Today's Definition

A spoiled brat is characterized by "excessive, self-centered, and immature behavior". It includes lack of consideration for other people, recurrent temper tantrums, an inability to handle the delay of gratification, demands for having one's own way, obstructiveness, and manipulation.

All Those Little Purchases

A method for centralized procurement and materials management to ensure the availability of materials, supplies, equipment, and services to meet the City’s capital equipment and operational needs may be of value. Possibly contracting with a firm to manage the awarding of contracts for professional and general services that are necessary to support the City’s operational and administrative functions may provide some financial benefits.

State EAV notice

Wow, a 3% drop in EAV, 490 to 475. I expected maybe a 0% growth or at worst a 1% drop. The debt levy number is going to look huge.

Ah The Budget

Because cities are site-specific, they respond to changing paces and patterns of development and decline in their area. They may, through their taxing and regulatory powers, try to influence the location decisions of firms and individuals as the latter navigate the constantly changing waters of economic activity and social change. Cities provide services within their borders to residents, businesses, and those vacationing there, doing business or simply passing through. Many cities must work harder to provide these services because they have smaller tax bases, larger dependent populations, less income and wealth, or because of their natural features (like harsh weather or sparse populations).

Budget Issues

This year we need to concentrate on outcomes. Outcomes define the purpose of the City's existence. They drive the manager’s planning and controlling of the delivery of services to the community. An Outcome is the ultimate result you are trying to achieve through your goods or service delivery. It is the degree of accomplishment and it focuses on the critical end product, rather than process, requiring a high level of accountability for achieving that stated purpose. Most of the conflicting expectations are the result of process rather than outcome. Most processes are the result of planning decisions related to the system capacity.
When we consider the city system from the perspective of a physical system, the product of that system probably is most appropriately considered as the delivery of things -- services or objects -- from one provider to an appropriate recipient. Thus, at the microscopic level of a service delivery by a provider of a single service, such as brush pickup, the product of the city system would be a change in how the individual’s brush is picked up. This policy helps reduce the consumption of gas, labor spent searching for brush piles and wear on vehicles by reducing vehicle travel time. Each pickup day has a route with the specific locations of requested pickups rather than traveling every street in the city to find possible brush piles. Along with these changes came a number of concomitant changes. An, example is that residents must schedule appointments by the Monday prior to the collection date to be placed on the schedule. Thus there occurred changes in the conditions of the service as a result of the government policy. The outcome still results in brush removal and produces other beneficial outcomes, like saving gas, vehicle condition, reallocated labor costs and reduced ozone issues.

Grant "No Parking"

The intersections of Norton and Birch Streets with Grant Street are offset by approximately 145 feet creating two relatively close “T” intersections. The crosswalk across Grant Street is located on the west side of Birch Street and crosses from north to south. With setbacks for the intersections, crosswalk and driveways – there is still enough parking for approximately three vehicles.
During school hours, this has become a popular drop-off location for parents wanting to avoid the congestion at Prospect and Birch. The number of small children using this crosswalk has become significant. The traffic count in this area during school hours is relatively high and the parking between Norton and the crosswalk creates visibility problems for traffic approaching the crosswalk from the west.
The intent of the “No Parking” is to improve visibility for the traffic approaching the intersection from the west and improve safety for the children using the crosswalk. The “during school hours” portion of the parking restriction allows residents of the area to have guest parking during none school hours.
This ordinance was sponsored by Councilmember Joe Van Tassel at the request of the Police Department and Street Department.

FINDING THE TRUTH

The first basic, before any argument should begin, is to agree on the definitions and on the parameters of the argument. If a person does not understand objective versus subjective information, you cannot argue with them, especially when they want to use subjective information as objective information.
Objective Evidence is physical evidence that someone, when reviewing a statement, can inspect and evaluate for themselves. It provides compelling evidence that the statement actually represents the information which can be proven true, based on facts that substantiate the charge being made. The evidence must not be circumstantial but must be obtained through observation, measurement, test or other means. Another words, can we have the evidence this person is using to make this statement please?
Objective information is to subjective information as "matters of fact" is to "matters of taste." You can only really argue about matters of fact. Matters of taste are "subjective" in the proper sense of that term ("I like ice cream," "I think classical music is for the birds").
SUBJECTIVE EVIDENCE is evidence that you cannot evaluate -- you have to simply accept what the person says or reject it. Subjectivity basically is a ‘personal opinion’ which can also be considered as ‘personal feeling’ or ‘personal conclusion’ which is based on ‘personal information’. Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves. Believing in something false doesn't make it true! If I believe I can fly and I jump out a window, I'm still gonna fall.
When philosophers and psychologists discuss self-deception, they usually focus on unconscious motivations and intentions. They also usually consider self-deception as a bad thing, something to guard against. To explain how self-deception works, they focus on self-interest, prejudice, desire, insecurity, and other psychological factors unconsciously affecting in a negative way the will to believe. A common example would be that of a parent who believes his child is telling the truth even though the objective evidence strongly supports the claim that the child is lying. The parent, it is said, deceives him or herself into believing the child because the parent desires that the child tell the truth. A belief so motivated is usually considered more flawed than one due to lack of ability to evaluate evidence properly. The former is considered to be a kind of moral flaw, a kind of dishonesty, and irrational. The latter is considered to be a matter of fate: some people are just not gifted enough to make proper inferences from the data of perception and experience.
However, it is possible that the parent in the above example believes the child because he or she has intimate and extensive experience with the child but not with the child's accusers. The parent may be unaffected by unconscious desires and be reasoning on the basis of what he or she knows about the child but does not know about the others involved. The parent may have very good reasons for trusting the child and not trusting the accusers. In short, an apparent act of self-deception may be explicable in purely cognitive terms without any reference to unconscious motivations or irrationality. The self-deception may be neither a moral nor an intellectual flaw. It may be the inevitable existential outcome of a basically honest and intelligent person who has extremely good knowledge of his or her child, knows that things are not always as they appear to be, has little or no knowledge of the child's accusers, and thus has not sufficient reason for doubting the child. It may be the case that an independent party could examine the situation and agree that the evidence is overwhelming that the child is lying, but if he or she were wrong we would say that he or she was mistaken, not self-deceived. We consider the parent to be self-deceived because we assume that he or she is not simply mistaken, but is being irrational. How can we be sure? I will allow some slack to the accuser.
OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE is evidence you can examine and evaluate for yourself.
In the case of objectivity, we have an external and independent ‘object’, which can ‘verify’ the truth-value of the objective information or statement. In the case of ’subjectivity’, the contents of personal information, on which the subjective opinion was based, were known only to the person who held that subjective opinion whereas in the case of objectivity, the ‘external object’ (or event) on which the objective information is based, can be known to everyone whoever himself wants to verify the objective statement. In the case of an objective statement, there is an underlying assumption about the existence of some ‘external object’ that can verify the truth-value of that objective statement and vice versa that in a false objective statement there is a lack of any ‘external objects’ to verify the statement. Whoever is interested in knowing the truth-value of an objective statement, can resort to that ‘external object’ or the lack of any ‘external objects’ for this purpose.

The Truth

What's with the beating up staff for having opposing views. Then there's the stating things that aren't the truth without opportunities to correct. May be I'll call DWD. Oh, sorry, I meant I already knew what DWD was going to do.

Bond Sale

The recent Lake Mills GO Promissory Note sale was phenomenal for the City and should be celebrated. The City reached far below what the rating indicates in terms of an interest rate –Lake Mills’ interest rates beat the those of a higher rated Village (Moody’s Aa2) by a significant margin on the same day.