Sometimes the most telling discussion within a meeting occurs early, in remarks offered nearly offhand.
That was true with last night’s Common Council meeting, in remarks from her city manager, Kevin Brunner. Two of his topics deserve mention.
On the Innovation Center, the city manager distributed a glossy one-year anniversary book, and a glossy tri-fold brochure describing the Center. It’s such an old, tired approach that I’m not sure it’s serious.
There’s a place for marketing, but will anyone worth having choose the Center, or even learn about it this way? I’m not convinced. If the purpose of these glossy docs should be to use on a job interview (‘look what I helped build!’), then it makes some sense to me. That’s not a good reason to spend money, but at least it might work for an applicant looking for other pastures.
If the goal should be to sell the Center to the kinds of tenants who would be suited to its original purpose, I’d guess an all-electronic presentation would be better.
Greener, too.
A second topic came up early, too. There’s the chance that a local business, Generac, will win public approval for a bus line between the Janesville area and Whitewater. This is all very preliminary, but as the city manager mentioned it, I’ll respond.
Buses to shuttle a private businesses’s workers from Whitewater to other cities should be that business’s private investment. Schemes to begin with private money, but then add public costs borne by all taxpayers, are unfair.
The residents of Whitewater, Janesville, or anywhere else do not owe Generac a bus line, or even part of a bus line. If they’ve hired many, for the considerable work they must be doing, the transportation for those workers should be Generac’s business concern, not Whitewater’s municipal one.
It’s also backwards thinking – if I understand the city manager’s description correctly – to begin with private money and then transition to public money. A drop of private fuel for a spark should not lead to a gas tank of public money.
I wouldn’t be inclined to this plan generally, but if it had any merit, it would start with a small amount of public money and then transition to private funds.
Better still: private Generac uses its own revenues for its own employees, as employer and employees mutually decide, without reliance on Whitewater’s general public.
Plans involving brochures and buses aren’t new ideas as much as confirmation about how misguided policy in this small city has been.
