There’s a Common Council meeting tonight (3.6.12 @ 6:30 PM), and embedded below is the most recent session before tonight, from 2.23.12.
One may watch the video and draw one’s own conclusions. To me, there’s seems a ponderous quality to the session.
I’d say there’s a discernible gap between promises of planning (for example, what may come from fiber-optic cable) and enthusiasm for those ideas.
It’s not that there’s something wrong with fiber-optic cable; there isn’t. It’s that promises of success from prior investments have proved false, and have been both laughably and infuriatingly exaggerated.
Whitewater’s hit the limits of exaggeration as policy.
The chamber was mostly empty, as it typically is.
How is this? It is not — and cannot be — the fault of residents in the city. I’d guess it’s their reasonable reaction to serial puffery from Whitewater’s city administration. People don’t attend because they’ve other matters — more important and more pleasant — before them.
If the city doesn’t attract more community input, the failure rests with those who govern. It’s an easy, self-serving, and false pose to blame residents for lack of participation, or for community confusion.
If residents are not participating, it’s because government’s not sufficiently enticing to them. If they’re confused, it’s because government’s failed to communicate properly. The world has too many doctors who blame their patients, merchants who hate their customers, and politicians who bemoan public apathy.
It’s the wrong approach.
Common Council Meeting 02/23/2012 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo.