Tough to pass over Fitzpatrick

It's going to be tough for the Common Council to pass over Acting City Manager John Fitzpatrick now that he and 45 others are official candidates for the manager's post.

He's a hard-working, low-key kind of guy who obviously knows and cares about the city. Of course, in the current environment, those qualities could actually work against him, if the Council thinks it needs an outsider to come in and shake things up.

The case of Richard "Résumé" Wells could be instructive. He's a finalist, again, for a bigger job in another state. This time it looks like he just might get it.

Without question, Wells has worked enormously hard to move the campus forward. But his leaving would come at a time when many of the balls he has gotten up in the air could be starting to come down: Funding for a new academic building is still incomplete, neighbors of the expanding (but unfinished) Oshkosh Sports Complex are still fuming, efforts to overhaul the general education program and to provide greater accountability about educational outcomes to the public are taking shape but are a long way from fruition.

(There's also a demographic time bomb about to go off, as this year's high school graduation class will be the largest of the "echo-boom," meaning that the number of "college-age" students in the state will drop to sharply lower levels for the next decade or so.)

Wells has earned the nickname "Résumé," and a fair amount of resentment among long-time staff, because it often appears that the initiatives he undertakes are for the benefit of improving his résumé as opposed to dealing with fundamental problems on campus.

Sometimes those two goals converge, but not always.

Is this the kind of leader the city needs? I think you could make an argument either way. Someone who uses the city as a steppingstone to a bigger paycheck somewhere else would undoubtedly pour a lot of energy into the position. But just as likely that person would be leaving before the job is done.

On the other hand, someone who is in it for the long haul will likely be someone who is resistant to "the fierce urgency of now," to use one of this presidential season's favorite phrases.

My advice to the Council: Don't forget that it's always possible to make a bad situation worse.

OSAB IV

I know that this is one that a lot of people have been thinking about ever since I started the Oshkosh Separated at Birth series.

Oshkosh Twin

Non-Oshkosh Twin

STOP PRESS: MAGUIRE, RIECKMAN AGREE ON SOMETHING

You have to give some props to the Oshkosh Common Council on this--its decision to make it easier to amend its agenda after it's been published has brought Stew Rieckman and me into alignment on one thing.

Public Notice

Now that the Common Council has given itself permission to sneak things on to the agenda by waiting until after it's been published and distributed, wouldn't it be a good idea for the city to decide that it will make an extra effort to get the word out when new items are added?

Given Internet technology, how hard would that be? Here are my suggestions:

1. Dedicate a section of the city's homepage to highlighting late additions to the Council agenda.
2. Set up an e-mail notification list so that anyone who wants to be notified can be notified.
3. Commit to sending new items to local Web sites that follow Oshkosh government, including this one, the Oshblog, the Northwestern, Eye on Oshkosh, My Two Cents, etc.

Disorganizational meeting

Did I read this right?

The Northwestern reports this morning that the newly seated Common Council has decided that it can amend its agenda by adding new items just 36 hours before it meets.

That's a great way to make sure that citizens don't see things coming.

Those who voted for this change were the Towers Two, Esslinger, McHugh and Palmeri.

OSAB III: A reader writes...

A helpful reader sent in this startling example, this further proof, that many of our fellow Oshkoshians are just one half (or less) of a larger phenomenon, a twin separated at birth. (I'm told there may even be triplets among us.)

It gives me the willies just thinking about what this all means. The person you see on Main Street could be cosmically, but secretly, linked to someone who is actively changing the world, even recharting the course of the universe.

Oshkosh Twin

Non-Oshkosh Twin

Spring plantings (and what the Council needs to grow)

Springtime, and things are started to pop up out of the ground, things like "For Sale" signs.

There are now three (at least) on River Mill Road, which translates into almost 10 percent of all the houses in the neighborhood being on the market. Is it coincidence that the "For Sale" signs have popped up following the forced sidewalkification program that the Oshkosh Common Council imposed on us last year?

Could be.

Doubt it.

