The 2014 election

To the Taxpayers of Platteville: In the spring two of our Common Council members will be up for re-election. You need to start asking yourself who would you like to see run against Ald. Eileen Nickels in District 2 and Ald. Patrice Steiner for her at-large seat.

City Hall is out of control. It has been turned over to a complete stranger, our City Manager. Our City Building Inspector stated at a recent Board of Appeals Meeting that when the city manager came to town he had a strong personal agenda to clean up the city. The first thing he did was send out an email to encourage all residents to turn in their neighbors.

I can only imagine how this scene would play out, from one neighbor to another: “I just got a call that my mother is ill and I will be out of town for a few days so would you feed my cat and water my plants. Oh, by the way, I turned you into the city and you will be getting one of those ‘I hereby order you’ letters and a $50 fine.”

“I hereby order you”: isn’t that a great way to point out that someone needs to buy a weed trimmer?

If you are a senior citizen please consider running for Common Council and not selling your home and leaving town.

Our Common Council needs more change: For example, the new retail building on Business 151 between Ellen Street and Virgin Avenue is being forced to spend $22,000 to build a sidewalk to nowhere by the city. If the payments are $1,000 per month, it will take almost two years to pay off the loan, plus it will raise the fixed cost of operation for that business.

This is a south-facing hillside and during the day the snow will melt and at night turn to ice. This will make the sidewalk into a bone-breaking accident waiting to happen. Our Common Council voted to force the owner to put in the sidewalk even after the building permits were issued. Walgreen’s was not forced to put in a sidewalk, and that sidewalk would have met an existing sidewalk. This is not fair and equal for a business wanting to come to Platteville.

When taxpayers in Platteville decide between food or medical attention they need, our city building inspector makes them buy paint. Being handicapped or taking chemotherapy treatments for cancer makes no difference.The Common Council is the boss of city employees and has failed to find out what they are doing and or control them. Please get involved. Run for Common Council. Let’s take back the City of Platteville.

When you vote to send our city manager, who makes almost $100,000 a year, on a three-day vacation paid for by the taxpayers, something is wrong. Please consider running for Common Council … now.

UW–Platteville is asking the city to spend $20 million for an Innovation Center — a huge gain for UWP, with taxpayers stuck with a $20 million bill.

There had to be at least one person in Platteville who could have replaced Paul Budden; instead the city manager hired someone from out of town.

The city’s power should not be used to terrorize taxpayers. If you stop and see a friend on the south side of Platteville, you can be fined $50 if you do not have a parking permit. The reason why is because the city let UWP expand without adequate parking.

Darrel Browning
Browning Motors, Platteville
gdbrowning@live.com

Sports awards

Another year of Platteville High School athletics is about to start. It gets really hectic with all the athletic banquets that will be going on. It would be a great idea to have them before the season starts from now on. At least in girls’ basketball anyway.

Our girl graduated last year. What a pathetic experience. Performance has absolutely nothing to do with team awards in this sport.

Our daughter loves to play ball. She has a major problem though — she is good. It is an absolute shame and actually quite mean to have been treated the way she has. It came from parents and teammates. When the coaches show favoritism, it gets really sickening.

She was always a good athlete. As a freshman, she was already one of the better players in school. However, the coach said she had to earn her spot on varsity. His favorite player didn’t, but she did. See any hypocrisy here?

There is an old saying, “Figures never lie, but liars figure.” How true this has been for girls ball. Our girl played freshman ball, but wasn’t nearly talented enough for JV according to her coach. As a sophomore she played JV with a sniff of varsity. She watched girls play who couldn’t dribble, run, pass or shoot. Other than that, they were great players. Finally as a junior, after scoring more points than most girls have scored on varsity, she was honored with the opportunity to start varsity.

She scored 302 points and was third in the conference in scoring. That was more points than anyone scored on varsity her sophomore year. It begs the question: why wasn’t she playing sooner? One would think she would be selected first team all-conference. From what I could find out, no one third in scoring ever wasn’t. Well, she wasn’t. The coach weaseled in his favorite player.

Her senior year was even better. Conference awards are supposed to be based on conference performance, not politics. It has been going on forever in Platteville. It stinks, but until we find people with integrity and character, it will continue. In conference play, our daughter averaged 15.6 points a game, led the team in rebounds, steals, had eight more blocks than the rest of the team put together, and shot 48 percent from the field. She was second in conference scoring. If anybody from Platteville was player of the year, how could she not be?

Well, she wasn’t. Once again, the coach weaseled in his favorite player. She averaged 8.2 points a game and was fourth on our team in conference scoring. If we had any kind of an administration, this would not go on. From this end comes lip service and letters. Politics as usual.

I don’t care who gets postseason awards, but I do care when they are just given because of name. This is the Platteville way and exactly why mediocrity has ruled in Platteville sports. I could not be more proud of our daughter. She will be strong. People always say, “Adversity builds character.” We have the characters in our school, just not the character.

Spencer Bilderback
Platteville

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