FREE WHITEWATER

Corporate Welfare, WEDC

Unqualified, Callow Political Hack Resigns from Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation

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Over at the WEDC, the deputy secretary of that troubled agency has resigned:

[Ryan] Murray’s departure comes three months after he was criticized in a resignation letter written by Lee Swindall, WEDC’s vice president of business and industry development, that was made public in September. Saying that Murray confused “rigid control with stability and sound management,” Swindall criticized Murray’s management methods.

“I believe Ryan Murray, lacking either the talent or experience to function as the Chief Operations Officer of the WEDC, is causing deep and lasting harm through the application of control-style management rather than consultative management,” Swindall’s August 25 resignation letter said….

Via Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. deputy secretary resigns @ JSOnline. 

Swindall later decided against resigning; it’s possible he understood Murray’s departure would be a post-election certainty. 

It’s better, of course, for the WEDC to shed untalented, unqualified executives than to retain them.

It will be better for Wisconsin, however, when there is no economy-manipulating WEDC at all.   The sooner it goes away the better; one day, it will go away.

One day, but never a day too soon.  more >>

City, Government Spending, Local Government

Catching Up with Last Night’s Council Session

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Common Council met last night, and continued her discussions toward a November 18th final vote on the proposed 2015 budget. 

I’ll write more about Whitewater’s budget on Monday. 

It’s best to keep this principle in mind: that one works diligently to overcome setbacks, but spends far less time reflecting on successes. 

So, just a bit about the bus —

It’s satisfying that, after years of contending at this website that Whitewater should not be funding a transit bus from Janesville, Council has deleted additional funding for 2015 from the proposed budget. Council made the right decision.

(I’m confident that most residents in town would agree that funding was unjustified, and likely would have said as much even last year.  Over the years, this city saw both members of local government and residents recommend against funding.) 

It’s fair that our focus should be on our own merchants, our own needs, and our own fiscal condition.   

These have been difficult years for local governments across Wisconsin.  Some are doing a bit better than we are, but many are doing much worse.  It’s sad but true that a few cities near us seem almost lost, resorting to closed meetings, flimsy claims, and insiders’ manipulations. 

There’s always room for improvement, but we have certainly done better than some neighboring communities, a condition that should offer us optimism. 

We can (and always should) hope for better still in 2015.  

Poll

Friday Poll: Worker Suspended for Using Robotic Voice

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Today’s poll surveys opinion on the suspension of Ronald Dillon, a help desk responder for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He was suspended from his job for twenty days’ time after a finding of insubordination, including answering calls in an intentionally robotic voice. What do you think would be in order (assuming his conduct as actual)?

The New York Times reports the details on Dillon’s suspension following his unsuccessful administrative appeal:

He answered customer-service calls like a robot.

“You have reached the help desk.”

And he would not stop, despite warnings from his supervisor, a judge found.

For that, and other acts of insubordination, Mr. Dillon was suspended without pay for 20 days.

His appeal of an administrative judge’s decision was denied this month by the city Civil Service Commission in a case reported by DNAinfo.

Mr. Dillon, 66, has been a civil servant since 1975, mostly working in computer-related jobs for the health department. His current post entails taking calls on an information-technology line, both from the other city workers and from the public through a service called N.Y.C.M.E.D.

For a six-month period in 2012 and 2013, the city said in court filings, Mr. Dillon abandoned service requests, improperly transferred tickets to another desk and failed to provide correct descriptions of requests.

In addition, the city wrote, he “answered the phone in an unprofessional, robotic voice.”

The administrative judge, Kara J. Miller, listened to tapes and agreed.

In three recordings, she wrote, Mr. Dillon “states in a slow, monotone, and over-enunciated manner: ‘You have reached the help desk. This is Mr. Dillon. How may I help you?’ ”

He would gradually modulate his voice to a “normal tone” as the calls progressed, but callers found the initial contact off-putting, the city said.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.7.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our week ends with a mostly cloudy day and a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 4:39 PM. We’ll have 10h 01m 38s of daytime.

If one is tenacious, even nearly a score of adversaries are manageable: at a private game reserve in Africa, a single porcupine defended itself successfully against seventeen lions. Well done, porcupine:

On this day in 1972, Americans re-elect Pres. Nixon with 60.7% of the vote in his favor.

Google-a-Day asks a science question:

If the Saffir-Simpson Scale had existed at the time, the storm described in Erik Larson’s 1999 book would have been rated as what?

City, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government

At Council Tonight…

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At Common Council tonight, there’ll be, among other items, ongoing consideration of the proposed 2015 budget, and a presentation from Chancellor Telfer on the Tech Park.