(The house at the top of this post belongs to a certain former mayor, who is now retired and who may have many reasons for wanting to move.)

The sidewalks are clearly here to stay, even if some of the neighborhood residents (aka taxpayers) are just as clearly not. So there's no need to debate their merits.

What is left to debate is the performance of the Oshkosh Common Council. As I noted last August, the central task before the Council can be easily described:

What needs to happen is that the city has to find a way to enlarge its tax base. Plain and simple. Everything else is just a distraction.

It ain't sidewalks. It ain't smoking. It's taxing cottonwood trees (only kidding).

Granted--enlarging the tax base isn't a trivial task. If it were easy to do, it would have already been done.

But appointing an economic development commission or hiring a new city manager and offloading the task to someone else won't work either.

The Council was elected to provide the city with leadership. A first step is to define clearly the desired outcome, and the second step is to establish benchmarks and intermediate goals. The third step is to start working in that direction.

Here's a small example. Last week the Council agreed to let the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh use its name to raise some money for work at the "Oshkosh Sports Complex."

What didn't come up during the discussion, however, was the tax-exempt status of the property. Should it remain so? Does part of the university's current "payment in lieu of taxes" cover the stadium complex? Honestly, I don't know.

But it seems to me that if the Council really understood the importance of the one issue before it that will ultimately make all the difference in the world (growing the city's tax base), then it would have made sure that the question of getting some property tax revenue out of this project would have been front and center.

In case anyone misses the point, growth of the tax base is critical for two reasons. The most important one is that the city's tax base has been badly eroded (after accounting for inflation) by the loss of manufacturing. The result is more of a burden shifted to individuals. The second reason is that the only way for the city to provide the kinds of services that the community wants and needs is to continue to increase revenues, if for no other reason than to keep up with inflation.

Property tax revenues are a function of two things, the tax rate and the tax base. If you can boost the latter, you can cut the former.

Budget advisory committee

Yes, I am all for the idea of citizen-journalists, but I think the idea of "citizen- government officials" may be taking the whole "pro-am" concept too far.

It seems to me that one of the reasons the school district hasn't gotten very far with its facilities plan is that someone got the bright idea that the best way to deal with a difficult issue is to "get everyone involved" by forming lots of teams and committees to debate and discuss.

That's not a bad concept, unless it becomes an excuse for elected and appointed officials to dodge the tough decisions. They were, after all, elected or appointed to make tough decisions.

Now it turns out that the Common Council will consider a proposal from Tony Palmeri to form a "Citizen Led Budget Committee." See details here and Tony's discussion here.

Getting citizen input is fine, although I can't say the Council necessarily has a great track record in paying heed to citizen input. And it's not like there are necessarily any hidden financial geniuses out there who are going to step forward.

Providing a forum for citizens to talk about the issue is no substitute for government officials taking the lead, and sticking their necks out, on what is by all accounts going to be a pretty messy situation.

Layoffs of city employees appear to be baked in the cake at this point, as well as cuts in city services.

Council members are going to have to deal with tough trade-offs, but that's why we're paying them "the big bucks." (Small joke.)

OSAB II: Back for more

Since Alex Hummel blew his cover as one of the first Oshkosh Separated at Birth Twins, it's time to move on to our second set.

Oshkosh Twin

Non-Oshkosh Twin

Am I right? Or am I right?

Oshkosh: Separated at Birth

Welcome to OSAB, a new feature of this blog, which will appear on an occasional basis.

I don't know about you, but ever since I moved to Oshkosh last century I have noticed an eerie similarity between certain local personages and much more famous figures from many different walks of life. This has led me to believe that they are identical twins who were separated at birth, with one of the twins left behind here in Oshkosh (or perhaps sent here later in life for safe keeping).

To test this theory I will begin posting from time to time photos of Oshkoshians who appear to have been separated at birth from their better known twin. Your job, gentle reader, will be to identify the two individuals (and also to nominate more people for this feature).

Here is the first set:

Oshkosh Twin


Non-Oshkosh Twin

A call for citizen copy editors

The Northwestern needs you.

Someone has posted a comment on the Northwestern's lead story about a cily error in the headline that goes across the top of the page.

Hey, look, we all make mysteaks.

There's something called "Pulaski's Law": It's trying to do too much.

I think that's what Gannett is asking its employees to do, and sooner or later the strains are going to show.

And it's not that Gannett isn't earning money hand over fist or that it doesn't have money to invest in the important things, like executive bonuses.

Gordon, say it ain't so

I ran into Gordon Hintz at the Common Council meeting, and although I didn't say anything to him I thought he looked well, like the the life of being a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly suited him.

To my horror this morning, however, I learned that he has become a Republican. It says so right here in the Northwestern:

State Rep. Gordon Hintz, R-Oshkosh, nominated the group for the award it received Tuesday night.

I guess that explains why he is looking so hale and hearty.

Can Barack Obama save journalism?

This is not as silly a question as it may seem.

Whoever wins the election in the fall, although my guess is that it will be Obama, the fact is that he has already shaken the established order in American politics by showing that a publicly funded campaign is a real possibility.

Instead of taking money from PACs and lobbyists, Obama has shown that it is possible to raise money, and big money, using the Internet to connect with ordinary citizens.

In all the fuss about whether Hillary will drop out or not, this extremely important point has not gotten nearly the attention it deserves. This is a whole new way of doing the people's business.

Clearly a lot of it has to do with Obama's charisma and star power, but an awful lot has to do with Internet technology. He has blazed a trail that others may follow.

I'm hoping that one of those others is the institution of American journalism.

There's a fascinating discussion occurring over here, a blog/forum sponsored by the Encyclopedia Britannica people.

In a nutshell, here's the problem: Newspaper readers are moving to the Internet, but the use of advertising revenues to subsidize news gathering doesn't work on the Internet because a) Internet advertising is relatively cheap and b)the Internet allows advertisers to stop advertising altogether and find other ways (i.e. the Web) to connect with customers.

Don't take my word for it; read Jay Rosen's analysis.

If you invest in or work at a traditional newspaper company, this is terrible news--especially because of the inevitability of it all. Believe me, there is no turning back on this one.

But if you have long been troubled by the fact that it is corporate America that subsidizes the news business and uses it to advance its agenda, this is not necessarily a bad thing ... so long as we can find someone else to cover the cost of news gathering.

Here's where the Obama thing comes in.

He has shown that it IS possible to turn away from the traditional way of funding a campaign by asking for corporate donations. Instead it is possible to get citizens to cover the costs.

Similarly journalists need to realize that losing the old subsidy system could be the best thing that ever happened to them ... so long as they can develop the mechanisms to tap ordinary citizens for support.

If politicians can do it, I'm pretty confident that reporters can, too.

City getting snowed by lazy landlords

The city fielded a record number of complaints about unshoveled sidewalks this winter and is looking to overhaul its policies on clearing the way when property owners fail to do it themselves.

But in one incident involving a university neighborhood, the city chose to look the other way and let residents slip and slide on the ice.

David Patek, the public works director, discussed the situation during Tuesday's Council meeting. He said he does not have a final count but that the number of complaints about unshoveled snow could be about 2,000 for the past winter season.

Patek will be recommending changes in city policy, including higher fees, once his department has completed its analysis.

Currently the city fields complaints about unshoveled walks and then sends a contractor to clean up the snow and ice. The property owner gets billed for the cost of snow removal.

But Patek thinks the city's fee is too low. "People are taking advantage of us," he said. The city is unable to get snow removed right away, which allows property owners to wait through four or five snowstorms before the city contractor arrives, he explained.

The property owner may have to pay "$50 for five storms'" worth of snow, Patek said, which is cheaper than paying to have the snow removed after each storm. For property owners, "that's money ahead."

Landlords are some of the worse offenders. "We had one case where we had complaints from handicapped renters," Patek said.

But in another case involving a campus area neighborhood, the city decided not to take action. "Everyone had an inch of ice. We had to let them go," he said. "We knew people had done the best they could."

