I had some fun with a pop quiz for early January, and here’s another.
What is the single biggest issue – problem, challenge, concern – facing Whitewater in 2009?
I opened two categories for entries: dead-serious concerns, and silly ones. Entries were accepted through Friday, January 30th at 5:59 a.m.
Here are the results, by category, in order of frequency —
Dead Serious Concerns —
- Economy/Jobs/Recession. This was by far the most expressed concern. No other really topic even came close. The concern is often typically specific and personal – a certain job, or jobs at a given employer, that might be lost.
- Business Development/Retention/Survival. There’s an obvious connection between the leading concern about the economy and this one, but it’s a topic all its own. Here, most of the concerns were about businesses.
- Quality of Living Concerns – Campus/Student Housing, Parking, Trash. Far less frequent than the first two concerns, but still a worry. Most who wrote along these lines (about ¾) felt that these were legitimate concerns, but about ¼ felt that the problem was that these were exaggerated concerns.
- Cost of Services. Five readers wrote with the belief that ‘belt-tightening’ (phrase used) should begin with the city, in a reduction of services or employment, of one kind or another, as a cost-saving measure.
- Special mention: Bike Bridge to Nowhere. One reader noted that the partially-completed bridge near the bypass is especially odd, sitting incomplete. Regardless of responsibility for completion, it is an embarrassment, as half-finished projects often are.
Silly Ones
- Dumpsters. Most people wrote that the silliest concern in the city was the dumpster problem. This was by far the number one silly concern. There were teasing descriptions of these dumpsters, too – illegal, dangerous, malicious, wayward, and threatening.
- Jaywalking. My personal favorite, on the silly concern side, came in as the second most frequent response.
- Campus/Student Housing. Some readers approached this simply as a comical concern (unlike those who thought it was a real concern, or a real-because-overblown concern).
- Raucous behavior. I found this phrase in the draft minutes of a Police and Fire Commission meeting, wrote using it, and now find that it comes back to me, as a teasing reference to municipal concerns about raucous behavior. Several readers mentioned it, sometimes tying it with a city concern about inappropriate behavior, of whatever sort.
- Special mention: Hygiene. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this as a municipal concern, but one reader mentioned that he felt his neighbors were, well, not the most well-scrubbed people in America. Sorry – no suggestions, there. Good luck, best wishes.
Thanks to everyone for your entries.