this same discussion, Gerbitz says that there have been – by his account – three meetings with Donohue, Trane, Black & Veatch, and city officials about the digester.  So how separate has the digester project really been, up through 7.15.14?

210.  Ken Kidd, councilman-physician, is one of the few people to speak, and declares (regarding the digester) that “you guys play well.”  Is that Dr. Kidd’s level of oversight, to observe that others play well? (Hasn’t Kidd, after all, has been a digester-project supporter from at least the earliest moments of public discussion?)

211. Gerbitz tells Council at this 7.15.14 meeting that a plan based on their approval will be submitted to state officials “next week.”  What does this say about Gerbitz’s presumption about approval?  What does it say about the full Council’s role as an inquisitive, diligent, thorough point of review?

(Gerbitz mentions during the meeting, where his firm is looking to have a million-dollar contract approved, that Donohue has already started with design. Council awards Donohue a $1.168 million contract at this meeting.)

212.  Gerbitz tells Council that he’ll not bother them with details or line-items about the project.  Does he think those details are insignificant, or does he think that those details are either insignificant or uninteresting to Whitewater’s Common Council?

213.  How unimportant are those details, after all?  Would Gerbitz be willing to delete or ignore some of them in his planning?  That seems unlikely; so why would he presume that they’re unimportant to Council?

214. One knows from City Manager Clapper’s remarks on 6.23.15 that two councilpersons played a role in selecting Donohue.  Did a smaller group than the whole of Council play a role in selecting Trane?  If so, which ones?

215. How often did that smaller number meet with Trane, Donohue, or Black & Veatch by the time of this meeting?  Did anyone take notes?

216. If Whitewater had the choice between removing phosphorous or paying a set amount for its continued presence, which would be the superior option for health and the environment?  Gerbitz describes city officials as preferring the least-expensive choice.  Are either City Manager Clapper or Wastewater Superintendent Reel qualified to determine which choice is better as a matter of health and safety?

Next: Beginning tomorrow, and continuing for several posts, The Council Discussion of 12.16.14.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.30.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in town will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 6:37, for 11h 45m 52s of daytime. The moon is waning gibbous with 91.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Tech Park Board meets this morning at 8 AM.

On this day in 1889, Wyoming approves a state constitution that grants women the right to vote:

…the Wyoming state convention approves a constitution that includes a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the nation to allow its female citizens to vote.

That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women’s suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more progressive home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women’s suffrage. Yet the people and politicians of the growing number of new Western states proved far more supportive than those in the East….

By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women’s suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas. Why the regional distinction? Some historians suggest western men may have been rewarding pioneer women for their critical role in settling the West. Others argue the West had a more egalitarian spirit, or that the scarcity of women in some western regions made men more appreciative of the women who were there while hoping the vote might attract more.

On this day in 1859, Lincoln speaks in Wisconsin:

On this date Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the Wisconsin State Fair. In his speech, he connected agriculture to education: “Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.” The rising political star (who was elected the following year), also stressed the importance of free labor. This was Lincoln’s last visit to Wisconsin. In 1861, after winning the presidential election, Lincoln signed the bill establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. [Source: AbrahamLincoln.org]

Here’s the Wednesday game in this week’s Puzzability series, Blended Wines:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Wednesday, September 30
Faiths organized to worship a white wine originally from Germany (8,9)

 

Television

The X Files – Official Trailer (2015)

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Returning for a brief run in January 2016 –

Fans of the X-Files may also enjoy Gillian Anderson in The Fall, as a detective superintendent searching for a serial killer in Belfast. Anderson’s character in that series is different from the one she plays on the X-Files, but no less tenacious in pursuit of her objectives.

City, Culture, Local Government, Politics

Small Groups Don’t All Fare the Same

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I’m not sure if it should be true everywhere, but in Whitewater it seems as though small (apolitical) community groups fare better than small political groups.

I’ve not made a study of this; the observation rests on impressions, here or there, only. There’s not enough to say as much with confidence. Many would note – correctly – that far more would be required to have a firm opinion.

So, perhaps for another time, this question: Do some kinds of small groups (as kinds), of equally talented people, have a greater likelihood of success than others? If that should be true, then might it also be true that, as compared to apolitical community groups, small political groups fare notably worse?

I don’t know, but if all this might be true, then we are left with the possibility that, despite considerable notoriety, political cliques may be inferior in output to equally-sized apolitical, community groups.

One wonders.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The Donohue Firm’s First Public Presentation of 6.17.14

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 34 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

In this post, I’ll consider the Donohue firm’s first public presentation to Whitewater on a wastewater upgrade.

