FREE WHITEWATER

City

A Generac bus by any other name

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Let’s assume that a city decides to give thousands (and that the state and federal government give tens of thousands more) in taxpayer funds to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar corporation’s bus line. It’s a strong drink of crony capitalism, of course, and someone might even say as much. (See, for example, A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism.)

Still, it could be worse: a city official might describe that sudsidized, gift-to-one-big-corporation in a ridiculous way, as something it’s not.

It is worse, as one sees when one reads how Whitewater’s city manager described the new bus:

Innovation Express Commuter Bus Service Coming to Whitewater Beginning April 29th

The commuter bus service that will be coming to Whitewater from Janesville and Milton is scheduled to begin on Monday, April 29th. The new service, which has been christened “The Innovation Express” will primarily serve Generac Power System employees but will be available to the general public as well.

The Innovation Express will depart Janesville at 5:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. daily, Monday through Friday and will also operate on Sunday evening. The bus will drop off and pick up riders in Whitewater at four stops: 1) in front of the Municipal Center on Whitewater Street; 2) Whitewater Innovation Center; 3) on Enterprise Boulevard in front of Generac Power Systems; and 4) in front of the UW-Whitewater Visitor’s Center on Starin Road. Bus stop signs will be installed next week.

See, Weekly Report, 4.20.12

There you have it: the Innovation Express.

The Problem.

It’s unconvincing to call a bus tailored to generator-maker Generac Power Systems an Innovation Express because

1. the taxpayer-funded bus really serves not the Innovation Center, but an already-flush manufacturer outside the Innovation Center and Tech Park,

2. there are unemployed people in Whitewater who are either overlooked or in Generac’s estimation not good enough for their employ,

3. the name reminds people that, despite bureaucrats’ endless claims that Whitewater is the ‘center of opportunity’ – with skills worthy of a government-funded tech park — the city somehow has to bus workers in from other places, and

4. Whitewater’s own city manager insisted this bus was for Generac, in print, in interviews, and in an open council session.

It’s as though, if the Generac bus stopped at a tattoo parlor, it would be called the Ink Express, or if at a hotel the Holiday Inn Express.

It’s still the Generac bus.

Really, the bus doesn’t need a name at all — it would have been better to say nothing than call it something inapt and foolish.

Naming it doesn’t change what it is, but it does show how little the name’s originator must think of people, to assume that a name transforms a poor idea into a good one.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.26.12

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Good morning.

Whitewater looks forward to a mostly sunny day with a high of fifty-five.

This day in 1986, as the New York Times recalls, marked “the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.”

The accident was deadly and memorable, and the world may yet face others, but we have the comfort of knowing that no one, in good times or bad, will ever again have the unfortunate designation of Soviet.  There one finds an assurance political rather than technological.

Google offers a geologist’s question for its daily puzzle: “Does the gemstone that’s composed of only one chemical element have a high or low refractive index?”

Look past our world, to the composition and nature of another, and Saturn will astound with images from the European Space Agency. Some of the space agency’s latest ‘Spectacular photos capture the bizarre workings of Saturn’s F ring (+video).’

Here’s that video — enjoy —

Presidential race 2012

Gingrich ‘Endorses’ Romney

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In his oh-so-humble way.  Maybe, with high-quality, major-party candidates like this, there’s hope for libertarians in the fall:

“I think you have to at some point be honest with what’s happening in the real world, as opposed to what you’d like to have happened,” Gingrich said. “Governor Romney had a very good day yesterday. He got 67 [percent] in one state, and he got 63 in other, 62 in another. Now you have to give him some credit. I mean this guy’s worked six years, put together a big machine, and has put together a serious campaign.”

“I think obviously that I would be a better candidate, but the objective fact is the voters didn’t think that,” Gingrich said. “And I also think it’s very, very important that we be unified.”

Via National Journal.

Posted originally on 4.25.12 at Daily Adams.

Books

Now Reading: Lost Horizon

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My latest book is James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933).

It’s been in print since first publication, and the subject of two films (the second of them being a rather unfortunate musical). (When the cover of the book say it’s the first paperback ever published, the publisher means the first of a modern paperback series).

