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City, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics

Whitewater’s Common Council Meeting for 10.15.13 (City Manager, Budget Perspective)

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It’s budget season for local governments across Wisconsin, including Whitewater.  Presentations beginning in October will conclude with a vote in November.   

A few introductory remarks on that process follow. 

City Manager, Cameron Clapper.  City Manager Clapper has two tasks, not one: daily management the city’s local government, and normalizing the way his administration describes local government’s functions. 

In a city with a normal and mature politics, he’d have only the former task; it’s his particular circumstance that Whitewater has not had that kind of local government, particularly in the years immediately before Mr. Clapper’s appointment.

That’s not been Whitewater: this city has had the (wholly unnecessary) small-town disease of insecurity, of ridiculously describing every action in the grandest terms, of exaggerating accomplishments beyond the point of lying, and of hiding municipal mistakes rather than honestly admitting them. 

I’ve neither respect nor sympathy for that way of speaking.  It’s unbecoming and unworthy of capable, mature American men and women.  

Many from among the generation of city notables before Mr. Clapper has lived this way and come up in the city this way, and prefers people who – regardless of their origins – talk that same way.

That way – of that generation – has no demographic future.  They’ll either decline with a bang or a whimper, but decline they will.  

As much as running the city government, Mr. Clapper has the chance and obligation to help to normalize politics in this city, to speak (as he typically does) in a matter-of-fact, conventional way.  To do so has been, and will be, all to the good. 

That’s no small, back-handed compliment – after what we’ve seen of those who came before him, Mr. Clapper’s way can make a big improvement. 

The pressure to adopt the bad and embarrassing habits of others will be intense, of course; people like that prefer their own kind, or those who become like them. 

What has been said, famously, of Ancient Israel is probably good advice for a leader in this city: Israel’s excellence lay not in how she was like the other nations around her, but in how she was different from them. 

Whitewater doesn’t need puffery – we are a place worth loving, contending over, and building, as we are, and hope to be, without exaggeration or manipulation.

One wishes him the best, truly – success here would be of great benefit to the city’s future.  We’ve gone on far too long the wrong way, and should delay the inevitable right way no longer. 

Budgets & the Economy.  We’ve a city budget, and a school district budget, but it’s the environment in which officials propose those budgets that matters even more.

The economy comes first, and fiscal accounts (that is, public budgets for cities, counties, schools) come second. 

Knowing whether a flock of condors will survive requires knowing something of the environment in which they live.  One could study their anatomy endlessly and still have no definite answer without an adequate environmental understanding.    

So, here seems to be a reasonable plan for thinking about budgets:

1.  A survey of our city’s economy.
2.  A look at our long-term fiscal outlook.
3.  Review of the 2014 budget proposal for the city.

(The same plan applies for our public school budget, county budget, etc.) 

It’s economic, long-term fiscal, and short-term fiscal, in that order, I think. 

When thinking about 2014’s budget, for city or schools, that’s how I’ll proceed over the weeks ahead. 

Next: Downtown Whitewater and Whitewater’s Merchant Class

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.16.13 (Giant Squirrel Project Edition)

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Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-three, and winds from the west at 10 mph.

Zoologists recently found something in the jungles of southeast Asia…a giant flying squirrel that puts our own local species to shame:

image_1361e-Biswamoyopterus

Biswamoyopterus laoensis is a large flying squirrel that weighs 1.8 kg and measures about 42 inches (1.08 m) in total length – the body is about 18 inches (0.46 m) long and the tail is 24 inches (0.62 m) long.

Impressive.

We should import them into Whitewater, pronto. Whitewater’s municipal government, and university administration, should be on the phone talking to the Laotian government at the earliest suitable opportunity. (Helpful hint: they’re 12 hours ahead of us. You’re welcome.)

I’d guess that these monster flying squirrels would be unsuited to our climate, but that shouldn’t stop us. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and a multi-million-dollar, publicly-funded tech park. Why fret over an inability of the CESA 2 Building Innovation Center to make even its payments in lieu of taxes when a program of Flying Squirrel Importation could save that crony-capitalist building?

I’ve not a biologist, but there are several fruitful angles to pursue: genetic modification for cold-climate living, mass production of squirrel sweaters (plaid would look sharp), or construction of insulated squirrel habitats conveniently located throughout the city in people’s trees, spaced no more than 50 yards apart to provide plentiful opportunities for Biswamoyopterus laoensis to take shelter.

There you are: the Next Big Thing™.

On this day in 1793, the French execute Marie-Antoinette:

The daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, she married Louis in 1770 to strengthen the French-Austrian alliance. At a time of economic turmoil in France, she lived extravagantly and encouraged her husband to resist reform of the monarchy. In one episode, she allegedly responded to news that the French peasantry had no bread to eat by callously replying, “Let them eat cake.” The increasing revolutionary uproar convinced the king and queen to attempt an escape to Austria in 1791, but they were captured by revolutionary forces and carried back to Paris. In 1792, the French monarchy was abolished, and Louis and Marie-Antoinette were condemned for treason.

Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about the history of science and its politization. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)

What is Lysenkoism?

