Front Page
BAD MOON RISING
The requirement that short-term rentals be inspected by the fire department on a regular basis has been suspended. In fact, that part of the ordinance has been changed to reflect the stopping of this seemingly very necessary requirement. You see, short-term rentals are to be considered as ‘residential’ and not ‘commercial’ when it comes to the requirements and regulations of the ordinance.
The Confederacy of Dunces that is currently running the city at the elective and appointed levels continues to hurt the community it supposedly serves, both in the short and long term. Is it going to take a major fire with civilian losses of life to bring this ‘confederacy’ to its senses? Only time, and possibly such a fire, will tell. On top of this development, finally recognized by the Lake Geneva Police and Fire Commission at its last meeting, comes the new board recommendations for the two open BID seats.
The Business Improvement District had four board seats open but two of those recommendations were almost automatic because they involved continuing or renewing the seat positions of already serving members. The two open seats were recommended for filling by Mayor Mayor and her cohorts. There were four people recommended and two were unanimously selected. The two that were sent down by Mayor Mayor to be selected received no votes, as in none. It would appear that the current board members voting are, indeed, not stupid. The two sent down by Mayor Mayor were both people deeply involved, owning, and operating short-term rental properties. Lots of them.
The City of Lake Geneva currently has some rather serious issues it’s going to have to deal with and it’s got to deal with those as the coming elections approach next April. There’s Hillmoor and its development. There’s the coming construction that is likely to tear Lake Geneva in half right down its center. And there’s the problem of the multiplying of short-term rentals with little or no control, even when it comes to such things as fire safety.
The current leadership of Mayor Mayor (call it that, if you will), Joanie the Diner, Dunn, and ‘swinging vote’ Straube are not likely to go away willingly, and they have the trio of six-figure Administrator, Comptroller, and Clerk never ever going anywhere (where the hell else are they going to make six figures without real credentials working a basically unsupervised part-time job?). In sociology and anthropology, there are four stages of competence: conscious competence, unconscious competence, unconscious incompetence, and conscious incompetence. In the mix of the people really running the City of Lake Geneva straight toward the edge of a dangerous cliff there seems to be only, in looking at them and watching what they are doing and have done, the last two stages to consider in analyzing each one’s performance.
Will decisions about such things as the YMCA’s ridiculous intent to purchase a good chunk of Hillmoor be properly dealt with? Will Alliant’s demands, still lying in the weeds awaiting proper final decisions, to get its chunk of Hillmoor, be considered? Will the management, supervision, and proper taxing of short-term rentals be adjudicated? The problem of the coming reconstruction of the entire downtown area up and down Main Street will wait, as hopefully will the other decisions on these vital issues, until the public can decide the kind of leadership it wants in order to move into some sort of wonderful future for the whole community. That decision can be made in April of next year, as it appears that there will be great interest from many citizens, many of them very qualified, to step forward and help. Draper, Conners & Jordon had dinner the other night. Interesting…
