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YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY
The current Lake Geneva City Council has gone from being one of the best ever elected to a group of people who seem to have lost the capability to know where they’re going, or, at the very least, going in a direction that’s opposed to what the people who elected them might want. What is going through Rich Hedlund’s head these days? Already well written about for cancelling Meeting of the Whole events (wherein the public gets to step forward to address the city council on anything, not just items on agendas) and so he repeats himself this last Monday, cancelling not only that meeting but the finance committee meeting, as well. He’s president of the council so this kind of behavior appears to be well within his purview or the mayor would step in and stop him. She’s not doing that and she’s not even discussing it either. She’s not up for re-election, but Rich Hedlund sure is.
Peg Esposito, a classy woman with plenty of business savvy and also a considerable background in community service, is his opponent. What else has Hedlund been responsible for? How about the fact that committee after action reports have not been filed before the council since March of 2022? What is going on. Those reports are supposed to be produced following every committee meeting held in the city. Those reports are a big deal. Those reports allow the media and also everyone who wants to come into the city municipal building and request them. Those reports detail what happened in the committee meeting and what actions were taken, plus those things continued on or parceled out to be handled by other parts of the city government or administration.
Mr. Hedlund’s conduct in leading the charge in getting parking rates to four dollars an hour and then the fines for coming back late to vehicles fifty dollars. He got his way, along with four ‘go-a longs’ on that issue, an issue that has not completed itself in effecting those who had the temerity to apply such rates to locals and visitor alike on Fridays and weekends. Where is Mr. Hedlund head, which might be the lead lyrics to a song, although the song would be performed by the Grateful Dead? What’s going through his significantly sized cranium and why are so many of the city leaders going along with him? What’s the problem really, in not having a city provide the kind of information and feedback it promised over the years? The basal problem is that the public, in this case the citizens of Lake Geneva, lose confidence in the leadership and also develop a distrust, as time goes by, for the information that is finally provided, in many cases after whatever has been planned is already built.
Most of the information that might be announced and given emphasis is available by investigating every committee meeting result or commission finding online, but so many people either lack the time to navigate the city’s difficult website or they are part of a large portion of the public that does not use computers at all, or, if they do, then they use it badly or incompetently. Even though there’s an election coming in not too many days, there’s still time for the council to mend its ways and once more return to being sensitive to and caring about the public it promised to serve.
