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CITY COUNCIL BAILS OUT

Mayor Charlene Klein, a mayor the Geneva Shore Report has supported from the beginning, turned into absolute mush before the whole city on Monday night.  She broke the tie vote to invoke a doubling of the parking rate and then move the fine (for being late on paying a meter) to fifty dollars, up from twenty dollars. Alderpersons ‘Howling’ Howell, ‘Headless’ Headland, ‘I’m Done’ Dunn, and Yunker, of the Diner with private parking and no meters, all voted to do this rather rotten thing to the Lake Geneva community.

John Halverson stood tall, as did Alderpersons Straubie, Yeager, Fesenmaier.  The only woman to drop the ball was the mayor herself, who went on a rant about how Fontana (with about a hundred and fifty metered parking slots compared to the 1200 or so in Lake Geneva) is an example of a small community nearby charging higher parking rates.  Like that’s valid at all.  This entire affair was caused by the same actors: Headland, Howell, Dunn, and Joanie.

They were the force behind hiring a lousy inaccurate study to be done by using $40,000 of city money to bring in an outside agency to state that Lake Geneva’s employees were all underpaid. Now, practically each and every head of a department in Lake Geneva is making six figures, and the credentials of these officials are nearly meaningless and not necessary to gain and hold these positions. That the locals, including those locals not necessarily living in Lake Geneva or living in the surrounding communities, are going to be hurt by this parking decision is without question, and this conclusion cannot have been missed by these alderpersons or the mayor.  They simply don’t care.

How this happens to local ‘small time’ politicians, is almost impossible to figure out.  They come in as one thing but the longer they stay in office the ‘divine right of kings’ seems to overcome them, as it has this mayor.  The Geneva Shore Report cannot support this anti-local and ‘get the guest’ kind of bilking of both locals and visitors out of more money.  The damage done to local businesses is impossible to calculate but be assured that when anyone gets hit with four dollars an hour rates and then maybe, after being late by a few minutes, a fifty dollar fine (backed by loss of driver’s license and vehicle renewal by the DMV) the recipients will not leave Lake Geneva, or stay here, with good feelings about the community.

Lake Geneva’s finances are being run by wildly out of control representative elected officials and their choices for committee membership positions. What is the city to do with this kind of leadership?  Recall is a very laborious, expensive, and seldom successful pursuit, although those voting for this onerous and punishing parking result certainly do deserve such treatment.  Coming elections are a better solution.  There is no way the community should re-elect the mayor, or any or all of these alderpersons.  This current crop, up for re-election in February of the coming year, should be left to go to pasture, to eat weeds, hay and reflect back on their time in what they considered the ‘sun’ of their lives.

There remains the issue about what is really driving this increase that is going to cause the public so much pain.  There may be some public/private parking meters in Lake Geneva.  Those are meters on private property that the city meters and then shares revenue.  These are illegal but ignored by the city and its attorney (they collect fines based upon being able to deny auto registrations until paid, which is solely a municipal power granted by the state).  These private owners of metered slots, if still existing, will be revealed next week’s GSR, as they are about to double their revenue with the new rates.