SMALL GEMS

The Business Improvement District just bought a contract with a company that is going to trace people visiting Lake Geneva.
The BID authorized five thousand dollars to begin to purchase a program receiving data about where visitors may be coming from and where around the area they are going.  This technology, accessed only by using a warrant for law enforcement agencies (or for emergency location for providing medical care) is allegedly provided by this company tracing cell phone signals and then GPS data to discover the origin of the visitor and then where they go around town.  That the technology does not exist to perform this function doesn’t matter, the BID was not open to any discussion of it.

Spearheaded by board member Beth from the Bottle Shop they just went unanimously and bull-headedly into buying into a program that will give them a load of likely made-up data that will meet expectations.  There were once physical counting devices installed on Broad Street to indicate how many people walked by during busy periods but those were taken out years ago.  Now comes a company that can do it all electronically, or not, but make believe they can.  It’s a lot like the LifeLock ads on television wherein this company will go after anybody who steals your identity.  Tons of people sign up, but the company does nothing while it makes believe it does.  Who knows?  Not the people paying the money and the company does fine because ninety-nine percent of the public never has the problem and the other one percent have nobody to complain to, except maybe the Geneva Shore Report.

Person of the Week

Sam, running the show down at Herner’s Hideaway in Genoa City…wonderful fun!