OUR PLACE
Lake Geneva Tyranny! Yes, as in Tyrannosaurus Rex! Jim Connors, the mayor of Lake Geneva, leads a macho charge to eliminate any and all freedom of speech before HIS city council. The smaller, but no less orally carnivorous alderpersons, sit back on their balancing tails to consider just how to take more chunks out of a “down but not out” Lake Geneva carcass. But not alderpersons Wall and Chappell.
Those two city councilors stood for something at the recent council meeting on Monday night, April 27th.
They spoke against limiting speaking before them in public forums being limited to Lake Geneva residents. After hearing them and about fifteen angry speakers opposed to the idea, the city council tabled the whole idea. Dan Draper, Lake Geneva’s version of a city attorney, indicated that Wisconsin law allows a city government to bar all members of the public from speaking in a public forum. He then mentioned that the same law indicated that there could be no favoritism or prejudice about who might speak if speaking was allowed at all. The potential bombastic ordinance to permanently silence visitors from voicing opinions died 
without further comment, but only for the time being and purposes of that single council meeting. With the exception of aldermen Wall and Chappell, the same wrecking crew (six council members and Mayor Jim Connors), are likely to follow in the footsteps of the seven dwarfs, and merrily attempt to silence the public at a future meeting where the public is not so present and upset by their community-defeating antics.
BigFoot, a developing case of deliberate ignorance, following the outrage of the overblown and over-priced Brunk Pavilion, (aka Bunk Pavilion), is not going away anytime soon. Mayor Connors went over to Williams Bay to attend the Lake Use Committee meeting held last week. He’d taken an entourage and attended the Lake Geneva Environmental Agency a few days earlier and intimidated that group to the point where they refused to vote for or against the prospective BigFoot re-route plan. Connor’s visit to the Lake Use Committee didn’t go so well. His reputation and conduct preceded him. When Connors stood to present the merits of the BigFoot plan to those attending, he attempted to put the head of that commission in its place (Sparky Lundberg). Lundberg has served in more civil positions of leadership and responsibility than Connors can count. Lundberg indicated, with all due respect, that the mayor was not leading his own meeting but was in fact attending a meeting lead by Lundberg. Connors sat down. He had enough class to apologize for attempting to take over.
Chairperson Sparky Lundberg tossing a piece of Lake Geneva Mayor Jim Conner’s anatomy back to him at the recent Lake Use Committee meeting. Jim reattached the piece and seemed to be walking without a limp only days later. Charles Coleman, sitting at the right hand of Sparky Lundberg the Almighty, was neither bored nor asleep. He was merely caught up checking out a few Internet images. He’s also head of the Lake Geneva Conservancy and quite a terrific fellow. He probably was feeling bad for Mayor Conners.
Retraction. @properties, the new crusading and evangelical real estate sales organization is a great bunch of people. If it was inferred somehow, and totally accidentally, that that was not the case then apologies are due and extended. @properties is well within its legal envelope to cover its windows with whatever it wants as long as what covers the retail windows is not advertising of any kind. Retail windows may only have fifteen percent of viewable glass surfaces devoted to advertising. A photo-mural of adirondack chairs does not qualify as advertising, even if the mural does kind of make passing pedestrians think of the Titantic. It is rumored that a mural will also cover the huge front window of Salami Sam’s where @properties is spreading (think of flowing real estate syrup) to conduct more of whatever it does. People will not be able to see the realtors work behind the glass. With what happened to real estate values over the last eight years, is there any wonder?
The @Properties secret office up Cook Street from where the main Headquarters is going to open makes it into the GSR again. The mural of Adirondack chairs is deceptive. Those unseeable realtors inside are not sitting around like tourists. No, they are quietly plotting the downfall of Keefe Real Estate, and that is what America is all about. The battle is joined and the results ought to be heart-warming and profitable. For some.
