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LAKE GENEVA’S CONFETTI ROOF
What happened on top of the Rivera Pier Complex over the last couple of weeks? Who did that? Why would anyone do that? The roof of the Riviera, expensively reroofed by Renaissance Roofing, a sub-contractor for MSI, put bright orange tiles equally spaced among the expensive clay tiles, all of which are a deep dark red in color. The roof of the Rivera looks like it has a bad case of acne or pimples, and it does not take a designer, graphic artist or any qualified person to come to that conclusion. All a resident, visitor or layperson of any kind has to do is walk down to the Riviera, open his or her eyes, and take a real good look. Maybe a sprinkling of confetti over the top of the thing would be a more complimentary conclusion to confer on the place, but why bother?
The roof looks awful. Why?
Who on the Lake Geneva Piers and Harbors Commission approved this travesty? The Finance, License and Regulation Commission also approved what the piers and harbor people decided upon. Nobody, sitting on either of those commissions, has admitted (so far) to having known anything about the confetti nature of the expensive new roof. The move is so jarring and in such bad taste that one has to wonder if it was not done on purpose. What purpose? To possibly get the Lake Geneva Historical Society to strike the building from its registry of historical residences and buildings? The Historical Society had earlier disagreed with allowing the new floor to ceiling windows to be installed on the first floor, to replace the much smaller shorter ones already there.
If the Riviera gets tossed out as a historical building then anything goes. The new light-allowing windows could go in without comment from anyone. What purpose would tall windows installed accomplish? That’s when conjecture and rumor come into play. Rumor has it that the downstairs has been coveted for years as space that would best be used for the construction and operation of a first-class, high-class restaurant. There are some serious questions to be asked, and answers demanded here.
Who authorized this work? Who approved the added design, as the GSR attended all the planning meetings and, along with at least three sitting commissioners, saw nothing of this anywhere in any of the written plans, drafts, designs, or oral presentations? Nothing. Whose head is going to roll over this snafu? Or heads, to be fair. And what entity, or what individual or private company is going to pay for the six-figure fix it is going to take to keep the very heart and center of Lake Geneva from looking like the laughingstock among all the lake communities?
There is an election coming in April. The candidates cannot meet, as was planned by the Lake Geneva Regional Newsletter, because of fears that the Coronavirus will consume everyone who might show up. But the election is coming, nevertheless. It is vitally important that the voting public become aware of whom they are voting for, as, with four seats up for grabs on the eight-person city council, a complete change, of course, could be directed with the election of new members and at least one of the current officeholders who has not sold out to big development or to idiotic decorations as seen when viewing the new roof atop the Riviera Pier Complex.
The Hillmoor property was temporarily saved again, but the road past BigFoot, beloved by almost one and all, and Wrigley Drive are threatened. Vote out those who had anything to do with this new “pimple” roof atop the Riviera and who might want to move that road or close Wrigley.