I’m part way into the book now, and much enjoying it.

City, New Whitewater

New Whitewater’s Inevitability

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I’ve written before about the transition — one that I believe is certain, as much as anything human can be — from Old Whitewater to New Whitewater. A summary of my thinking:

  • There’s a transition taking place, slowly but ineluctably, from a stodgy, stagnant Whitewater to a more hip & prosperous one.
  • We’ve probably about ten years to go (a period likely to be one of greater change than the last twenty years’ time combined).
  • New Whitewater will be freer, more diverse, and fundamentally multiethnic and multicultural.
  • Although I’m a libertarian, I don’t believe Whitewater’s future politics will be fundamentally libertarian – it’s more likely to be, mostly, a mix of confident progressives and confident opportunity conservatives.
  • There’ll be futile resistance to these changes, and more than a few bumps along this road.  We’ll see more than one disappointment between now and then.  (There will some afterward, too — just not as many). Still, scores of past and current practices will find their way only to the dustbin.
  • Whitewater’s diversity will emerge from people and in ways not yet heralded – our city will be less centralized.
  • For it all, we’ll be much better off.

This transition will be harder for some than others.  Along the way to a more diverse and open city, one can expect that some will insist nothing’s changing, and that nothing can change.  Some of this insistence will be sincere but mistaken, but at other times dishonest and self-deceiving.   Those who don’t want change will declare that there isn’t any, and then pretend that there isn’t any.

We’re well into the pretending stage, actually.

I’ve been writing for nearly five years, and I’ll happily write for fifty, or perhaps one-hundred fifty, more.  (That would give me 140 years of a hip & prosperous Whitewater — I’ll take that, gladly.)

But I don’t believe — and will never believe — that the present or (certainly) the future revolves around one website, one blog, one city official, one politician, or one group.  Of course not — our city is 14,622, not a few or even a few hundred.

One should not be deceived about what Whitewater’s like even now.  It’s already more diverse — from so many forms of expression, of so many residents — than one website.  It’s much more diverse than that.

The champions of the status quo will herald a single website “receiving on average over 50,000 hits” or being “read throughout the US and world by those with ties to the community,” but that’s only a fraction of what this blog (FREE WHITEWATER) receives on a slow month — FW receives 4.8x as many even on a slower month like this March.

To this website’s readers — thanks so very much.

What does this mean?

Most importantly, this traffic comparison means that when one considers all the other ways to communicate — telephone, mail, email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, in person, via video, text messages, etc. — the total communication of our 14,622 neighbors dwarfs any website or blog.

That doesn’t bother me — I like it, and hope for more and still more.  Each and every thoughtful person in this city will benefit from an expanding marketplace of ideas.

Second, my traffic comparison should give heart to those others who are considering their own publications – one can take one’s own path, write from one’s own convictions, and be larger than an insider’s publication.  A dissenter embracing America’s free traditions can build a bigger audience than any defender of the status quo.  I am convinced that there will one day be efforts far grander than anything we’ve yet seen, from people of whom we’ve not yet heard, and I welcome that future.

New Whitewater unfolds, around and ahead of us.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.25.12

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Good morning.

It’s a Wednesday of showers and thunderstorms ahead for Whitewater, with a high of sixty-two.

On this day in 1996,

W-2 (Wisconsin Works) [Was] Signed Into Law
On this date Governor Tommy Thompson signed the W-2 (Wisconsin Works) program into law, making Wisconsin the first U.S. state to replace a benefits-based welfare system with a requirement that recipients work to get aid. W-2 formed the basis for national welfare reform. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Tommy G. Thompson Center]

Via Wisconsin Historical Society.

Nineteen ninety-six seems like a lifetime ago.

Google’s daily puzzle offers a test of green-living knowledge: “What’s the total generating capacity (in megawatts) of the United States’ largest renewable-energy producer?”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.24.12

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Good morning.

It’s a mostly sunny day with a high of sixty-four for Whitewater.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets today at 4:15 PM.

On this day in 1989 1898, Spain declared war on the United States. [Some typos are worth saving. Of all the things that might have happened in 1989, a Spanish declaration of war against the United States would be among the unlikeliest.]

