In Janesville, Less Leadership Is More

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This was originally a draft I wrote after last year’s city council election and slightly updated for today.

JG Excerpt:
JANESVILLE — The top vote-getters in the Janesville City Council primary Tuesday said they look forward to getting their views out now that the field is whittled to six.

The best advice I could give to all six candidates is “don’t.” That is, don’t get your views out there too much, otherwise you could be viewed as an “extremist,” as somebody with an agenda or with axes to grind. Do play up to the media and hint around to high value and low taxes, that’s always a winner.

Volunteer community service with a college education fits the mold the establishment status quo voters are looking for, so long as you don’t try to make it look like you can think on your own. Remember you’re merely a token representative of the entire city, not an agent for change.

The style and make-up of most (not all) of the remaining six candidates are proof that the Janesville City Council elections are nothing more than a personality contest and have little to do with actual governance, guiding principles or politics. The system is set up this way.

When I hear council candidates talk about how it would be nice to have someone from the Look West, 4th Ward or south side neighborhoods of Janesville to represent them in council, I cringe. When I hear a candidate talk how they strongly support business interests, I nod my head side-to-side. The same goes for the candidates who talk about standing up for the “little people,” OR others who say the city is run just fine as it is. I did not vote for any of these because these candidates simply don’t understand what their role would be as a Janesville city council member.

It's important to understand the concept of an "at-large" system. That means each and every council member must represent the entire city, not just your special interest group or your ethnicity, no matter how under-represented you think they might be. It is a laughably impossible task to accomplish with any real forward results. But they have been doing this for 90 years in Janesville and the power players and insiders of the town just absolutely love it.

Just consider the waffling on the sidewalk program or the indecisiveness about the aquatics facilities (2007) for more proof. Each sitting council just keeps putting the tough choices that have to be made onto the next. And because previous councils have expectedly failed under the weight of this process, future actions just keep snowballing. Solutions and corrections just keep getting tougher. It doesn’t matter whether you have 7 council members or 99, when it’s an at-large system, you may as well have just one council member. Nearly all council actions and decisions are arrived in unison. Those that disagree are reminded of the city's (Forward Janesville) directives.

But we can go back even further in time to see what damage this form of government has done to the city. They put a dump in the middle of the city irresponsibly close to ground water resources and then create a competitive economic policy to fill it. Justifying the current location of the dump by claiming the city grew around it doesn't help. It just highlights the poor planning even more.

They deliberately directed retail business focus and planning away from its downtown by claiming the city shouldn't tinker with developers "free market" forces.

For decades, they turned away from the river and abandoned its most centralized and significant parks. Much of this would have never happened with a district representative screaming “not in my backyard” or “how dare you forget us” on behalf of their constituents, tax base and natural assets.

Now, just like this kind of leaderless system demands, the renegade Republicans who refused to accept and eventually abandoned the second Progressive movement predictably enlist the help of consultants and other academics to tell them this, but it might not matter now because if it’s not almost too late, Janesville does not have the kind of governance or willingness to do anything about it. Anything a council would try to do outside of Forward Janesville directives will be viewed as dictator-like or too expensive. Remember, Janesville was run on a shoe-string budget when the local economy was good, relatively speaking, but now what?

So voting for one candidate over another in an at-large system allows us to pretend our voices are heard and that we can make some difference. It doesn’t - but at least it’s something to occupy our time. That’s one of the lesser reasons why I started this blog. The power broking establishment along with their media enablers gaslight independent citizen activists and journalists as negative, malcontents, dividers, extremists and radicals, etc.

In truth, it really doesn't matter which person you vote for in city council, nothing will change to make any real difference until the process is changed and special interests are removed. Things would’ve been very different if Janesville had democratic district representation and I don’t expect it any time soon because……. they like it this way.

This posting like most on this blog is not an attack on any person. It is a blunt criticism of failed policies and of those who perpetrate and endorse those failed policies. It's a shame I even have to make this clarification.