The City of Whitewater’s Common Council discussed the new changements coming to Whitewater. The city talked about the new renovations to Fremont Street and gravel being added on the shoulder by the ditch off Forest Street, property taxes of Whitewater and updates on how the city is spending their money on. 

Currently, the contractor is finishing up and then will be working on the sanitary sewer, storm sewer and closing the road and placing the base onto Ann Street. 

“We observed worsening mineral deposits and filters and we’re planning to analyze samples in our Wastewater,” said City Manager John Weidl.  I’m assuming and develop a maintenance strategy based on the results.”

More information will be released at the next city council meeting. 

Not just new streets and pavement are coming to town, but the City of Whitewater’s property taxes have also increased during the 2023-2024 year. 

The City of Whitewater has seen a huge increase in levy of over 60,000. Not enough to cover due to inflation, but enough to see the increase.

The population of Whitewater has increased from roughly 14,889 in 2022 to 15,458 in 2024. But this has been an issue due to having around 16,134 people in 2020. An decrease of 4.19%.

“A higher per capita levy indicates greater reliance on property taxes to fund municipal operations and it is a critical financial benchmark that helps municipalities assess the adequacy and impact of their property tax revenue and both in terms of sustainability and the burden it places on residents,” said Finance Director Rachel Blitch.

Council members have backed up the case by talking about how the community does have a university and it will go up and down throughout the years. 

More information is still being processed and will be a topic of discussion throughout the common council meetings this year. 

Community member Michael Smith discussed how he felt not only with how the city is using their budget, but he thinks it has gone too far and as a community member, he wants to know where this money is taking both him and for the community. 

“You know and as a citizen, I hear the spending repeatedly. You know we have the $5.1 million basically the city provides basically the city taxpayers providing one third roughly of the building costs for a 128 unit facility down there and and it’s like I just would love to have some fiscal prudence. My taxes have gone up, my city taxes have gone up 42% in the last two years 42%,” Smith said. “It’s like I guess I’ll just leave it at that I just I you know we can go through the numbers. My hope would just be that you take the taxpayer money as sacred.”

Nothing was stated during that meeting, but community members are always welcome to express your feelings about the City of Whitewater. 

To watch the meetings, you can watch them at WhitewaterCommunityTV-kd4cw or

contact them by email at [email protected].