I’ve offered predictions for 2010, but here’s something different: a list of topics for this website in the year ahead. It’s sure to change, but here are a few broad topics that interest me.
1. The Press. Nothing would improve our local politics more than a strong local press. Not blogs, but a local press that’s something more than a lapdog to politicians and bureaucrats. The old year was a good lesson in how bad most press coverage of Whitewater really is, and reviewing and commenting on news coverage will require more time and attention. If anything, newspapers in 2009 got an easy pass, much to the detriment of truth, fairness, and common sense.
Only one publisher covered Whitewater and Walworth County professionally. For the rest, it was fawning, flacking, and excuse-making on behalf of politicians and bureaucrats.
I’m also curious about the relative strength of nearby papers (Register, Daily Union, Gazette), and the online Banner. The papers report their circulation figures to the state, using one from a number of circulation auditing services, but Wisconsin is tardy in updating those numbers.
We may be the only town in Wisconsin where the conflict between politician and news site is so complete they are one in the same. As much wouldn’t have happened in a normal political culture.
It’s one of the many reasons for optimism in 2010 – the examples here are so stark and egregious, that one can illuminate them easily.
2. Markets. The Phantom Stranger wrote in recently, and reminded me of some of the challenges that we have with local markets– we don’t have enough competition for certain basic services, and consumers are at the mercy of only a few suppliers. He’s right, and this is a problem for Whitewater that’s ignored when one reads or thinks only about what the City of Whitewater considers a priority.
Our municipal administration favors big ticket projects over the actual improvement that would come from a city more inviting to business.
We aren’t more attractive because we spend and tax for big ticket projects, or because we waste money marketing a town different from the one that business people will find when they actually visit Whitewater. We could be more attractive, if we would reduce significantly both taxes and regulations, and allow businesses to take root on their own.
The guiding, but shaky, hand of our municipal administration offers no real improvement in life for common people.
The only power our small city has is to regulate, and she so often oversteps prudent exercise of that authority that current businesses are burdened to exhaustion, and prospective businesses discouraged from ever setting up shop here.
3. Public Records. There’s much about which to consider, and then write, about how Whitewater’s leading politicians and bureaucrats comply with Wisconsin’s public records law.
I have a series to run, after some follow up.
4. Open Meetings. Wisconsin has an open meetings law, governing public meetings in the state. (See, WOML, ss. 19.81-19.98, Stats.)
The law is more – far more – than a guide to officials’ conduct of meetings. It’s a defense of citizens’ rights, assuring open access to public proceedings.
In Whitewater, some meetings are televised, but others aren’t. There are only so many places that Whitewater’s public access television staff can reach. They currently provide the only truly comprehensive records of Whitewater meetings.
And yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. A citizen has a right to record public meetings, too, and a municipality has a legal obligation to accommodate that recording.
There is much more to write about this topic, at another time: what the law allows citizens, what it requires of officials, and how one can usefully record public, open-session meetings in Wisconsin.
It’s enough to say this – some of these gentlemen will not end the year as they have arrogantly lived so many before: relying only on shabby minutes, with their actual words (whether many or few) unknown to the broader public.
What they once did unobserved can lawfully be recorded and seen openly. They may choose to conduct themselves as they wish: the result will be available either way.
5. Grant Spending. Ever wonder what a federal grant requires, and how the money gets spent? How a project starts out at one cost, but ends up far higher in final expense?
Why not pick a project, and find out?
The year will offer all number of twists and turns, but that’s part of the fun – the adventure – of commentary on life in town.