Pull-it-sir!

The Washington Post's huge haul of Pulitzers yesterday raises anew the question of the importance of newspapers, or lack thereof. To be sure, the paper was recognized for its coverage of major stories, and some of that coverage would likely have not happened, or at least not have happened on the same scale, absent an institution like the Post.

On the other hand, Dick Cheney is still vice president, war veterans continue to get poor treatment and shootings will likely continue on college campuses.

For any institution to be successful, it has to matter. Do newspapers matter? I think they do, but they don't matter as much as they used to, or as much as they would like to.

Here on the local scene we are about to see an example of how a newspaper can matter, as the Common Council seems set to change its ways in the handling of "member statements," some of which seem to have morphed from simple bloviating into something resembling decision making.

Thanks to complaints by Stew Rieckman of the Northwestern, it appears the Council is going to try to hew a little closer to the law. That's a good thing.

But newspapers need to do a lot more if they want to return to their former central role. They need both to go in deeper into stories and come out stronger.

That's probably something that won't be done for much longer using the current forms of organization and business models for newspaper companies.



Some people think the necessary changes will come through further experimentation. But the truth is that experimentation is hard, in part because it always includes the possibility (likelihood) of failure.

Blogging yourself to death

The New York Times, in one of its classic "trend stories," reports today on the phenomenon of bloggers blogging themselves to death.

Hmmm.

One of my favorite educational bloggers, Mindy McAdams of the University of Florida, blogged on Friday about the way in which groups aligned with traditional media tend to overlook the positives associated with Web journalism.

(I believe she survived that post and is still alive.)

It's certainly true that the mainstream media have a financial interest in minimizing and marginalizing independent Internet publishers. For example the CEO of craigslist complained last year about the way his site is covered.

Q: How do you feel about your own media coverage? I see that Craigslist often gets reported on as the de facto way of picking up prostitutes.

JIM: We’ve been hearing increasingly from newspaper reporters who confide that they are only allowed to write negative stories about Craigslist these days, because we’re viewed as competition by their newspaper’s business managers. And, obviously, sex sells papers, more so than stories about finding a used couch, so while we do follow our media coverage, most of our attention is devoted to direct feedback from our users.

Too much of anything can be a bad thing, and I'm sure the same is true of blogging. It is really easy to start and really, really hard to do well over a sustained period of time.

The only thing I'm (pretty) sure of is that we are still too new to this Internet thing to see where it's all going to end up.

This death-by-blogging trend makes me wonder if Gannett will have to rethink its plans for new Web sites for all its papers. As described here, one of the things the Northwestern will soon allow you to do is create your own blog on its site.

Will Gannett be legally liable for the death of one of its public bloggers?

Inquiring minds will want to know.

Missing dog (updated)

I just got a note from the highest levels of the Northwestern that its database (not it's database) has been fixed and that domestic animals have returned to River Mill Road.

Hooray!!!

The following is my original post.

My dog has gone missing.

In fact all of the dogs and cats on River Mill Road are gone. They must have been run over by all of those cars that go whizzing through the neighborhood.

(Fortunately Jacques is only missing from the Northwestern's new pet database.)

Actually you can find him if you search on his name. But he's not there if you search by address.

Ah, the wonders of technology!

Who's polluting in Oshkosh?

The EPA published its annual update to the Toxic Release Inventory about a month ago.

The good news is that the trend for the last two decades is downward, but there is still a goodly amount of pollution released in Oshkosh.

To see a list of the city's polluters, from 2006, go here.

Newspaper blogs

A new study from Ball State University suggests that newspaper blogs on political issues are largely a waste of time.

But I suspect that it's really too soon to tell. Some newspapers blogs are certainly better than others. I particularly like Dan Froomkin at the WaPo, although one could argue that what he does is more an "online column" than a blog. It has attributes of both.

A good question that is raised by the Ball State researchers is whether salaried journalists at newspapers would be better off using their time to do something other than blogging, perhaps such as reporting.