City, Planning

Whitewater’s Planning Commission Meeting for 10.14.13

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Whitewater’s Planning Commission met for its monthly meeting last night, with three principal topics (items 4, 5, and 6 on the agenda):

4. Hold a public hearing for consideration of a conditional use permit (for expansion to include wholesale alcohol operation) for CC Property Development LLC., Christ Christon to have a brewery and tap room at 111 W. Whitewater Street (Second Salem Brewing Company, LLC.).

5. Hold a public hearing for consideration of a change in the District Zoning Map for the parcel located at 319 W. James Street (Tax Parcel # /TR 00025) to rezone from R-3 (Multi-family Residence) Zoning District to a B-2 (Central Business) Zoning District for the development of a restaurant.

6. Hold a public hearing for consideration of a conditional use permit (tavern and other places selling alcohol by the drink) for Tyler Sailsbery to serve beer and liquor at 319 W. James Street (for a “Class B” Beer and Liquor License) for a new restaurant, tavern and distillery (Casual Joes).

A few quick remarks follow.

Second Salem.  It’s a clever name about our city’s reputation from the past, and, I think, a very good idea for our present.  Second Salem would be a nano-brewery (production amounts of a barrel, that is, a bit over thirty-one gallons). 

The location is excellent, with ample parking and easily accessible for those coming from either the east or west beyond Whitewater on Main Street.  (The property is now the Whitewater Street Restaurant.) 

An establishment like this is different from a tavern, and would be a fine additional to an emerging restaurant culture in Whitewater. 

A Mixed-Bag Planning Commission.  There’s a wide range of opinion on this Planning Commission, but sadly there also seems a wide range of understanding, too.  These commissioners run the range from very savvy to not-as-much.  The gaps aren’t those of left and right, or even market as against regulatory preferences. They’re more fundamental.

There’s something both strange and, candidly, obtuse about bemoaning the loss of a breakfast restaurant for a nano-brewery when it’s clear consumer demand will favor the latter. 

When a commissioner insists the former would be preferable for patrons, but the day-in, day-out traffic shows the opposite, it only shows a commissioner’s lack of feel for the town as it is.  

Council would do well, when picking people for the Planning Commission, to pick those – regardless of partisan ideology – with a feel for consumer sentiment, patronage, and trends. 

Casual Joe’s application for a conditional use permit and a zoning change to B-2 for 319 W. James Street.  The Planning Commission chose to continue their consideration of proprietor Tyler Sailsbery’s application until the next meeting of the commission, at which there will be a public hearing about the proposal for a restaurant, tavern, and distillery. 

There’s an opportunity for a compromise here, between residents and proprietor, if there’s some willingness to work on a deal.   

No doubt all would concede that communication of the proposal to residents nearby could have been better.  Whether those residents will consider a reasonable deal, there’s no way to know. 

There is, however, a practical problem with this discussion: when a commissioner tells Common Council last week that he wishes there were more licenses for projects like this, and then begins his discussion at Planning last night with his reservations, only to find those reservations might persuade others on Planning to scuttle the deal, something he might not want, he’s left with a question: which way forward? 

Now, I know that one might reconcile these different positions, but it’s not a debating society: whipsawing from one view to another might get a good result, but it’s dicey and hardly a reliable, long-term strategy. 

Sooner or later one may find that the music stops with no chair nearby.   

That’s why, in the end, I think clearly-stated ideological views are a better approach: one knows where one’s representatives stand, and there’s still room for an applicant to persuade those of a different view to come around to one’s side (at least on a particular issue). 

The best outcome would be a compromise, one that allows the proposal to go forward in a way that’s satisfactory to both applicant and residents.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.15.13

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be a rainy day with a high of sixty-three.

The Alcohol Licensing Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM this evening.

On this day in 1945, the Vichy leader and Nazi collaborator Pierre Laval meets his fate:

Hostile to the declaration of war against Germany in 1939, Laval encouraged the antiwar faction in the French government, and with the German invasion in 1940 he used his political influence to force an armistice with Germany. Henri Pétain took over the new Vichy state, and Laval served as minister of state. Laval was dismissed by PÉtain in December 1940 for negotiating privately with Germany.

By 1942, Laval had won the trust of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and the elderly Pétain became merely a figurehead in the Vichy regime. As the premier of Vichy France, Laval collaborated with the Nazi programs of oppression and genocide, and increasingly became a puppet of Hitler. After the Allied liberation of France, he was forced to flee east for German protection. With the defeat of Germany in May 1945, he escaped to Spain but was expelled and went into hiding in Austria, where he finally surrendered to American authorities in late July. Extradited to France, Laval was convicted of treason by the High Court of Justice in a sensational trial. Condemned to death, he attempted suicide by poison but was nursed back to health in time for his execution, on October 15, 1945.

On this day in 1885, thousands of Wisconsin workers go on strike:

1885 – Marinette-Menominee Lumbermen Strike
On this date 2,500 Marinette-Menominee lumbermen walked off the job to support a reduction in workday hours. Mill owners locked out the workers in an attempt to force acceptance of an eleven-hour workday. The lockout failed as many lumbermen simply moved away from the area rather than agree to work eleven hour days. The employers were forced to negotiate with unions and conceded to a ten-hour work day and cash payment for wages. To learn more about lumber and Wisconsin History, visit Turning Points.[Source: A Labor History Anthology, p.24]

Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about extraterrestrial sports. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)

What sport did astronaut Alan Shepard play on the moon?

