Amanda Beaudry's J347 Blog

The Whitewater City Common Council met on Tuesday, October 3 to consider the 2017-18 city budget, the Landmark Ordinance, and the removal of parking meters on Prince and Prairie Street.

Before the meeting began, a group of protestors, residents and members of the Landmark Commission, stood outside the Municipal building standing up for how they believed the landmarks should be handled. The ordinance would have given power to the Common Council to dismantle the status of a landmark for any reason they felt necessary.

With that ordinance, they would not need approval from the Landmarks Commission. This bothered a lot of Whitewater residents because they felt that the city was overstepping their boundaries.

“It doesn’t seem like the city has very good reasons to be able to just delist it without the Landmarks Commission being involved”, one protester explained.

Ald. Chris Grady (District 3) confirmed that the idea behind this ordinance was if a natural disaster were to happen, the city would have no choice but to pay to repair the landmarks if they were damaged.

“People have been fairly misinformed as to what the goal of this way”, Grady said. “The goal of this ordinance change was to treat city-owned landmarks the same as a private landmark”.

On the other side of the issue, Ald. Stephanie Goettl stated that the ordinance was written so that the council could remove the landmarks if they felt it was mandatory.

Ultimately, the ordinance died on the floor Tuesday during the meeting.

Last spring, UW-Whitewater removed all the parking meters on Prince and Prairie Street so now only students with parking passes would be allowed to park in those spots. Not only did this enrage students, but the university also did not have consent from the city to do this.

Chancellor Beverly Kopper, Vice Chancellor of Administrative Affairs Grace Crickett, and  Campus Police Chief Matthew Kiederlen appeared and spoke at the common council meeting on Tuesday to explain their position on the issue.

“This change was made in part to address the shortage of parking that we see on the south end, the academic area of parking”, Chief Kiederlen said. He also mentioned that this change was set to help with the shortage of about 200 parking spots that the campus is going to lose once the new residence hall is built.

The city has a problem with this move not only because the university did not consult with them beforehand, but Ald. James Allen (At-Large) says that this is a form of “double taxation”. Allen also addressed the University for removing meters on streets that are owned by the city.

The cost of parking at the university did raise $20 and $50 for the north and south parking lots and are strictly reserved for parking permits only. Another change made was on-campus parking tickets went up from $15 to $25 and daily parking passes also went up to $5.

A former university employee, Pam Zarinnia, voiced her concerns, “I’m embarrassed to be part of the city that provides that”, regarding the parking issue.

This issue will be further discussed between the city and the university.

City Manager, Cameron Clapper, presented a PowerPoint on the city’s 2018 budget description. The budget dropped from 2017 by about $30,000 leaving the city’s 2018 budget at exactly $9,174,8466.

This budget is only a proposal and has yet to be approved by the council.

This money would primary come from taxes and intergovernmental revenues, and go to administration and public safety.

Three main notable changes to the budget are wage and health insurance changes, transportation aids reduced to about $715,000, and there would be a full-time Human Resources Coordinator for the city.

Clapper is considering the future in terms of this budget with some long-term financial planning. The council is expected to vote on the budget come November 21.

City Market Brings Life to Whitewater

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Between fresh produce, baked good, homemade pizzas, and live music, there is something for everyone at the Whitewater City Market. Local farmers, artists, food carts, and residents come together to create an extravagant marketplace everyone to enjoy, bringing some excitement to the small town.

Every Tuesday starting in May and going through October, the vendors prepare for their goods to be sold from 3:30 to 7:30 in the evening downtown on Cravath Lake.

The City Market was established in July 2015 and it all started from local business owners and residents who had a vision. They envisioned a farmer’s market that would be held somewhere in Whitewater, but little did they know that they would end up having a total of 50 vendors by 2017.

They began by collaborating with the market that is held on Saturday mornings outside of True Value in Whitewater. They had no interest in taking away from their business. The process took off as an effort attempting to bring the community together and to sell fresh and local produce. Because of the positive feedback from the city, the market was able to flourish.

Kristine Zaballos, manager of Whitewater City Market, says they started the market as “a proof of concept” to see if people would want to bring a market to Whitewater. They ended up with positive results, attracting a lot more vendors than expected.

Whitewater City Market is organized by Downtown Whitewater, a downtown revitalization nonprofit that is funded by the City of Whitewater, businesses, and private donations. The market is planned and organized by a group of people that includes Downtown Whitewater members, market vendors, community members, and local business people.

