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THE “LONG CON” OF DENNIS JORDAN

An old con artist would outwit his victims, but sooner or later the victims would catch on and the con artist would be run out of town.
The old con artists would get caught because victims spent local face to face time with the swindler and slowly came to figure out what was happening when the money disappeared. Newer versions of these con artists have added a new layer of protection that separates them from their trickery. These new charlatans get other people to actually approve or do the work of the con, which makes them, and not the con artist liable. This creates a barrier that shields the con artist while also creating a scapegoat to blame when the scheme is detected. That kind of behavior was similar to what was done to Ron Carstensen in the Lake Geneva’s “pillar of salt” caper. This shielding and transfer of responsibility applies to most of the activities of Lake Geneva’s influential city officials, who are shielded by the city’s procedures and the employee manuals which give control and secrecy to city officials, but puts the responsibility for their actions on the city council. That tried and proven method is going on today with Home Depot Park. To control the future of Home Depot Park a selective easement was given to the Geneva Lake Conservancy to preserve the property as green space. That means that although the city owns the park, the city transferred some of its ownership rights to the Conservancy. This easement was done as part of the agreement between the City of Lake Geneva and Home Depot in which Home Depot gave the land to the city. The agreement assured both Home Depot and the City officials of Lake Geneva (who at that time did not trust that future city councils would keep the park as open green space, and felt that if the city was given half a chance, it would use the park for commercial purposes. That easement blocking commercial deed use held solid and was secure until last year when Mr. Dennis Jordan was appointed as chairman of the Lake Geneva Conservancy. His appointment appears to have set into motion a multi step plan to open the door to the commercialization of Home Depot Park.

  1. Dennis Jordan was appointed as Chairman of the Geneva Lake Conservancy.
  2. The Conservancy which had been downsized, but now under Jordan seeking to support development growth.
  3. The Conservancy plans to hire an executive director.
  4. A request to use Home Depot Park for selling goods was discussed at the last city council meeting.
  5. “The mission of the Geneva Lake Conservancy is to preserve and advocate for Walworth County waterways, natural areas and working lands.” However, a modifying explanation of that mission has been added on their website which reads: “As a fundamental principle implied by its mission statement, the Geneva Lake Conservancy supports environmentally appropriate development.” Then it goes on to say “Environmentally appropriate is defined as development that is farsighted, good for the area, environmentally responsible and economically beneficial to the community as a whole.” Modifying the agency’s mission by adding “Supports environmentally appropriate development” to the mission statement as being implied and then defining “environmentally responsible” to include “economically beneficial” undermines and defeats the whole purpose of the Conservancy.

These moves provide justification for making green space available to almost any commercial use that, in the opinion of Dennis Jordan would appear to benefit the city. Beware of those who change the law by changing the meaning of it. The infiltration of Geneva Lake Conservancy with a pro-development chairman (Dennis Jordan), is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house. The chickens will be picked off one at a time until there will be few if any survivors. No matter how well intended the act of opening up the park across from Home Depot to local artists for a commercial use may be, there is a hidden motive behind this move and those innocently supporting it are being duped by a seemingly innocent but sly first step to the future open commercialization of Home Depot Park and the eventual commercialization of the properties held in easement by Geneva Lake Conservancy. Mr. Jordan spearheaded the Hummel fiasco and here he is again, seemingly trying to pull off the same kind of scam.

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