Let’s see how I did on predictions for 2011. The list for last year appears below, with my guesses from last year in blue, and the correct answer in red.
1. In 2011, the University will win the following number of national sports championships:
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two
Adams’s guess: C. Two.
Correct answer: C. Two, in football and wheelchair basketball.
2. Under a new focus on blighted properties, the City of Whitewater will
A. Help rehabilitate a few properties and condemn a few others
B. Make lasting headway against blight
C. Make only temporary headway against blight
D. Accidentally condemn Whitewater’s Municipal Building on aesthetic grounds
Adams’s guess: A. Help rehabilitate a few properties and condemn a few others and C. Make only temporary headway against blight. Although, there’s an outside chance that, following a party, some official will D. Accidentally condemn Whitewater’s Municipal Building on aesthetic grounds.
Correct answer: C. Make only temporary headway against blight. Only growth will meaningfully and lastingly eliminate blight.
3. Of the following print publications, how many will fold in 2011? (Daily Union, Janesville Gazette, Good Morning Advertiser, Whitewater Register)
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. More than two
Adams’s guess: B. One.
Correct answer: None.
4. This year, how many incumbent Common Council members will be defeated in their bids for office?
A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. Three
Adams’s guess: B. One.
Correct answer: None. It was a local incumbent’s year, as it is almost every year.
5. New 2010 Census figures will show that poverty from 2000 to 2010
A. Dropped
B. Increased slightly
C. Increased significantly — up 1/10th or more as an increase over the decade
D. Was unchanged
Adams’s guess: C. Increased significantly — up 1/10th or more as an increase over the decade.
Correct answer: C. Although all the U.S. figures aren’t out for Whitewater, they are sure to corroborate other findings that show marked increases in Whitewater’s poverty.
6. In 2011, the Whitewater Innovation Center will serve as
A. a catalyst for meaningful job growth
B. a source of meaningful technological innovation
C. a waste of money, time, and greenspace
D. Wisconsin’s largest LEED-certified pigeon coop
Adams’s guess: C. a waste of money, time, and greenspace although, there’s an outside chance that it will become D. Wisconsin’s largest LEED-certified pigeon coop.
Correct answer: C. The project is a failure by its own standards. A defense of it is absurd and evidence of political dysfunction.
7. 2010 Census figures will show that compared with Jefferson, Fort Atkinson, Delavan, and Palymra, Whitewater’s economy is
A. Stronger
B. About the same
C. Weaker
D. Much weaker
Adams’s guess: C. Weaker.
Correct answer: It’s likely to be C, although all the data are not yet available. Available data on child poverty suggest we’ll fall behind Jefferson, Fort Atkinson, and Palmyra.
8. To assure the loyalty of all residents to the vision and goals of the City of Whitewater, City Manager Brunner will propose that each resident
A. Complete a Myers Briggs evaluation
B. Carry a small red book with Brunner’s most popular sayings
C. Stand in his or her doorway at dawn, and sing the city’s Ballard of Acquiescence and Assimilation Stanzas One through Three, and Five
D. Find and publish no fewer than two dozen, mostly inapt quotations to be used as proof of an enlightened sensibility
Adams’s guess: B. Carry a small red book with Brunner’s most popular sayings.
Correct answer: None of the above, although ’12’s another chance. Really, though, serial over-promising and under-delivery have taken a toll, and there’s less margin than ever for grand but empty gestures or cheerleading about the same.
9. Large swaths of Whitewater’s Business park will
A. Remain vacant
B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!
C. Be filled with new businesses
D. Become a landfill and state-certified seagull preserve
Adams’s guess: A. Remain vacant and B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!
Correct answer: A. Remain vacant and B. Remain seeded with corn (as they are now)!
10. The Whitewater Unified School District’s proposal to the state for a charter school will be
A. Approved
B. Denied
C. Tabled
D. Unfunded due to changes in state and federal funding
Adams’s guess: A. Approved.
Correct answer: A. Approved. This was one of the best developments of ’11, and a genuine innovation.
That’s a score of about seven of ten, and a score easily achieved when one writes one’s own questions. Some data are yet pending, but that’s a fair assessment, I think.