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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.25.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with rain in the morning, and a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 19m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Downtown Whitewater’s board meets today at 8 AM.

On this day in 1876, Gen. Custer and those under his immediate command are killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The New York Times shortly thereafter reported the defeat:

The dispatches giving an account of the slaughter of Gen. Custer’s command, published by The Times of yesterday, are confirmed and supplemented by official reports from Gen. A.H. Terry, commanding the expedition. On June 25 Gen. Custer’s command came upon the main camp of Sitting Bull, and at once attacked it, charging the thickest part of it with five companies, Major Reno, with seven companies attacking on the other side. The soldiers were repulsed and a wholesale slaughter ensued. Gen. Custer, his brother, his nephew, and his brother-in-law were killed, and not one of his detachment escaped. The Indians surrounded Major Reno’s command and held them in the hills during a whole day, but Gibbon’s command came up and the Indians left. The number of killed is stated at 300 and the wounded at 31. Two hundred and seven men are said to have been buried in one place. The list of killed includes seventeen commissioned officers.

It is the opinion of Army officers in Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia, including Gens. Sherman and Sheridan, that Gen. Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number of Indians, Sitting Bull’s force being 4,000 strong….

These generations later, it seems impossible to argue against the view that Custer was, truly, ‘rashly imprudent.’

On this day in 1950, North Korea’s Communists start the Korean War:

On this date Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Korea. The Korean War, often called the “forgotten war,” involved more than 132,000 Wisconsinites. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 112]

Here’s the Thursday game in Puzzability‘s Colorful Characters series:

This Week’s Game — June 22-26
Colorful Characters
Would you like to join our rainbow coalition? For each day this week, we started with the name of a color and formed a new word that’s a type of person that has “consonantcy” with the color—a word with all the same consonants, in the same order, but a different set of vowels, which can appear anywhere in the word. (The letter Y is not used in any words here.) The resulting two-word phrase, with the color first, is described in each day’s clue.
Example:
Dark red leatherneck
Answer:
Maroon marine
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase (as “Maroon marine” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, June 25
Reddish-brown English nobleman

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The View from Lexington, Massachusetts

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 17 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.

Whitewater’s had a series of small meetings with designated groups, and two meetings with invitations to the public, about its wastewater plant upgrades (a part of which involves a plan of waste importation into the city).

More information is better than less, all considered. There’s much more infomation that Whitewater might have made public, but has not.

I would have been surprised, however, if any of these sort of meetings were particularly well-attended. Whitewater city government sought and received days of publicity in the Banner, but yet that publicity amounted to few people attending the most recent meeting, from last night.

These meetings, though, are only one way to address a proposal like this. In Lexington, Massachusetts, the city spent years preparing for a digester (just as Whitewater has done), and for most of that time government and vendor work proceeded without much public discussion.

A change in how Lexington solicited input on the project led to a different response, years of former quiet notwithstanding.

See, Lexington selectmen won’t seek developers for anaerobic digester.

It’s not likely that the medium of comment alone made the difference. It’s probable that Lexington residents had a perspective that made them (as the linked article suggests) particularly motivated later in the process.

Still, I don’t think the significant aspect of this project is whether City Manager Clapper can get four votes out of seven for this plan. I’m sure that he can get more than that (“If City Manager Clapper wanted a vote on this project tomorrow, including importing as much waste into Whitewater as he could shovel, he’d receive easy political approval for that idea”).

I would not have sought this idea (that is, waste importation under the claim of green energy), but here it returns, and having returned, I see it as far more than a vote: this is a chance to write and film separate works about 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.

Here in outline and later elsewhere more fully, I want to consider the fiscal, economic, environmental, health, and business cultural changes that waste importation will present for Whitewater.

In this respect, it’s not what happens now, but what happens later, that’s significant.

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

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.24.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 19m 56s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter, with 49.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater CDA Seed Capital Committee meets today at 4 PM, and the CDA Board at 5 PM.

On this day in 1997, the Air Force releases a report about the Roswell incident of 1947:

In mid 1947, a military Air Force surveillance balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico prompting claims alleging the crash was of an extraterrestrial spaceship.[1]

After an initial spike of interest, the military reported that the crash was merely of a conventional weather balloon.[2] Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s when ufologists began promulgating a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military who then engaged in a cover-up.

