The last portion of the 11.13.12 council session on the budget concerned funding for Downtown Whitewater, Inc. That organization sought $30,000, and received $20,000, in municipal funding.
I wrote recently about Downtown Whitewater, in support of 2013 funding. See, The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget: Downtown Whitewater. In that post, I emphasized the importance of our downtown to the city’s overall success, the futility of marketing the city if her downtown were to collapse, and the need for long-term, private solutions to assure a thriving city center.
Consolidation. There’s nothing wrong with, and much good that might be done, through consolidation of support services between Downtown Whitewater, the local Chamber of Commerce, and our Tourism Council. I’ve mentioned before that proposals for consolidation were under consideration. (There had been talk about possibilities like this in years past, but efforts these last few weeks were more fruitful.)
Budget Deadlines. It’s not unreasonable for Common Council to seek a proposed budget during these discussions, but one can see that those expectations not only weren’t set in past years, but they were actually confounded through different expectations of the city’s last municipal manager.
By the end of the meeting, future expectations were plainly stated: the new standard’s clear. However it was, it will be possible next year to meet an earlier budget deadline.
The City’s Role. Whitewater funds more than one civic group, and that’s to those groups’ short-term benefit, but it brings risks.
There are three principal risks: backseat driving from full-time officials, attempts to pressure or influence private businesses’ speech & communication to the liking of public officials, and the risk that organizations receiving funding will become addicted to it (rather than seek a more stable, private footing).
Retail Requires Retail. I enjoy baseball: watching it, talking about it, and writing to friends about it. Yet, for it all, I’m not about to step into a batter’s box and expect to hit away.
The men who manage big league baseball need fans like me, but their teams wouldn’t do well with players like me.
Retail needs to run retail. It’s that simple. Many people can help with our downtown, but it’s merchants who should be taking the lead on business matters. City officials shouldn’t be backseat drivers in this process, on the theory that municipal funding transforms a bureaucrat from a so-called stakeholder to a knowledgeable stakeholder.
Influence does not imply insight: If one gives money to the American Heart Association, the donation doesn’t transform the donor into a cardiologist.
There are many sharp, insightful representatives on Common Council who understand this completely, but there have been leaders in the last municipal administration who patently did not.
A Common Cause. Not all the merchants (and restaurateurs) in this town agree on what they’d like, but success in a still-slow economy will require a greater degree of solidarity than some have yet shown. These business people will have to stick together, and in that solidarity come to see that personal gain will come from the mutual gain of all the business community. A few have trouble seeing this.
Now and Then. We’re in a hard economy, and the community will be significantly injured without thriving merchants and restaurants. For now, support is necessary. But there should be one goal: not just getting by, but growing stronger, and strength of a kind that would no longer make municipal funding necessary.