Looking on the Bright Side

The Winterfest celebration of snow sculpture, the artists who come to carve them, and the people who come to see their work has been wonderful to behold.
By Geneva Shore Report estimates, it was the highest attended Winterfest of all time. Back in 1995, Speedo Condos (the owner of Speedo’s Harborside Café) sat down at the Americana Club with Nick Anagnos of Popeye’s and George Hennerly of the Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. They came up with the Winterfest idea and asked the city council of the time for ten thousand dollars to fund it. The council (not a flush TIF funded group at the time) turned them down. They did get steered back to the Chamber and George managed to cage together the ten grand from somewhere. This Winterfest teams came from all over the nation. Sponsors were applying left and right to support the teams for $5000.00 each. The Geneva Shore Report offered Don Berg, the director of everything, to sponsor a team for next year but got told to wait in line. Winterfest attracted more people than any event in Lake Geneva history, summer or winter. Some people parked their cars on the lake ice and almost everyone knows what happened to their cars (let’s say that they got more than a good wash).

The city’s neurotic phobia with signs continues with another $22,756 study awarded to Kapur & Associates.
As the song title goes there are “Signs, Signs, Everywhere, a sign” that is except in Lake Geneva where the city officials have a sign phobia that bans the following signs: pole signs, fluttering signs, undulating signs, swinging signs, rotating signs, banner flags, moving signs, decorations, off-premise advertising signs, illuminated flashing signs, neon sign and even rope lights, because they may look like a neon sign. There isn’t a total ban on signs in Lake Geneva; one is permitted to have a window sign provided it does not exceed 15% of the window area and, with a permit, a person is allowed to display one temporary sign for 30 days. The only garage sale sign that is permitted in the city is a single garage sale sign on the property of the garage sale. Furthermore, it is unlawful to erect, construct, enlarge, alter, move or convert any sign without first obtaining a permit. In addition, there are ordinances that specify the color, shape, type, size, angle, position, location, material, wording, its lighting and how often the sign can be changed of which all of these issues require a permit, a conditional use permit or city council approval.

Also with regard to the enforcement of signage in the City of Lake Geneva there is the human factor of who you are and who you know in city hall that influences if, when and how the city enforces its sign ordinances. Although having uniform signage throughout the city is sold as producing a good image of the city, it really reflects power and control and the city officials over residents and businesses. Like in the “Stepford Wives” uniform signage assures a compliant citizenry that submits to the will and whims of the city officials. Furthermore, control of signage is control of over an important aspect of our freedom of speech and except for safety issues and obstructive issues there should be very few other restrictions on signage. The city’s delays on the Hillmoor issue forced the Hillmoor signs to go beyond the 30-day limit on temporary political signs and we were reminded of this fact although no action was taken against those signs.

There should be no city law banning political signs on private property once a candidate has filed for office until the election is held (that is the state law) which the city ignores and violates with it 30-day limit on political signs. In a similar manor there should be no ban on political signs on issues that are being discussed prior to a pending or final vote on that issue. The solution is to have a citizen committee review all the city’s ordinances and have them codify and update and/or eliminate the unnecessarily restrictive ordinances, as well as those that are routinely ignored by citizens and enforcement personnel. Then present it to the city council for a vote.

But of course the Chicago Cubs have a better chance of winning a World Series than any citizen group would ever have to review, update and codify city ordinance.