LITTLE GEMS
Lake Geneva City Council began the discussion last week to eliminate the finance, license, and regulation committee as a public body for the city council.
What this means if a new ordinance is written, the FLR agenda items would go straight to the council. The FLR agenda items are currently being discussed in detail and again in detail at the council. Whether or not the FLR gives the city a recommendation or not, it still goes through both governing bodies. The city council is trying to streamline the process and skip unnecessary middle steps. The ordinance will be rewritten and brought back on the March city council meeting agenda and voted on.
If this passes, other committees deemed unnecessary or doubling work may be on the chopping block next. The GSR feels this is a pre-emptive and very bad idea. The money needs to be looked at by as many people as we can appoint or elect to do that. The elected council members usually have no background at all in city or town finance. If the city wants to be more effective and not rubber stamp decisions that seem to make no sense whatever (think police boat and pier et al, when the city has no harbor, or lagoon for that matter, an assistant for the city administrator, expensive study groups brought in at high expense to do jobs the city employees ought to be doing, and, more).
Who wants less oversight, and why it might be good to ask questions of the Lake Geneva leaders. In the last issue of the GSR, it was noted that the city is spending money at a rate never seen before, and this, right before, the city is about to be torn asunder by the State and County Road replacement of Main Street.
Perkup Elkhorn Coffee Shop.
Go in there at your own risk, hopefully just to get coffee and then get out. A woman is running that place who listens in to all conversations and then chastises customers if they are talking politics, including the subject of this new war in the Middle East. She will break right into a private conversation and chastise the people at the table. If a customer argues, she calls the police and reports that you are ‘trespassed’ from the shop. She did that to several people last week.
The police in Elkhorn actually will call the customer if they can get the name and number and tell them they are trespassing for talking politics in a coffee shop. Astounding! If you feel the need to be on the local police blotter, then be our guest and be ready to take that kind of awful, thankless heat. The other two coffee shops in Elkhorn are great, and they don’t care what subject you might pick or discuss in their places. There’s nothing illegal about a person like this doing something so low-life as that in Wisconsin.
A storeowner can ban anyone for any reason from going into the store or shop. It’s just that most store owners and shop owners agree that it’s tough to get through the winter months here in Southern Wisconsin, and they need the locals during the bad weather to help get them through. Not so that Perkup place.
