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GENEVA SLOW, GENEVA STEADY
A few steps forward, and then a few steps back, a turn here and a turn there, encouragement and then resistance. The qualitative development of the City of Lake Geneva has become a continuous display of fictional-like beauty. Still, it is very much grounded in solid, well-planned, and well-administered reality. The residents, taxpayers, business owners, business managers, workers of all kinds, and visiting guests in huge numbers, summer and winter, have required responsive but laid-back leadership.
A police department where the police officers and women do not wear masks or hide their identities as they carefully and quietly work beneath the socially intertwined world of existing criminality, while also maintaining order and presence with the rest of the population, has been a key factor in pleasing and comforting development. A trained and very responsive fire department, filled with class-act firefighters and EMT professionals, backs every play of and by the 0olice personnel, and invents some of its own.
The leadership of the city has two principal figures and several organizations at work on its behalf. The city administrator is mostly absent because his guiding hand isn’t much needed, as the staff is outstanding in doing what they do quite on their own. The mayor, elected, is a consummate flooring business owner with the kind of combination of vision and hard-working talent that flows over into what he’s doing for everyone in the city. Hillmoor is ever in front of him. Its development is challenging in that the YMCA, and likely a few other organizations, want to buy good chunks of that wonderful land to do what they will with it. Good luck with blowing such plans right past this mayor.
Pier builders and boaters want to develop the land located right on the edge of the northern part of the lake, across the street from Flat Iron Park. There’s no way this mayor is going to block that wonderful view for his constituents and everyone else who loves driving by, sitting on the dock of the pier, or simply taking a refreshing walk right next to the water’s edge. The Lake Geneva City Council is made up of a mixed lot of different elected citizens. People like Mary Jo Fesenmaier and several others on that council work in lockstep with the mayor, but not in open or ever closed agreement with everything he wants to do for what he considers the city’s betterment. This mix of councilors is likely the best mix the city has seen in many decades. Not getting along on every issue, and Sheri Ames, one of the other councilors, is known for not being agreeable on many issues at all, and is in total agreement with Mary Jo, however, when it comes to a very deep investigation into each decision placed before this ruling body. Joel Holland, on this council, isn’t a fan of either the GSR or its publisher but has made some key, important decisions in favor of the townsfolk and even visitors.
The Parking and Piers leaders have never been to charm school, or they failed, and it’s a grand cover-up, but they both do credible jobs in taking care of those very important parts of Lake Geneva’s operations. Tom, the leader of the public works squad, could not pass the pre-entry exam to get into that charm school, but then his job does not require that kind of delicacy (if he could even ‘delicately’ fix some of the city’s enormous and growing potholes on Main Street would be a credit to him, however).
No mean-spirited people are working inside and even outside for the good of Lake Geneva itself. People like Stephanie Klett, the CEO of Visit Lake Geneva (used to be the Chamber of Commerce) are just the opposite of mean-spirited and another gifted wonder to the city and its residents. She’s so good at attracting and packing visitors into the city that soon a large budget item may be sardine oil! Also, the number of absolutely capable and delightful business owners up and down the main streets in downtown Lake Geneva is extraordinary. The leaders of Popeyes, Harborside Grill, Haberdapper, Jayne, Clear Water, Amy’s Shipping Emporium, and even the U.S. Post Office are just astoundingly capable, nice, and work so hard to make it all work. What a pleasure for all of us who cover the news and weather in this city to be able to circulate among and enjoy not only the effects they create around us but them personally.
