Democracy In Albany

It's a mystery that has gripped Whitewater city government since July: Who is John Adams, the anonymous blogger at www.freewhitewater.com?

The Web site, Free Whitewater, was launched last spring and takes aim at the "narrow-minded" leaders of the community of 14,000 about 45 miles southeast of Madison.

Its targets range from the aesthetics of Whitewater's main streets to a controversial roundup of suspected illegal immigrants at the Star Packaging plant.

"Adams" charges in his blog that Whitewater is run by "a small, obstinate, and poorly educated local elite" who are hostile toward the 10,000 students at UW-Whitewater and the region's growing Mexican-American population.

He is critical of the School District and other local officials, calling a former municipal judge who was convicted of lewd behavior last year a "vulgar laughingstock."

But much of his criticism is reserved for Whitewater's police chief, James Coan, whom the closeted critic accuses of misusing his position.

Case in point: Coan's use of city employees to try to unmask Adams — exposed in a series of posts on his blog earlier this month — that is part Keystone Cops and part challenge to Adams' constitutional rights.

According to Whitewater Police Department e-mails obtained by Adams under the state's open records law, Coan involved at least two detectives, the city's director of public works, its information technology officer and the city clerk — all working on city time and using taxpayer-funded resources — to find the identity of a man described as a "suspect" but who had not committed a crime.