LIVING HERE
The Lake Geneva City Council is working on what should be done with the foundations problem located along the southern edge of the lagoon area.
This expensive repair or rebuilding issue is separate from the interest some boaters have (the boaters who used to rent those slips at bargain prices) in pushing the tearing out of the old rotten wood slips and putting in new ones. The issue was exacerbated by the report coming in from the contractor hired to do the job. The report from the contractor and its removal from the contract indicates that the work is going to take tens of thousands more dollars than was projected or allowed to be paid on the repair or replacement job.
The city council is wrestling with the difficult issue and there is hope that the old contractor who was responsible for building the old piers might step forward, although his bid was not selected as the lowest when the work was started (just maybe that bid was too high because of a better understanding of what the work would entail) might step in and take a look at the whole thing.
Former city administrator David Nord has passed on into history.
The leaders of the city all met with David at Magpie’s restaurant to send him off and wish him well. The Geneva Shore Staff wasn’t invited, as expected, so no coverage from this news organization was provided. His quiet departure, with well-well-wishers toasting him on into retirement, was not dissimilar from that of Charlene Klein when she left as mayor. Charlene was active in her role as mayor, even though the GSR staff opposed much of what she attempted to do for the city.
One of the things she was right about, and the GSR opposed, was the increase in parking rates. She was right. With the performance of tourism in Lake Geneva during the July 4th long weekend celebration was show-stopping and deserving of a response. Now, in retrospect, the GSR staff thinks the idea of going to six or seven dollars an hour for certain periods in the summer makes sense. Exclude what locals the city might want to consider but only painful financial solutions applied for next summer will prevent the city from having to close down on certain high-volume days (like was done at Bigfoot Beach and the beach downtown), not to mention lessen the dangers of intense and very dense penetration of all parts of the city by tourists bent on having a good time and drinking as much as possible.
Stephanie Klett, the head of Visit Lake Geneva (what was once called the Lake Geneva area chamber of commerce) has done a magnificent job of building tourism, helped along by the number of Chicagoans who ‘found’ Lake Geneva during and following the attack of Covid 19, but there’s a point where maximum capacity is reached. Lake Geneva is approaching that maximum capacity. The financial lifeblood of the city is founded in tourism, but the very body of the place is residents, residents of closely located lake communities and the owners and operators, as well as employees who inhabit the place year around, not just for three or four months during the summers