If you are interested in volunteering at the market you can visit the Downtown Whitewater website and contact Courtney Nelson for more information.

One of the local vendors, Amoureena Klawitter, attends the City Market every Tuesday with her family and sells homegrown pickles, salsa, and jalapeno jelly, and breads based on what is in season. “Meeting all the new people and encouraging people to eat fresh food made homemade”, Klawitter said was her favorite part about having the business and working the Market.

The City Market will be ending in October, so if you would like your fresh vegetables or colorful flowers for the season be sure to check it out! Links are provided at the bottom of the page for more information.

https://www.downtownwhitewater.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pg/WhitewaterCityMarket/about/?ref=page_internal

Being a Broadcast Journalism major, staying up-to-date with the news is my number one job. I read news on the local, state, national, and international level. I like to keep up with what is happening around Whitewater’s campus, but I am also very attentive to what is going on in the Milwaukee and Madison areas. I had an internship at WMTV NBC-15 in Madison over the summer, so I am very tuned in on the Madison news. During my internship I covered a lot of political stories and homicides and it was quite an eventful summer between Foxconn and a record-breaking number of shootings in Madison this summer. Although the political coverage is not particularly my favorite, I learned that it is very beneficial to know about your state legislature, even if it is just the basics.

My home town is Delafield, WI so there is not much action that goes on there. I usually do not pay too much attention to that area, but I do monitor the Milwaukee area which is about 30 minutes out of Delafield. There is quite a bit more that goes on in Milwaukee than in small-town Delafield. If I was interested in finding local news, there is a magazine and local newspaper that gets sent out.

I have news apps on my iPhone, so that is usually where I get all my stories from. If I do visit a news website on my computer, I always go directly to the specific site.  I like to follow Fox 6 in Milwaukee, CNN, WPR/NPR, and NBC 15 Madison. I am well aware that particular news stations can be either right or left learning, so I am conscientious towards that. Most of the time I am able to pick out when a news source is leaning a certain way. I don’t think I particularly have a “favorite” news site, I just like to check multiple sources so I know I am getting correct and unbiased information.

If I do use Google to search for news, it is just to look up particular sites. I never rely specifically on Google or Yahoo! To provide me with accurate information because fake news is easily spread on the Internet.

When I consume news I mostly read text and watch news videos. I like to watch the news because that way you can see video and it is easier to see what exactly is going on, in my opinion. I also really appreciate the hard work that reporters do, so I like to give them the views they deserve. Watching the news is extremely important because not only is it explained in more detail and you can see videos, but you also get more information at once. It is one story after another, compared to visiting a news website you are just reading one story.

I usually do not interact with news by posting comments, because lately that has been leading to online arguments, but I do enjoy reading everyone’s comments and understanding where people are coming from and why they think the way they do. People have such radical views sometimes and it is extremely intriguing to try to understand why they believe certain things. Besides my internship, I have been on job shadows at Fox 6 with Stephanie Grady (my favorite news anchor), and I was able to see what her days consist of and how she does her job. During my internship I followed a reporter daily so I was also able to experience news first-hand that way.

Regarding social media, I follow news sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I do not follow random sites that claim they provide news. I always make sure I am following accurate and reliable sites that I know will give me correct information. Twitter is a good way to follow individual reporters, anchors, etc., and get quick and easy news updates. Facebook is good for news as well because they make it very easy to ‘share’ the exact news story. I do not read blogs or listen to podcasts, but I do plan to listen to WPR and NPR in the future.

I know the news I receive online is accurate only because I go straight to the specific sites, but a lot of times those sites will have ads at the bottom of their webpages that can be a little sketchy. I have read stories before that have been right and left learning, but I don’t think I have ever read a story that was completely false… at least that I know about!

To start things off, I am a Broadcast Journalism student with a minor in psychology at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. I will be graduating in the spring of 2018 with my Bachelor’s degree. I love coffee, white wines, craft beer, a good book and socializing with just about everyone. I have a passion for listening to people’s stories (which makes sense as to why I’m a journalist). I love to travel and my dream is to live in Chicago someday. Taking pictures is also a hobby of mine and although I’m not too great at it, seeing objects through the lens of a camera is an awesome experience. Hope you all like my page!