Front Page
FIRST RIGHT OF REFUSAL
Today, the national and local government offices operate on a first right of refusal philosophy that is more akin to the last rites, which involve no refusal or criticism. What rights are being violated by such refusal today on the local level? The right to have dangerous and potentially lethal potholes filled to meet the outrageous demands of a heated tourist-driven assault on the roads in and around Lake Geneva. There’s a ‘refusal’ pothole right in front of the library on Main Street. The Geneva Shore Report has written about it several times over the last few months, as the pothole has gotten deeper and more dangerous.
There’s a photo of it in this issue, with a car dodging into the opposing lane to avoid hitting it. Even liability demands by this paper, now to the point of advising anyone having a vehicle damaged or even their bodies damaged, should forget about their auto insurance and write an immediate letter of demand to the city’s insurer. Treble or quadruple damages would apply because the city has known about the hole and done nothing. This article and previous ones published by the GSR add to the settlement because the city cannot deny that it has known.
Meanwhile, tarring and repairs on other roads, curbs, and sidewalks continue. What about the traffic signals? The city had maintained a steady, silent refusal to do anything about those supposed automatic signals that are little better than old railroad flags used hundreds of years ago. Then there’s the refusal of the city to make the lives of boat renters, formerly renting slips at the lagoon, and instead giving them a break at using the city’s municipal pier to launch from trailers they likely don’t even have. This refusal is not silent but repeated in meeting after meeting, when fixing the mess of the lagoon becomes a topic at committee and city council meetings.
On the national level, leadership there is using his refusal to allow the governor of a state to either use or not use national guard forces to quell protests that aren’t the wholesale violence the administration and the national media are trying to turn them into. It’s also illegal for the leader of the country to override a governor’s right to stand the guard down, so immigration misdemeanor crime and deportation are being met with felony crime, added to with brutal treatment. The last rites are being considered by calling in active-duty Marines to go to work on the protestors inside the confines of the U.S. borders. This move is a felony violation (very directly) of the U.S. Constitution itself, but once again, it appears that these monumental ‘refusals’ so far outweigh the seemingly small refusals by local governments that the little stuff continues to go on unnoticed.
The City of Lake Geneva used a silent refusal to refuse service to the public by giving it access to Channel Twenty-five on local televisions. Oh, the visual somehow has come through, but the audio is non-existent. Now, why does one suppose that a city government might not want the public to hear what’s going on during the many city meetings where decisions about its money and lives are being made every week, if not more often? What’s happening with Hillmoor and this new commission?
It’s run by some truly classy and brilliant people, but there seems to be little progress in concluding what the people, the people who’ve paid for the property, want is a nature park with paths and bathrooms, and even a few more amenities. What is the public getting? The first right of silent refusal. The YMCA wants a chunk of Hillmoor to pave over a good portion and turn it into a parking lot with amenities, of course. Either the commission’s right of first silent refusal should be applied, or maybe even the last rites to that idea. The public doesn’t want the “Y” there, as there are plenty of better and more applicable places to put it.
