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$50 PARKING FINE SHOT DOWN!

It was almost unanimous.  The entire city council (save Bonkers Yunker) shot down the fifty-dollar fine and substituted it with a thirty dollar fine.  It was almost as if this council was voting against some other strange council that had earlier enacted the fifty-buck hit, but no it was the same council, no longer divided.  The parking meter workers and ticket writer’s will no longer be subject to quite so much rancor from the public, Illinois visitors will be much more likely to pay their fines than escaping payment because their state has no reciprocal agreement with Wisconsin about such things, and locals won’t feel so personally put upon because they have to pay the fines or be unable to register their vehicles at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The Geneva Shore Report was adamantly opposed to the fifty-dollar fine, as was the Lake Geneva Regional News and 96.1, the local FM radio station.  Although the media can be a powerful voice for change it was likely, in this case, that the council was really reacting to the combined complaining voice of the local public.  The business community is still vitally opposed to the four dollar an hour parking rate which is double what it was last year, and their grumbling is not going to go away any time soon.  Elections are coming early next year, and the results of those elections will be partially a result of what’s happened with the parking and a few other not to ‘top drawer’ items.

The biggest item is Mayor Mayor’s unwillingness to appoint committee chairs or members.  Currently, as was demonstrated on Monday night, the council is left with the job of studying, evaluating, and investigating all the detail of everything the city controls without the benefit of committees to do that leg work and then submit well-examined results to that council.  Four members of the eight-member council voiced concern about voting on things (the consent agenda) without really knowing what the items on that agenda were really all about.  The agenda items were passed however, as the City of Lake Geneva passes from the Twilight Zone on into the Outer Limits of rationality.  The ‘signpost up ahead’ has only two words written on it: “Mayor Mayor.”  The week will pass and there’s nothing to be done about Mayor Mayor’s failure to make committee appointments.

Two weeks must pass before the agenda can be added to in order to allow for the appointment of committee chairpersons.  If more issues are brought up and there remain no committee meetings to evaluate them then it’s likely that whatever is presented to the council will be passed according to ‘party’ lines, or maybe better described as the axis versus allied powers.  Howell (rumored to be about ready to resign and move to Madison to live with his ailing mother), Dunn, Yunker and Straube, sharing power with Mayor Mayor breaking the four-to-four votes that now happen on almost every issue decision are one side and the other four, Fesenmaier, Esposito, Frame and Yager are the other four.  If Howell really does leave, then Mayor Mayor will get to appoint another of her cronies from the second district to replace him.  There appears to be no light at the end of this foolishly long and dark tunnel for the city.

Interviewing a former council person who lost a seat was interesting.  That council person now is very happy to have lost this last election, and the entire staff of the  Geneva Shore Report readily agreed with him.