Here’s a video link to Shepard playing that sport on the lunar surface.

Crime, Elkhorn, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Police, Walworth County

The End of the Beginning

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After a British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Churchill famously observed of the war in November 1942 that 

….Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning….

So it is, even locally, with the War on Drugs. Like many others, I don’t smoke and I seldom drink (all the more to savor an occasional drink recipe).  Like millions of others, though, I see that the Drug War has been too expensive, too ineffective, failing to prevent drug abuse while simultaneously abusing civil liberties. 

The problems of addiction are no better; headlines proclaiming supposed victories no longer command belief, these forty years on. 

When proponents of numbers policing chose to describe their efforts as a war, they might have thought more carefully about which war we’d be waging.  For all their good intentions, they gave us not the Second World War, but Vietnam.  

That’s part of the sadness of this effort, too: so many good, frontline people tied to an ineffectual  strategy that’s been unworthy of their participation.    

Close at home, one sees signs of the end of the beginning, from the Janesville Gazette‘s Friday editorial, “As marijuana gains ground, law enforcement faces decisions.” 

The editorial is available only in print or to online subscribers, but it’s telling.  Ever so hesitantly, cautiously, almost begrudgingly the Gazette‘s editorialist inches readers toward the truth of marijuana enforcement: that it’s been an expensive mistake.   

In Rock, Jefferson, and Walworth Counties, there will be furious insistence from the unreconstructed that nothing’s changing, and that nothing ever will. In some towns nearby, and particularly from the bench and Sheriff’s Office in Elkhorn, the last holdouts will rail against change until, finally, the laws they’ve so punitively enforced and sentences they’ve so punitively imposed are no more.  

To those few, who have been inveterate Drug Warriors, seeking punishment but not treatment: you will, not so long from now, see our nation’s rejection of your approach.  The Draconian laws on which you’ve relied will be repealed, your enforcement programs cancelled, and your funding for endless, pricey purchases cut.  

In place of all this, you’ll still have a useful role: as examples of what not to do, of yesterday’s approach, as exemplars of the ill-conceived.

Across America, states are liberalizing their marijuana laws, police officers are declaring against the Drug War, and there’s a growing effort to Regulate Marijuana Like Wine.  A majority nationally now favors decriminalization, and that political trend is only growing.   

We’re not at the end of a failed strategy, but we’re at least at the end of the beginning of that failed strategy. 

When the laws change (and they will), I’ll still not smoke, and I’ll still drink only occasionally.  Yet, on that day, I’ll raise a glass to those who fought for change, for a focus on treatment over punishment, and in memory of those whose lives were ruined through an expensive, decades-long, ineffectual strategy.

Music

Monday Music: Higgs Boson Blues

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Last week, Peter Higgs from the UK, and Francois Englert from Belgium, jointly won the Nobel prize for their work on the Higgs boson particle.

As it turns out, there’s a song – not merely about their discovery, but rather about many other things, called the Higgs Boson Blues.

Enjoy.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.14.13

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Good morning.

Monday brings areas of frost and fog in the morning, giving way to sunny skies and a high of sixty-two. Sunrise will be 7:07 AM and sunset 6:14 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with 79% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

On this day in 1947, Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to break the sound barrier:

U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, was a combat fighter during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France, but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French Underground. After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight.

For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on October 14, 1947, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis,” was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet.

Because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot, and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 with the rank of brigadier general.


Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about an award. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)

For what was Albert Einstein awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.13.13

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Good morning.

Sunday will be sunny with a high of sixty-one.

From Friday’s poll (The Dog-Defending, Raccoon-Tossing Incident), there’s a clear verdict: the raccoon got what he served for attacking Toaster the Dog. Last week, by the way, Rose posted video of a raccoon he captured that may be the same one that attacked his dog in July. (Mild caution: Rose curses in surprise when the raccoon, in a Havaheart cage, hisses.)

On this day in 1943, Italy abandons the Axis, and declares war on Germany:

Algiers, Oct. 13–Italy declared war on Nazi Germany, her former Axis partner, at 3 P.M. today, Greenwich time [11 A.M. in New York].

Acting on orders of King Victor Emmanuel as transmitted by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the Italian Ambassador in Madrid notified the German Ambassador there that:

“In the face of repeated and intensified acts of war committed against Italians by the armed forces of Germany, from 1500 hours Greenwich time on the thirteenth day of October Italy considers herself in a state of war with Germany.”

Thus the defeated nation led into war by Benito Mussolini re-entered it against its former ally through a curt diplomatic exchange in the capital of the country in which they had first collaborated on a military basis seven years ago.

Asks People to Avenge Ferocity

Excoriating the nation that now occupies Italy’s own “Eternal City” as well as the entire industrial north, Marshal Badoglio in a proclamation to the Italian people exhorted them all to avenge the inhuman ferocity of the German Army at Naples and in other areas.