In the 1990s the US military published reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed Project Mogul balloon. Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist. Roswell has been called “the world’s most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim”.[3]

….In response to these reports, and after United States congressional inquiries, the General Accounting Office launched an inquiry and directed the Office of the United States Secretary of the Air Force to conduct an internal investigation. The result was summarized in two reports. The first, released in 1994, concluded that the reported recovered material in 1947 was likely debris from Project Mogul. The second report, released in 1997, concluded reports of recovered alien bodies were likely a combination of innocently transformed memories of military accidents involving injured or killed personnel, innocently transformed memories of the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs like Operation High Dive conducted in the 1950s, and hoaxes perpetrated by various witnesses and UFO proponents. The psychological effects of time compression and confusion about when events occurred explained the discrepancy with the years in question.[44]

The Air Force reports were dismissed by UFO proponents as being either disinformation or simply implausible, though skeptical researchers such as Philip J. Klass[45] and Robert Todd, who had been expressing doubts regarding accounts of aliens for several years, used the reports as the basis for skeptical responses to claims by UFO proponents. After the release of the Air Force reports, several books, such as Kal Korff’s The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You To Know (1997), built on the evidence presented in the reports to conclude “there is no credible evidence that the remains of an extraterrestrial spacecraft was involved.”[15] In the 1990s, skeptics and even some social anthropologists[46] saw the increasingly elaborate accounts of alien crash landings and government cover ups as evidence of a myth being constructed.

On this day in 1946, Wisconsin sets a record for rain:

On this date Mellen, Wisconsin received 11.72 inches of rain within a single day. This set a record for Wisconsin for precipitation received within 24 hours. [Source: National Weather Service]

Here’s the Wednesday game in Puzzability‘s Colorful Characters series:

This Week’s Game — June 22-26
Colorful Characters
Would you like to join our rainbow coalition? For each day this week, we started with the name of a color and formed a new word that’s a type of person that has “consonantcy” with the color—a word with all the same consonants, in the same order, but a different set of vowels, which can appear anywhere in the word. (The letter Y is not used in any words here.) The resulting two-word phrase, with the color first, is described in each day’s clue.
Example:
Dark red leatherneck
Answer:
Maroon marine
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase (as “Maroon marine” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, June 24
Purplish red business tycoon

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Studies

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 16 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.

Independent Third Party from John Adams on Vimeo.

To see the direction a project takes, and the momentum it builds internally, a clip from Whitewater’s 6.2.15 council meeting serves well.

Throughout my posts, one will find there are dozens of moments like this, brief exchanges or comments that illustrate something more. In the clip above, Councilmember Ken Kidd expresses impatience with a proposal for an independent study of the recommendation of Whitewater’s current engineering vendor, Donohue:

So then are we going to have a third independent if there’s a [laughter]…are we going to break the tie if there’s not agreement?….We worked really hard to choose somebody we trusted, and then we’re going to say Cameron go find some guy that’ll come in and are we going to trust that person? I mean, it would be nice if somebody with credentials comes in and says, ‘this is the best plan I’ve ever seen’ and that’ll be easy. But if he doesn’t, then I think we have to at least think about what’s our next step. Then are we going to engage an alternative engineering firm?

Small segments will prove useful for a separate written and separate video documentary about this project. Everything so far is just a collection of notes and questions toward that goal.

Here, Dr. Kidd confuses the difference between a third-party study and a truly independent study. Trane or Donohue have certainly been third-party consultants, but they are not independent of financial gain in the outcome. Each has had a greater financial gain in approval over rejection.

A genuinely independent review would have been conducted for a set price, without the prospect of additional gain for the reviewer following a decision on the project. Neither Trane nor Donohue have conducted that sort of study. (There’s much more to say about the actual scope of their studies, as the city administration has dictated that scope.)

(In his time on Council, Dr. Kidd has yet to see a truly independent engineering study for Whitewater on waste importation. An earlier Strand study is worth considering, but it was before Dr. Kidd’s incumbency, and offers a very mixed picture for waste importation, so those enthusiastic for the project are presumably less inclined to consider it. That, too, is a subject for another day.)

Donohue, Trane, and Black & Veatch were likely part of waste-importation discussions from at least 11.5.13.

It was Dr. Kidd’s political decision and judgment to support not just Donohue (now) but also Trane (previously). Looking at the Trane presentations, and knowing that there’s still more to discuss about how Trane’s relationship developed, it’s fair to consider his present confidence in light of his past support.

Ken Kidd was party to conversations with Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel about waste importation even before Reel’s 12.3.13 presentation, and he [Councilmember Kidd] mentioned on 12.3.13 that Reel has talked to him (Kidd) personally and he (Reel) is more excited in those situations than when the ‘cameras are rolling.’

Dr. Kidd declared, on 2.14.14 and before any ‘study’ results from Trane or Donohue were completed, that concerning the importation of waste from other cities into Whitewater, “clearly it is better to be early in the game than late in the game.”

