Front Page
PLAYLAND
Seldom does the staff of the Geneva Shore Report get to write stories about how rumored scandals involving fraud, corruption, theft, or just plain incompetence and applied stupidity are bogus. Well, we have gotten to write such a story today about the Never-Say-Never Playland and the people who are trying to bring this rather fantastic children’s play edifice into reality. There were flurries of reports about how, the people trying to put this playland together have decided that Delavan is much more receptive to the building of such a project, rather than the City of Lake Geneva where they tried so hard to place the equipment. Part of Veteran’s Park was to be allowed for use by the operation but then the city attorney, Dan Draper, after many promises by city leaders, told the board trying to build the playland that they had no land and that the promises were simply talk and not binding.
This member of the legal profession acted just as he has done so many times before over the last few years. The Never Say Never Playland board was rumored to have collected tons of contributions from people and organizations all over Lake Geneva. Those rumors proved to be untrue. The City of Lake Geneva indicated in last year’s budget that $250,000 would be available but nothing was ever made of that, or money contributed. The simple facts are that nobody really wanted to support this handicapped child playground in the city, except to enthusiastically say they supported it.
So, the board, all people who live in and around the City of Lake Geneva, went to Delavan and asked its leaders for help. What a difference. The entire leadership, from mayor to city administrator to the parks and recreation department director (yes, Delavan, a city with a revenue stream less than one-third of Lake Geneva’s, has a real honest-to-God parks and recreation department, unlike Lake Geneva) and city council members all immediately threw in. The city itself is in after bonds and grants to build this playground. The city is contributing land. The city is honoring the simple fact that the board of directors of Never-Say-Never Playland has always published that the playground was to be a county operation, not one to be identified by any of the small cities, villages, and towns that surround Lake Geneva.
The staff of the GSR counseled with Tom Earle, alderperson Fessenmaier, discussed things with Nancy from 96.1, and checked with the State of Wisconsin in looking into the operation’s finances and correct paperwork to be doing exactly what they are doing. Finally, at Inspiration Coffee Shop on Main Street last Monday, the GSR staff met personally with the board of directors of Never Say Never Playland and ‘had it out’ for an hour and a half. These board members were found to be as solid as rocks and fully backed up with analytical paperwork to be doing exactly what they were saying they are doing. They did mention that they were a bit worried, being strictly volunteers as they are, about potential damage to their local reputations because of some of the online rumors, not written as rumors at all.
The Geneva Shore Report cannot erase stuff that appears on the Internet. As has been proven, the stuff that goes up there doesn’t have to be true but once up stays there for all time. But, the Geneva Shore Report, a publication, Internet, and video presence of some time and substance, can state equivocally that the board of the Never Say Never Playland idea and future playland is doing it right and moving in a direction that will see such a wondrous and generous project reach fruition for everyone in the county, not to mention so many who now come up from Chicago. There was also talk by Lake Geneva city leaders that would have allowed for paid parking at Veteran’s Park and that potential policy would have doomed the project from the start if it had become an ordinance.
