Front Page

WHO IS THAT MASKED MAN?

Why Speedo was so right for the police and fire commission before being dumped. Spyro Condos is a man with a mission. He’s had the mission for quite some time, but either he’s been only temporarily recognized (he was a city council member and then mayor for a while), not recognized or pilloried for trying to benefit the city he runs a business in.

Speedo, as he’s known by one and all, runs the Harborside Restaurant and Grill down at the corner of Wrigley Drive and Broad Street. His location is arguably the very most favorable for business in the entire city. When Speedo was on the police and fire commission recently, he proposed increased security be provided in the local schools because of the school attacks that have been so heavily covered by the mass media over the last couple of years. The city went with that program but Speedo was never recognized as the program’s instigator nor known as its greatest supporter. Now, on the outs with the current Lake Geneva administration, Speedo has come up with another very appropriate idea.

The entire stretch along Big Foot Beach running from the youth camp to the north, all the way to the hill that runs up toward the Geneva Inn on the south side, should be guarded and protected by concrete barriers. These two and a half foot barriers would go up to keep any vehicles from accidentally or deliberately crossing from the road onto the beach or even into the water. This single row of concrete barriers, running north and south on the beachside in a single row, would also help channel foot traffic and make the road much safer. The barriers would be too low to interfere with the wonderful views enjoyed by the passing motorists. The cost would be negligible since the barriers are pretty cheap. The entire length of Big Foot Beach could have a single barrier line running all the way back and forth on the west side for about twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000) if used barriers (plentifully available) were used.

What else would the barriers likely prevent? They would have everything to do with the road not being closed and taken over by developers because of safety concerns. While the new boathouse is going in, and then when it is done, the traffic at ‘dead man’s curve,’ the curve in the road where South Lake Shore Drive heads up toward the Geneva Inn, is going to get heavier and heavier, both with vehicular and the foot traffic. When an accident occurs, because of heavier use, or because a vehicle plummets into beachgoers or boaters, then the first step the developer-guided elected representatives will come up with will be the closure and rerouting of the wonderful scenic road. Nobody will be able to argue.

Speedo is a man of his times, but always thinking just ahead of his times. Mayor Tom Hartz is not likely to reappoint Speedo to the police and fire commission. Speedo is not a quiet, easy-going, pliable or obedient servant of anyone. He’s not what current leadership would think of as an ideal candidate for police and fire commission service, or he would have been reappointed to the position he recently held there. But Speedo is far from done. He’s working away to protect that road, those pedestrians crossing that road, those beachgoers enjoying the lake’s only free beach and even the boat people who are about to over-populate the area.

 

Sign up for Updates