Link: http://cityofwhitewater.blip.tv/file/3910060/
Whitewater, Wisconsin held its last Common Council meeting on July 20th. There’s another session tonight, but a part of the last session deserves notice as an example of a dodgy discussion.
On the agenda of the last meeting, one finds this item, C-7, nestled in the middle:
C-7. Review of and possible direction regarding city ordinances related to grass, weeds and natural lawns and enforcement thereof. (Council member Olsen request.)
I have embedded and linked the video of that meeting, above, and the discussion of item C-7 is available for viewing beginning at 1:27:45 and ending at 1:48:30.
Everything about this is dodgy, and one can see that another common council member rightly asks about the origin of the idea. Others see that the three areas for consideration (grass, weeds, and natural lawns) involve, variously, separate issues of common rights of way as against private property.
There’s a significant difference between the treatment of common and private property.
Missing this lends a slapdash, sketchy, and dodgy aspect to the discussion. If one can’t describe a proposal simply and directly, there’s a problem.
One can guess that we’ve not heard the last of this, especially regarding natural lawns.
For now, four quick points —
First, no paid leader from the city staff who speaks sounds persuasive or clear about the topic. They jumble different concepts. It makes one wonder if some of the discussion is a fig leaf other concerns or motivations. Alternatively, these may be frivolous men who can’t think a topic through properly. The former is worse than the latter, but neither is reassuring.
Second, does Whitewater’s city manager, Kevin Brunner have a serious priority of his own, or is he led around by others? This is a municipal administration that cannot set meaningful priorities. Brunner came to town with great hopes from residents. He squandered them on too many initiatives, half-baked and ill-considered, and now he’s simply lost control of the agenda. Others have become the tail that wags the dog. Having shown himself to be ineffectual, thin-skinned, and glass-jawed, it seems that others simply push him around.
The Very Model of a Modern Municipal Manager has defended many of these officials, but they’ll not pay him back in reciprocal support. Instead of defending principle, Brunner’s administration caters to certain self-important men, like a hurried waiter with too many tables.
He looks frivolous and weak trying to justify these concerns.
It does no good to scurry for a few leaders, when frontline workers and residents are ignored or bullied.
Third, there’s no more commonplace justification for regulation than a public safety rationale. We just want to keep people safe, officials will say. They don’t and often can’t show a single actual hardship, but regulatory addicts will use the progressive idea of safety and public health to advance an anti-ownership, anti-property agenda.
It’s a tactical effort by which politicians and bureaucrats who would otherwise be seen as petty reactionaries can cast themselves as high-minded guardians of public safety.
If there are real safety concerns, that one can show, then so be it.
One will not find such concerns about natural lawns, or a few spruces on a terrace, however. It’s both laughable and ignorant that the meeting’s consideration of the topic mixes these situations with other concerns. (Note: neither of these situations apply to me. I’m not writing out of personal concern, or connection to any other resident. I simply know a dodgy proposal when I hear one.)
Fourth, apart from safety, there are problems of desuetude and selective enforcement that Brunner and his staff seem not to understand. It’s not always possible to leave a regulation unenforced and then start enforcing it. Selective enforcement of the dormant ordinance is another risk. (Do Brunner and his leaders really think that a declaration one night, with enforcement the next morning, would be permissible?)
It took only a short while for others in the room to make distinctions that those from the city payroll either didn’t, or couldn’t, make.
One can be sure, however, that Whitewater will hear much more about this, from city bureaucrats. They’ll be back for more – they’re suddenly motivated.