Whitewater lost one of her most unusual establishments on this day in 1977:

1977 – Morris Pratt Institute of Spiritualism Moves to Waukesha

On this date the Morris Pratt Insititute, dedicated to the study of Spiritualism and Mediumship, moved from Whitewater to Waukesha. Founded in 1888 and incorporated in 1901, it was one of the few institutes in the world that instructed spiritualists. These were people “who believe as the basis of his or her religion, in the communication between this and the Spirit World by means of mediumship and who endeavors to mould his or her character and conduct in accordance with the highest teachings derived from such communication.”

Source: Wisconsin Historical Society.

We have, in these years since, soldiered on.

Google’s daily puzzle asks about a bird: “At its top rate of speed, how many times in one hour of flying time does the world’s smallest hummingbird flap its wings?”

Daily Adams, Libertarians

Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson as the antidote to Koch Bros. scheming

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Every four years, it’s sure to be a libertarian, and a Libertarian, year. It may sometimes be the former, but it has never been the latter.

Hope rises yet again, this time in the candidacy of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, now seeking the LP 2012 nomination. If recent polls are right, he has a chance for an historic LP showing in November.

If Johnson won even three-percent of the national vote, it would be historic for the Libertarian Party (where 1% of the presidential vote is a good showing).

This year, though, three-percent would be more than a large haul – it would be a result likely influential between the major parties.

That’s wouldn’t merely concern Messrs. Obama and Romney – it would be of concern to Charles and David Koch, former libertarians who through Americans have showcased any Republican (no matter how anti-libertarian) in the name of defeating Pres. Obama.

So here we are, with Koch-flush AFP about to get behind Mitt Romney (not as conservative as the Kochs might like but not libertarian, either) to defeat the incumbent Democrat.

(Johnson is a former Republican, who is now more manifestly libertarian than anyone running for president, including Ron Paul, and certain more than the Kochs have been in years.)

What if, despite Charles and David’s willingness to abandon sound libertarianism for a win against Obama, it’s a libertarian third-party candidate who sinks their hopes?

That wouldn’t be merely an irony, but a delicious one.

Posted originally at Daily Adams on 4.23.12.

City

The Landmarks Commission’s Sensible Proposals for Transparency & Best Practices

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At last week’s Common Council meeting (4.17.12), there was a proposal to modify part of Whitewater’s Landmarks Ordinance (Chapter 17.04, et seq.) to (1) establish certificates of appropriateness for Landmarks Commissions approvals now authorized under Whitewater’s municipal code, and (2) extend the approval process to city-controlled properties as well as private ones.

These are both sound ideas, as they would give Whitewater a transparent, standardized, and uniform Landmarks Commission approval process, without adding any additional approval requirements for private owners.

A mistaken impression that these proposed changes mean additional regulations for private owners caused the proposal to be tabled.

The proposal is truly non-partisan – there’s no right, center, or left to it. Better still, it’s a non-partisan gain.

(Embedded below is a video of the council session. I have added in parentheses the times during the video when remarks to which I refer begin. The discussion begins at 18:45.)

Here’s how Whitewater’s City Attorney McDonell correctly described the proposals (19:10):

The ordinance that you have before you is an amendment to the Landmarks Ordinance (the Landmarks Commission ordinance). I know that members are here and they can certainly correct me or add, but my understanding is that upon going to some training, they found out that the approval process is now that the state of the art nomenclature is for a ‘certificate of appropriateness.’

So, they initially were interested in updating the ordinance, which already did provide — and has for many years provided — that they have the right to review and approve any alterations to the exterior of any building that’s a landmark or within the historic district.

What the ordinance does in part – it changes the approval process from just being called an approval to an issuance of a certificate of appropriateness.

Secondly, they requested that the ordinance be amended to provide, to clarify, and to be certain that if the City of Whitewater does any exterior alteration of any landmark site or building that it owns in the historic district that it will be required to obtain a certificate of appropriateness from the Landmarks Commisison.

Those are the two main changes. There’s been some thought that this is an ordinance that is now requiring approval of the Landmarks Commission for any alterations of landmarks and in the historic district.

