Tuesday night was common council night in Whitewater, and below are sundry remarks about the session.
City Budget Process. Our public budget process is surely a deliberative one: it stretches over October and November. Whitewater’s interim city manager plans to deliver a proposed 2013 budget to council on 10.9 (Tue), with specific portions considered on 10.16 (Tue), 10.23 (Tue), 11.8 (Thr.), possible revisions considered on 11.13 (Tue), and proposed adoption of a budget on 11.20 (Tue).
A Liquor License for the Black Sheep Restaurant. Council approved a liquor license for the restaurant, allowing it offer mixed drinks to its patrons. If there’s ever been a sensible candidate for a liquor license (and there have been many), it would be one like this. The city is skittish about any alcohol, and so perhaps to placate the most wary in the community, one even heard that the interim, acting Community Development Authority director found the license consistent with local development goals.
I’d like to think that, just walking about town, and thinking about what people might enjoy, one could come to that conclusion, without any title, and without reference to any state statutes.
Noise Ordinances. Are people making too much noise in the morning, and particularly, are they mowing their lawns too early? Changes in existing ordinances, where those changes would limit residents’ activities, should require a showing of a significant, compelling need for new restrictions.
It should be this simple: if no significant showing, then no justification, and so no new restrictions.
Permit Fees. Perhaps permit fees are oddly distributed; it wouldn’t hurt to adjust them for a few that might be out of alignment with the rest. Best prospect: a net reduction.
The City Manager Search. This is a big development for the city, but not everyone will think it’s big for the same reason. For the old guard, this choice matters for the person selected: “What will that person be like, how will he or she relate to me?”
Those things matter, but they matter not half as much as what the candidates think about, and will do about, managing the city. These last years have put lie to countless schemes, vanities, and conceits. One cannot improve life outside without being of firm stuff inside.
It’s really too funny — and so very predictable — that an initial proposal was for an invitation-only reception with Whitewater’s notables, and an open community forum thereafter. That proposal was sensibly discarded in favor of a reception and a later community forum, both open to all. Council would interview all the candidates in closed session a day later.
Whitewater’s town fathers are in a provincial version of the British and French situation during the Suez crisis: they’ve lost their former, preeminent positions, but they’re not aware (or are unwilling to acknowledge) that loss. They can act, but not with the same effect as a previously. They’re not done, but they’re no longer what they were.
A decade from now, when the city’s prospects will likely be stronger, theirs will be be weaker still. There is, in fact, a relationship between the two: as they wane, the city will grow.