Both items offer curiosities. As in past years, City Manager Clapper will stand back from the discussion of the bus, but happily accept any money Council offers for it. It’s an unavailing position: his administration either supports funding or it doesn’t support funding. Mr. Clapper is not somehow disconnected from his own administration, as though a bystander to this proposed budget (one that is, in a 289-page document, of his own drafting).

The second curiosity is Chancellor Telfer’s scheduled presentation on the Tech Park. It’s hard to fathom why Richard Telfer thinks this tech park will be a legacy for him. It’s a shabby affair, and won’t get better. He was a favorite of many as chancellor because, as a longstanding resident, it seemed as though he’d be able to manage city-campus relations fairly well. He’s made hash of those relations, and student and non-student residents are as far apart as ever. A few new buildings on campus, or a multi-million-dollar home for CESA 2 near a dog park, will not cement a worthy legacy.

Both topics are well worth following.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.6.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in the city will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-three. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 4:40 PM, with 10h 04m 02s of daytime.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1861, the Confederate States of America select a president:

…Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.

Like his Union counterpart, President Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky, born in 1808. He attended West Point and graduated in 1828. After serving in the Black Hawk War of 1832, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of General (and future U.S. president) Zachary Taylor, in 1835. However, Sarah contracted malaria and died within several months of their marriage. Davis married Varina Howells in 1845. He served in the Mexican War (1846-48), during which he was wounded. After the war, he was appointed to fill a vacant U.S. senate seat from Mississippi, and later served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.

When the Southern states began seceding after the election of Abraham Lincoln in the winter of 1860 and 1861, Davis suspected that he might be the choice of his fellow Southerners for their interim president. When the newly seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861, they decided just that. Davis expressed great fear about what lay ahead. “Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.” On November 6, Davis was elected to a six-year term as established by the Confederate constitution. He remained president until May 5, 1865, when the Confederate government was officially dissolved.

Four years as a president, but a lifetime of ignominy for having betrayed the United States – the very definition of a bad choice.

Google-a-Day asks a question about art:

What American museum paid $6.9 million to exhibit artwork on loan from the Louvre from 2006-2009?

Animals, Nature

Sounds: Inside a Bat Cave

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What would it sound like to be in a cave with bats, in a bat hibernaculum? With the recording below, designed for listening with headphones to simulate being surrounded by bats’ sounds, you’ll know. (Headphones make a discernible difference – it’s really quite something.) There are other tracks in the series, too: lemurs, humpback whales, penguins, and elephant seals, among others. Each recording is intended to make the listener feel in the middle of it all.

Enjoy.

With human development covering more and more land, conservationists can no longer mark off huge areas of wilderness to preserve wildlife. The notion of unsullied land is romantic, but there’s not enough of it to maintain America’s increasingly endangered fauna – like bats.

Many of North America’s bat species are in grave trouble. White nose syndrome, a rapidly spreading fungal disease killing bats, is one reason. Another reason is people: Many caves where bats hibernate are crowded with tourists and cavers. As those habitats disappear or are contaminated, so do bats – and their sounds.

There have been some creative conservation efforts. On the northern tip of Michigan, there has been a movement to conserve a collection of abandoned, underground copper mines as an alternative habitat for bats.

To conserve sounds that may also disappear, NPR reporter Chris Joyce and sound engineer Bill McQuay of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology traveled to Michigan a few years back. They recorded this copper mine environment, and many other environments around the world, for a collaboration between NPR and National Geographic called “Radio Expeditions.”

The original stereo recording for “Radio Expeditions” was made using two omnidirectional microphones. And it has now been encoded especially for headphone listening, using software designed to more accurately reproduce the immersive listening experience you would have if you were standing (or crouching) in the bat hibernaculum. We assume you don’t have 3-D glasses, though, so we hope the background stock art will do.

To hear more binaural soundscapes from “Radio Expeditions,” check out this playlist. You can also hear the original related radio stories, in part one and part two.

Via NPR.

City, Elections, Politics, School District

Thoughts on the 11.4.14 Election

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Whitewater will not see an election so big as last night’s for another two years’ time. There’s much to consider about the results. A few remarks appear below, along with a table using preliminary, unofficial data from Walworth, Rock, and Jefferson Counties with results for the referendum and gubernatorial questions.