Donohue Firm’s First Public Presentation to Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked.  All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 186.)

186. Although this is the Donohue firm’s first public presentation to Whitewater, one knows that they have been involved by this time in the wastewater upgrade for months, by officials’ own accounts (at least as early as 11.5.13, it seems). Who picked Donohue to attend that 2013 meeting?

187. Yet, perhaps they’ve been involved even sooner. City Manager Clapper mentions at a 6.23.15 public meeting a process to find the engineering firm for this wastewater upgrade project. He says that

We started the design process with our current engineering firm in July of 2014, but we really started in 2013 with facility planning. We went through a very large process calling in several different engineering firms that are well-know throughout the state for providing municipalities with engineering services. We took a look at several different firms involved, two of our Council members and some other professionals in the realm of city government and managing city government and public works to be evaluating these firms before we even got to the one we have now. Then we got Donohue and Associates. We selected Donohue to be our, to be the firm that we use, and then that was still, gosh I want to say middle of fall of 2013 maybe when we got started with that. [Off camera, ‘yes.’]

When did a Whitewater official first meet with Donohue?

188. By City Manager Clapper’s own account, several engineering firms were involved in “facility planning.” Wasn’t Donohue one of those firms?

189. If Donohue was involved in facility planning for months (perhaps nine or more) before being selected as the city’s firm in July 2014, didn’t the firm have a role in shaping the very planning that led to its selection?

190. Who are the “other professionals in the realm of city government and managing city government and public works” who attended or played a role in facility planning in 2013, 2014?

191. Which two Common Council members were involved in this “facility planning” process?

192. How many meetings were held for facility planning, with which attendees? How many times was Donohue part of those meetings?  (Later in this 6.17.14 presentation, there’s a statement that Donohue was involved in at least 40 hours of meetings.)

193. If waste-importation were not important to the overall project, then why would a (as yet unnamed) waste-hauler have been one of the participants at an 11.5.13 meeting with Wastewater Superintendent Reel and others?

194. Where’s Trane? Wastewater Superintendent Reel mentions on 5.20.14, less than a month before this presentation from Donohue, that he and others had meetings with Trane in May (on 5.20.14, in fact, for market surveys, etc.).

195. Donohue is the only firm at the 6.17.14 presentation. Why was there no second proposal – that is, why only Donohue?

196. How is this a genuinely competitive process between firms, with only one firm presenting (and whose plan is adopted a month later with no intervening, competitive public presentations)?

197. Donohue project manager Mike Gerbitz, PE, says that he has been working with city staff for five or six months, but that this is his first public presentation, on an $18.6 million-dollar project.  He tells Council that he will probably present again in July.  This presentation is less than a hour, with Gerbitz doing almost all the speaking.  What level of elected, political oversight does that represent?

198. Gerbitz says that he met with some staff and some councilmembers at his firm’s interview.  When was that, who else was there, and what notes did public officials take, if any?

199. On waste processing, generally:  Do Gerbitz, the Donohue firm, or municipal officials think that state requirements for processing waste represent a floor or a ceiling for the proper standard of care?

200. Gerbitz’s slide presentation shows a Chevy Cavalier from 1982 to illustrate how technologies change, and so (by his implication) technology upgrades are necessary.  Fair enough, but how is this plant like a Cavalier (as against, say, an asphalt road or a suspension bridge from generations ago?).

201.  Gerbitz contends that the value of the existing plant is $60 million dollars, measured as a replacement cost.  By his own account, much of the plant does not need to be replaced, so why mention the claimed $60 million-dollar value?  Isn’t the mentioning a large figure that will never be needed simply a technique to make the existing expenditure of $18.6 million look more reasonable?

202. Gerbitz observes that even M&M candies or chocolate milk in large quantities without processing would harm a water supply.  Will what’s actually processed in the plant be more, or less, harmful than M&M candies or chocolate milk?

203. If the goal is processing waste, why is Donohue (at this stage) by its own admission not addressing the digester?

204. Gerbitz says that a working digester is analogous to a human stomach’s digestion.  How clean does he think that is?

Tomorrow: The Donohue Firm’s Second Presentation of 7.15.14.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.29.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday will bring morning rain and a high of sixty-two to Whitewater. Sunrise is 6:50 and sunset 6:39, for 11h 48m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a Zoning Code Update meeting tonight at 7 PM.

Google has a doodle to mark the discovery of flowing water on Mars –

evidence-of-water-found-on-mars-5652760466817024.2-hp (1) Perhaps not much water, and not all year, but still, water.