Dr. Kidd ventured his support before any of these reports were in; it’s hard to see how could be part of any group that put in ‘hard work.’ There’s no published information that he’s put in any work at all on the waste importation project, other than offer enthusiastic public words of support, and conduct at least one (perhaps more) off-camera conversation with Reel or others. If he’s done more on this use of the digester, then the city should publish his additional work.

Original Common Council Discussion, 6.2.15
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2015/ccagen_2015-0602.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/129697983

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

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.23.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 20m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a public meeting at the wastewater treatment plant today at 4:30 PM to discuss upgrades to that facility, followed by a Common Council meeting at the plant at 6:30 PM.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission also meets today, at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1868, Wisconsin resident Christopher Latham Sholes, along with two partners, receives a patent for a “Type-Writer”:

The Sholes and Glidden typewriter had its origin in a printing machine designed in 1866 by Christopher Latham Sholes to assist in printing page numbers in books, and serial numbers on tickets and other items.[2] Sholes, a Wisconsin printer, formed a partnership with Samuel W. Soule, also a printer, and together they began development work in Charles F. Kleinsteuber’s machine shop, a converted mill in northern Milwaukee. Carlos S. Glidden, an inventor who frequented the machine shop, became interested in the device and suggested that it might be adapted to print alphabetical characters as well.[3] In July 1867, Glidden read an article in Scientific American describing “the Pterotype”, a writing machine invented by John Pratt and recently featured in an issue of London Engineering. Glidden showed the article to Sholes, who thought the machine “complicated and liable to get out of order”,[4] and was convinced that a better machine could be designed. To that point, several dozen patents for printing devices had been issued in the United States and abroad.[5] None of the machines, however, had been successful or effective products.[5][6]

In November 1866, following their successful collaboration on the numbering machine,[4] Sholes asked Soule to join him and Glidden in developing the new device. Mathias Schwalbach, a German clockmaker, was hired to assist with construction. To test the proposed machine’s feasibility, a key was taken from a telegraph machine and modified to print the letter “W”;[3] by September 1867, a model with a full alphabet, numbers, and rudimentary punctuation had been completed, and it was used to compose letters to acquaintances in the hope of selling the invention, or procuring funds for its manufacture.[7] One recipient, James Densmore, immediately bought a 25% interest for $600, the cost of the machine’s development to that date.[8][9] Densmore saw the machine for the first time in March 1868, and was unimpressed; he thought it clumsy and impractical, and declared it “good for nothing except to show that its underlying principles were sound”.[10] Among other deficiencies, the device held paper in a horizontal frame, which limited the thickness of the paper that could be used and made alignment difficult.[11] A patent for the “Type-Writer” was granted on June 23, 1868, and, despite the device’s flaws, Densmore rented a building in Chicago in which to begin its manufacture. Fifteen units were produced before a lack of funds forced the venture back to Milwaukee.[12]

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — June 22-26
Colorful Characters
Would you like to join our rainbow coalition? For each day this week, we started with the name of a color and formed a new word that’s a type of person that has “consonantcy” with the color—a word with all the same consonants, in the same order, but a different set of vowels, which can appear anywhere in the word. (The letter Y is not used in any words here.) The resulting two-word phrase, with the color first, is described in each day’s clue.
Example:
Dark red leatherneck
Answer:
Maroon marine
What to Submit:
Submit the two-word phrase (as “Maroon marine” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, June 23
Bright yellow-green ancient race drivers

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

A Wastewater Plant Update

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 15 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.

A Wastewater Plant Update from John Adams on Vimeo.

By 5.20.14, vendor Trane had a contract to plan for a waste-digester importation project and a energy-savings contract. Those deals were worth over a million dollars combined. On 5.20.14, Whitewater’s Wastewater Superintendent offered an update on various wastewater related projects at this plant.

(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. 132.)

132. Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel (Reel) begins a discussion of a waste-digester program with a slide that says “Digester Biogas Feasibility Study” but declares that “I won’t say that word up there tonight” (video clip @ 11:10). Hard to tell what to make of his remark: does he think the topic is controversial, or does he think that it’s not (and so he’s teasing about the implications of a waste importation plan)?

Either way, how professional is his delivery?

133. Reel mentions a meeting on April 10th about the digester, and says there have been others, all well-attended (“I want to thank Chris and Cameron and all those that attended” @ 11:17). Who else was there? Did Reel or someone else take notes?

134. Reel mentions other meetings with Trane, Donohue, Black & Veatch or others (April 25, May 7). Who was at those meetings, and did anyone take notes?