COUNTY COMMUNITY REFERENDUM
YES		 REFERENDUM
NO		 WALKER BURKE
WALWORTH LA GRANGE 1-3 162 138 824 344
WALWORTH RICHMOND 1-3 317 330 540 340
WALWORTH SUGAR CREEK 1-5 35 42 1169 606
WALWORTH T WHITEWATER 1, 2 383 313 445 276
WALWORTH T WHITEWATER 3 28 30 38 21
WALWORTH WHITEWATER 1, 2 565 301 414 482
WALWORTH WHITEWATER 3, 4 517 168 319 391
WALWORTH WHITEWATER 5, 6 799 263 492 615
WALWORTH WHITEWATER 7-9 683 199 479 484
WALWORTH SUBTOTAL 3,489 1,784 4,720 3,559
JEFFERSON COLD SPRING 185 150 259 131
JEFFERSON KOSHKONONG 1-5 22 23 969 624
JEFFERSON WHITEWATER 10, 11 230 86 167 159
JEFFERSON WHITEWATER 12 242 79 205 61
JEFFERSON SUBTOTAL 679 338 1,600 975
ROCK T JOHNSTON 44 39 208 159
ROCK T LIMA 1, 2 185 202 292 242
ROCK SUBTOTAL 229 241 500 401
TRI-COUNTY CITY OF WHITEWATER 3,036 1,096 2,076 2,192
GUBERNATORIAL TOTAL 6,820 4,935
REFERENDUM TOTAL 4,397 2,363

NOTE: For towns outside the city, not all residents within a town are within the Whitewater Unified School District. For example, in Koshkonong and Spring Creek, the school district voters are only a portion of all the wards in those communities casting votes for governor. The gubernatorial totals as the counties record them look much larger than the referendum totals, but those big differences are not undervotes – it’s that not all people in those towns are also within the school district.

  1. Burke barely won the City of Whitewater.

    2. That’s underperformance – one would have expected a Democrat to do much better in the overall city vote. This was a poor showing.

  2. Walker did well in Whitewater’s campus-area wards.

    3. A sharp reader pointed this out to me today (thank you – much appreciated), and one can see the point clearly in the data. Burke had a harder time in campus-area wards (or Walker a better time) than one would have thought. Pres. Obama did better in those areas of the city in his races against John McCain & Mitt Romney than Mary Burke did against Scott Walker.

  3. The referendum won easily.

    4. It won in the city by so large a margin that if not a single additional vote outside the city had been in favor it still would have won. The city vote decided the question without the need for additional, affirmative votes in nearby towns

  4. The referendum won the district easily; Scott Walker won the area easily.

    5. Many Walker supporters voted for the referendum; there’s no other way to understand the results. I’m a libertarian, but I’d ask this question of Republican supporters of Gov. Walker: Doesn’t this suggest that school referenda are an implicit modification or repeal of some of Act 10’s provisions?

    If Act 10 had balanced restrictions on union activity with reductions in spending more nicely, why would there have been a need for an operational referendum? I’m opposed to central planning (from Madison or Washington), and I’d offer that Act 10 combined with state education cuts had planning consequences that communities now find undesirable.

    The result is a move toward referenda to overcome parts of the Walker Administration’s budgeting. There must have been many voters who support Gov. Walker but have used educational referenda to soften parts of his program that they don’t like. (Follow-up question: if there had been no provision under law to offer a referendum, wouldn’t voters have faced a starker choice that would have been less to the GOP’s liking?)

  5. Other local races.

    6. Rep. Andy Jorgensen was re-elected in the 43rd Assembly District, Rep. Steve Nass will become State Sen. Nass of the 11th Senate District, and Rep. Janis Ringhand will become State Sen. Ringhand of the 15th Sen. District.

  6. Less on budgeting.

    7. The Whitewater Schools still look to have a budget shortfall, but it’s nothing like the scramble they would have faced (1) to consider a spring referendum question asking for somewhat less, (2) to make deeper budget cuts, and (3) with a much shorter window of budgetary decision-making after an April 2015 referendum.

  7. A discussion on learning, one way or another.

    8. I’m sure that district officials are relieved at the outcome for the referendum, but then so am I – perhaps just as much. Less time putting the budget front-and-center will give more time to consider subjects and their teaching.

    It has never been, and will never be, to the advancement of education – of schooling or lifelong learning – to hawk test scores like cheap projects at a bazaar. It’s hard to overstate how infuriating it’s been to see individual standardized scores misused as a public-relations selling point for a business lobby.

    Gandhi was right that means matter more than ends: “They say, ‘means are, after all, means.’ I would say, ‘means are, after all, everything’. As the means so the end…”

    There’s no reason to forgo a better discussion because others would prefer a worse one. I believe strongly in good schools and proper schooling; I’ll not shy from that better discussion.

  8. How soon until the 2016 race begins?

    9. About as soon as our Walmart opening a Christmas display even before Halloween was over. That next political season is already here…

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.5.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

I hope readers’ election experiences went well and smoothly (as mine did, with few lines and an easy process). Our weather was good, and I always enjoy (as so many others do) a trip to the Old Armory for voting. Here we are, on the other side of a long and expensive campaign, and for it all each of us is still in one piece.

We’ve a day of mostly cloudy skies but a mild temperature of fifty-seven ahead. Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 4:41 PM today, with 10h 06m 29s.

I’ll have a post later this morning with observations on the local and statewide races.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets today at 5 PM.