On this day in 1954, during the World Series (Giants v. Indians), Willie Mays makes an astonishing catch:

On this day in 1957, the Packers dedicate a new stadium:

On this date the Green Bay Packers dedicated City Stadium, now known as Lambeau Field, and defeated the Chicago Bears, 21-17. In the capacity crowd of 32,132 was Vice president Richard Nixon. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game in its Blended Wines series:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, September 29
Artists who depict a bottle of Greek wine in their still lifes (7,8)

Nature, Science/Nature

Rare Nautilus Spotted for the First Time in 30 Years

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About 30 years ago, biologist Peter Ward and his colleague discovered a new species of nautilus, and, for the first time since, Ward recently laid eyes on the rare creature again. About 30 years ago, biologist Peter Ward and his colleague discovered a new species of nautilus, Allonautilus scrobiculatus, notable for the thick layer of slime and hair covering its shell. In the decades since, however, the creature has proven to be an elusive one. Finally, on a recent trip to the South Pacific, Ward laid eyes on the rare nautilus once again. He and his crew successfully baited one of the shelled sea animals and filmed its activities. The resulting footage showed the species has a pretty strong force of will. When another nautilus approached, attempting to partake in the feast, a battle ensued. Later, a sunfish showed up, and though it knocked the Allonautilus around, the little guy held its own for about 2 hours. That footage, combined with samples taken in a separate investigative effort, has greatly informed the study of what Ward says may be the rarest animal in the world.

Via GeoBeats News.

Culture, Politics

How a Perimeter Fence Dooms Elites Within to Impossible Tasks, Exhaustion

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Consider a society that erects a figurative, narrow perimeter fence, one that is meant to keep unwanted influences & people out, and desirable influences & people safely within.

The key characteristic of that barrier is that all that exists outside is presumed hostile: the fence sets the boundary between what’s acceptable and what’s not.

That’s a problem, as most things, people, or situations are likely to be on the other side of a narrow fence. So one commits, in this way, to shielding against, to balancing against, vast majorities of people or ideas outside. That is, to put it mildly, a big task (seemingly close, in effect, to a supertask).

That’s not, however, how nations actually balance against external forces – they don’t balance against the power from sheer size, number, etc., but against threatening power. (This is Stephen Walt’s credible contention, for example, in Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power.)

There’s some discernment in balancing against threatening power: one recognizes from among all the world beyond particular dangers against which one should balance (or for the less resolute, tragically, appease).

A narrow & impermeable perimeter fence, as was erected in Puritan culture, takes away this selection: what’s outside is to be combatted, or at least worried over until combat seems necessary. That’s that, so to speak.

That’s also nuttily wasteful, and inevitably futile. Small groups inclined to erect a narrow fence (and all groups are relatively small compared to the world) would lock themselves into perpetual strife with everything beyond. Talk about enervating and debilitating: that’s a recipe for hothouse tension, echo-chamber confusion, and early exhaustion.  It leads to the problem of thinking that a contention that works well in a small group will work well universally.  Someone will say something, convinced it’s a winning claim, then drop the mic and walk way satisfied.  There are few winning claims – one does better to begin each day, and each encounter, as a dark-horse underdog.

Given the choice between sitting at a table within a perimeter fence, or standing in a courtyard outside of it, the courtyard is easily the better option. It’s better culturally (as it’s more in line with America’s broad, cosmopolitan free-market outlook) and practically (as that outlook assures access to vast resources & ideas those within the perimeter fence deny themselves).

Measuring the strength of a position often comes down to asking whether one would trade for another position.

There may be reasons to choose the table within over the courtyard without, but there is not a single compelling reason for that choice: greater strength of thought and opportunity lies outside, not inside.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

WGTB: Sundry Points, September 2015

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 33 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

I’ll offer a few updates in this post, one of a few posts in the WHEN FREEN TURNS BROWN series that I’ll publish this week.

This is a series about a digester-energy project.  It’s intended as an online, ongoing chronicle of a project of this kind.  Posts, questions, documents, presentations: all online, as an ongoing, open work.  It’s true that the project has local significance, but a chronicle of the project is useful for others, far beyond Whitewater.  If a volcanologist saw that a nearby mountain was showing signs of seismic activity, then he or she might wish to record observations about that activity.  That’s what this series is like.

One might prefer that volcanoes didn’t erupt, or tsunamis form, but for a naturalist eruptions and formations nearby would offer meaningful opportunities for observations, observations that might be useful for those nearby and those faraway facing similar circumstances.