135. Reel mentions that he met with Trane on 5.20.14 (that day) on a meeting with Trane on market surveys, etc. Did Reel or anyone take notes at that meeting?

136. Reel mentions that he had discussed a performance contract with Trane. Does Reel have a professional background in contract review? What is Reel’s educational and professional background?

137. Reel’s describing discussions about financing, contracting, and marketing. What experience does Reel have in any of these fields?

138. Reel contends (in this presentation) that he’s on a fast track to get federal money for the project (it would be about one-fortieth of the cost if the total project costs of $20,700,000).

Is the receipt of that small percentage, or any percentage, of federal money an adequate justification for the fiscal, economic, environmental, health, and business cultural changes that waste importation will present for Whitewater?

139. For all these meetings, how did Reel’s relationship with Trane develop for Whitewater? What does how the relationship with Trane developed say, if anything, about Wastewater Superintendent Reel’s understanding and management of a large project?

Council Presentation, 5.20.14
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-05-20_Complete_packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0520.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/96032772

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

Tomorrow: Studies.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

2014 Borrowing Projects for Whitewater

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 14 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.

2014 Borrowing Projects for Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.

Recap: Trane received both a contract for a self-described study of Whitewater’s suitability for a waste-digester importation plan, and for an energy-savings contract. On 5.6.14, Whitewater’s Common Council heard how some of Trane’s work, among other projects, amounted to millions in public borrowing.

That evening, Whitewater approved spending (most of it as debt from bonds) for eight projects, of which a performance contract with Trane for an energy-savings project was one item.

For Trane, approved spending on 5.6.14 amounted to $1,181,580.

(The total approved to be spent on all projects was $5,128,125, with $4,235,276 of that amount to come from bond-issued debt spending.)

Trane’s original price for the energy-savings proposal presented to this city at the request of Whitewater’s city manager and full-time staff, amounted to approximately $1,900,000. See, Trane Presents an Energy-Savings Contract.

At the time of the initial presentation and price, on 2.20.14, neither Whitewater’s city manager nor full-time staff objected to a proposal of nearly two-million.

Over subsequent sessions, what was a vendor and staff recommended number of about $1,900,000 shrank to about $1,100,000. See, Trane’s Second Presentation on an Energy-Savings Contract and Trane’s Third Presentation on an Energy-Savings Contract.

Whitewater borrowed (mostly) to pay that amount, among other projects.

Council Discussion, 5.6.14 (including borrowing for Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_-_05-06_Complete_Packet_c_2_reduced_size.pdf
Minutes:Unpublished.
Video: https://vimeo.com/94519080

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

Next: A Wastewater Plant Update.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Trane’s Third Presentation on an Energy-Savings Contract

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 13 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.

Trane's Third Presentation on an Energy-Savings Contract from John Adams on Vimeo.

Recap: On 2.20.14, and again on 3.4.14, vendor Trane presented a proposal for an energy-savings contract for Whitewater (a proposal for Whitewater to save money by reducing energy consumption at city buildings).

Trane’s role in this energy-savings scheme is material and relevant to its work on a digester plan requiring waste importation into Whitewater. This is the same vendor, including some of the same vendor-representatives, advancing a seven-figure plan to the same city officials, as in the digester plan. (Another firm, Donohue, appears later, having been in behind-the-scenes discussions earlier. At this stage, however, Trane was the vendor for more than one city project.) The quality of the Trane’s work, and the quality of municipal diligence in evaluating Trane’s work, is on display here.

(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. 128.)

128. In this, Trane’s third presentation, there’s still (legitimate) doubt about how Trane’s representative (Rachel) is describing distinctions between operational and capital savings.

What does it say about this vendor’s representatives that, three times in, there’s still doubt about basic terms?

129. Why is there no presentation of alternatives between an energy-savings performance contract and incremental repairs?

130. Regardless of whether the law requires a certain format for presenting costs and claimed savings, why can neither the vendor nor the full-time administration describe the totals succinctly? (That is, does anyone think that a legal requirement to state a certain way precludes an intelligible description?)

131. What does it say about City Manager Clapper’s administration that, three times in, there’s still doubt about basic terms in the energy-savings proposal? Did Whitewater’s full-time leaders not set expectations with this vendor about how to calculate and present cost estimates?

Council Discussion, 4.15.14 (Trane)
Agenda: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014-0415a_entire_packet.pdf
Minutes: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/2014-0415.pdf
Video: https://vimeo.com/92172012

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

Next: 2014 Borrowing Projects for Whitewater.