Readers may recall that I posted an animated graphic of butterfly species from illustrator Eleanor Lutz a two months ago, and she’s created another on how animals breathe (she illustrates three possibilities). As with her earlier work, it’s both accurate and beautiful:

10-24-14

Clicking the illustration produces a larger version.

Ms. Lutz’s work may be found on her website, Tabletop Whale.

On this day in 1912, the men of Wisconsin took a vote on women’s suffrage. They voted it down:

1912 – Women’s Suffrage Referendum
On this date Wisconsin voters (all male) considered a proposal to allow women to vote. When the referendum was over, Wisconsin men voted women’s suffrage down by a margin of 63 to 37 percent. The referendum’s defeat could be traced to multiple causes, but the two most widely cited reasons were schisms within the women’s movement itself and a perceived link between suffragists and temperance that antagonized many German American voters. Although women were granted the vote in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Wisconsin’s own constitution continued to define voters as male until 1934. [Source: Turning Points in Wisconsin History]

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

What area with nearly 2 million life forms was created to protect the wildlife of the country with the largest economy in Africa?

City, Elections, Politics, Wisconsin

Signs on Election Night

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There are both statewide and local signs for how election races are going. 

Statewide, Jake of Jake’s Economic TA Funhouse (blogs often have inventive names) is right that, short of an improbable collapse for the major-parties’ strongholds, the areas to watch are the counties that have supported both Walker (’10, ’12) and Obama (’08, ’12). 

Locally, for the school referendum race, there are (to my mind) two questions: (1) what’s turnout in the city (Whitewater proper), and (2) what happens in Jefferson County and Rock County communities within the district? 

If Whitewater’s turnout should be high (closer to presidential than a gubernatorial year), then the referendum wins, perhaps comfortably.  Even if there’s high turnout elsewhere, a big turnout of the kind the city can produce will decide the question. 

If city turnout is lower (as in a regular gubernatorial year, for example), then it will be helpful to watch how the Jefferson and Rock County areas of the district vote. Old-timers look to a City of Whitewater v. Town of Whitewater dynamic, but the district is bigger than that, and the votes of towns in those counties (in the district at least in part) will amount to several hundred votes. 

Local politics have been mostly uncontroversial, almost quiet.

One can expect Rep. Andy Jorgensen to be re-elected in the 43rd Assembly District, Rep. Janis Ringhand to win in the 15th State Senate District, and Rep. Steve Nass to win his race to represent the 11th State Senate District. 

One odd note about both Scott Walker and Mary Burke in Whitewater: they each visited on Sunday, but neither had huge crowds.  (Gov. Walker visited earlier than Ms. Burke, and considering her supper-hour arrival, both candidates had good-but-modest turnout.)

I’m not sure if that’s Whitewater, if that’s the amount of notice the campaigns gave, or if that’s how this race has worn with voters. 

It’s not been a season of huge fanfare and excitement, as sometimes happens in a presidential year.  People are committed to their candidates (or opposed to a candidate with comparable intensity), but there just don’t seem to be many happy, lighthearted voters.

However this ends, I’d expect continuing contention in Wisconsin’s politics. 
     

Film, Games/Puzzles

Film: The Man Who Owns 40,000 Video Games

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What can one say about video gamer and collector Herr Ghalustians? I think that one can say that he’s having fun, doing something that he likes on his own time, without harming anyone else. He’s Austrian, but not so removed from what we might say is part of the American Dream – to have the means to enjoy peacefully what one likes to do, to have that private, free space for games, books, hobbies, etc.

Enjoy.

Andranik Ghalustians is an Austrian gamer with an uncommon obsession. By his own estimate, he owns tens of thousands of video games—including at least 500 arcade boards—and unlike other collectors, he doesn’t believe they should be kept shrink-wrapped and pristine. He wants to play the games he collects. “If you’re on that level [of keeping but not playing the games], you’re something else,” he says. “You’re completely detached from the gaming experience.”

Via The Atlantic.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.4.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Election day in town will be cloudy in the morning, but sunny later in the day, with a high of fifty-two. Sunrise is 6:33 AM and sunset 4:42 PM, with 10h 08m 56s of daytime.

Google has a doodle for America’s election:

GoogleElectionDoodle

Downtown Whitewater’s board will meet this morning at 8 AM.

President Obama is first elected on this day in 2008.

On this day in 1909, America sees her first commercially-built airplane:

On this date in Beloit, a plane was assembled and built by Wisconsin’s first pilot, Arthur P. Warner. This self-taught pilot was the 11th in the U.S. to fly a powered aircraft and the first in the U.S. to buy an aircraft for business use. Warner used it to publicize his automotive products.[Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers]

For a question of the day, here’s something of history & geography:

After centuries of being passed between Genoa, France and Sardinia what European country was finally granted sovereignty in 1861?