Needless to say, I didn’t choose this project: Whitewater’s city manager, wastewater superintendent, and those encouraging them chose it.  They’re free to speak and act under the law; they’re not free to act and speak in conditions of others’ silence.

Writing about a project is writing about the history of it; it’s unpersuasive (and will prove unavailing) for officials to claim that public projects should be described only as they would wish, ignoring or distorting their own past (even recent) claims.

A few people have written me about the remarks of Whitewater’s City Manager Cameron Clapper at a state of the city presentation on 9.17.15.  I’ve mentioned those remarks in a post from last week, and will consider them in detail after going over public presentations that took place before 9.17.15.

Some quick points are in order.  I don’t know whether, as some have suggested, both the question Mr. Clapper received and his answer about the digester-energy project on 9.17 were staged or scripted; it doesn’t matter decisively.  I do agree that his latest description of the proposed energy-project is, well, truly odd in both its characterization of the project and attempt to deprecate risks from it.  (If the question and answer were canned – and I don’t know – then the answer is even less sensible for being practiced beforehand.)  That’s simply another reason to look at the many claims made for the project over the past year.

There’s a local problem in Whitewater, and other places no doubt, that involves contending that past claims were never made, and that events begin only with the latest statements made, as though officials could rewrite or simply erase the past.  (See, along these lines, Nietzsche and the Dark Hope Against a Better Local Politics.) Related to this is the problem, as in the 9.17.15 remarks, of answering seemingly immediate concerns at the price of making claims that bring greater questions than the immediate concerns.

I’m working on a standalone site for WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN to be located at www.whengreenturnsbrown.com.  (The url now points to a page at FREE WHITEWATER.)  The new site needs (1) a blog, (2) a space to showcase a written work,  (3) a space to showcase a video work, with (4) supporting social media.  Steps 2, 3, and 4 will come later, but the format that I use should be designed to accommodate all four.  There are myriad options, and I’m sorting though many good choices one by one.

Even when the new site is published, Mondays will still feature WGTB content at FW.

A series like this should be methodical, looking at what’s been said, what hasn’t been said, seeking additional information, reviewing what one finds, and writing about those discoveries.

Projects have more than one possible outcome: (1) failure on their own terms, (2) success on their own terms with no material harms, or (3) success on their own terms with material harms that outweigh the claimed successes, to name three obvious outcomes.  Only the second outcome is favorable to a project; the first and third developments would be failures of varying kinds.

Tomorrow: The Donohue Firm’s First Presentation of 6.17.14.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM (and other days at 10 AM this week), here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.28.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our new work week begins with a Monday of partly cloudy skies and a high of eighty. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset 8:41, for 11h 51m 38s of daytime. It’s a full moon today, with 99.8% of the moon’s visible disk illuminated.

We had a supermoon lunar eclipse last night, and despite cloudy skies in much of North America, skywatchers took some beautiful pictures and videos of the moon:

‘Supermoon’ Total Lunar Eclipse Thrills Skywatchers Around the World
Today, NASA plans an announcement about a discovery on Mars. There’s widespread speculation that the discovery is the presence of occasional, flowing water on the surface of the planet.

NASA will make its announcement at 10:30 CT, to be streamed live:

On this day in 1941, Ted Williams does something that hasn’t been done since:

On this day in 1941, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams plays a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and gets six hits in eight trips to the plate, to boost his batting average to .406 and become the first player since Bill Terry in 1930 to hit .400. Williams, who spent his entire career with the Sox, played his final game exactly 19 years later, on September 28, 1960, at Boston’s Fenway Park and hit a home run in his last time at bat, for a career total of 521 homeruns.

On this day in 1925, a renowned computer engineer is born:

1925 – Seymour R. Cray Born
On this date Seymour R. Cray was born in Chippewa Falls. Cray received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He established himself in the field of large-scale computer design through his work for Engineering Associates, Remington Rand, UNIVAC, and Control Data Corporation. In 1957 Cray built the first computer to use radio transistors instead of vacuum tubes. This allowed for the miniaturization of components which enhanced the performance of desktop computers. In the 1960s he designed the world’s first supercomputer at Control Data. In 1972 he founded Cray Research in his hometown of Chippewa Falls where he established the standard for supercomputers with CRAY-1 (1976) and CRAY-2 (1985). He resigned from the company in 1981 to devote himself to computer design in the areas of vector register technology and cooling systems. Cray died in a automobile accident on October 5, 1996. [Source: MIT and Cray Company]

Puzzability‘s new weekly series is entitled, Blended Wines. Here’s Monday’s game:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, September 28
Magazine piece about a dry red wine (6,7)