That’s been the law for twenty or thirty years, and this just changed the language for it.

He’s right. These are, in principle and fact, merely efforts to bring Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission process into conformity with best-practices elsewhere.

These are not additional regulatory burdens on private owners — they’re process improvements that are regulations-neutral.

Approvals would merely bring with them certificates of appropriateness to memoralize those approvals.

Why are these proposals a good idea?

Transparency.

A review of Whitewater’s existing Landmarks Ordinance confirms that the commission now has the power to designate, adopt guidelines for designation, rescind designations, and that improvements to landmark sites must be kept in good repair. The first of the two 4.17.12 proposals merely memorializes existing authority.

It’s a good idea to establish a specific document – a certificate of appropriateness — to memoralize these landmark-related actions. One will be able to look for that document, rather than search through minutes, hope to recall what happened at a meeting, or debate what form is a legitimate one for Landmarks Commission approvals (there’s sure to be this debate, and a particular certificate solves this problem.)

The public benefits when administrative bodies adopt specific forms for processes. That’s why, at every administrative level in America (local, state, federal), there are designated forms and pleadings to be used.

Clear, identifiable, open – a more transparent (and so better) modification to an existing authority.

Standardization.

Other communities nearby, and across the state, have adopted certificates of appropriateness. They haven’t done so because it hurts them — they’ve done so because it helps them by making things clearer for all involved. We’ve no reason to consign ourselves to a cloudy process when we can establish a clear one.

This proposal reduces uncertainty, and that’s good for public or private planning.

We’d simply be adopting a statewide standard of care that makes landmarks actions elsewhere more intelligible and definitive. Whitewater needs more clarity, and this is a step in that direction.

Uniformity.

A portion of this proposal, as noted above, would apply a certificate of appropriateness to both public and private sites (excepting, as the existing ordinance already does, safety emergencies).

One standard for all properties (of which there are not many at any rate) is the right standard. Asking government to meet the same standards that the residents are asked to meet is a consistency from which Whitewater will benefit. Not two standards, but one easily memoralized practice for these few, affected properties.

This ordinance involves only the few, nineteen landmark properties in the city (27:00), there is only one property under commission considertation now (26:10) and properties may be de-listed (26:30) in any event. We have only one small historic district (28:00). This is a commisison with a narrowly-defined scope.

The proposal helps move Whitewater toward more transparency, standardizing practices with other communities and assuring consistency within the city.

It’s also encouraging that these ideas came about in the best way — from dedicated residents attending a conference, gathering good ideas that are common elsewhere, and then submitting them as proposals for Whitewater. That’s something to encourage generally, and in this instance.

These are good ideas and amendments worth supporting.

Common Council Meeting 04/17/2012 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.23.12

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Good morning.

It’s a sunny Monday in store for Whitewater, with a high temperature of fifty-eight.

Later today, at 6:30 PM, Whitewater’s Library Board will meet.

From the Wisconsin Historical Society, it’s anniversaries of bad guys, batteries, and batters (there’s my awkward attempt at alliteration):

1934 – FBI rousts Dillinger from Little Bohemia Lodge
On this day the FBI raided the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Vilas Co. They had been tipped off that gangster John Dillinger was hiding at Little Bohemia, but during their raid an innocent Civilian Conservation Corps worker was killed and Dillinger escaped.

1940 – Herman R. C. Anthony Patents the “Leak Proof” Battery
On this date Ray-o-Vac engineer Herman Anthony patented the “leak proof” battery. Patent No. 2,198,423 incorporated a better grade of manganese into the battery and encased the entire cell in a steel jacket. The invention resulted in a leakless battery, and increased battery life and sales for the company based in Madison. [Source: Today in Science]

1954 – Aaron Hits First Big League Home Run
On this date Hank Aaron, playing for the Milwaukee Braves, hit his first major league home run. Twenty years later he broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714.

Google’s puzzle of the day asks about an artist-scientists’s achievement: “The artist who painted “Il Cenacolo” (aka “Ultima Cena”) invented a device to monitor changes in humidity. What was it?”