LIVING HERE
Winter has officially arrived with the first measurable snowfall of the season coming down on Saturday afternoon.
Before the snowstorm this past weekend, Lake Geneva had two snow events that public works was well prepared for, prepping the roads with salt, brine, and sand the day before. The other two snow events, on December 7th and 14th, had just a dusting of snow, so there wasn’t much plowing to be done. The first real snowstorm of the season was on Saturday, January 1st, with snow falling continuously for over twelve hours. The mayor, Charlene Klein, did call a snow emergency starting at 5:00 p.m. with municipal lots open till 3:00 a.m. and no street parking. The city has also been reminding residents that all snow and ice need to be removed and salted as needed from sidewalks abutting their properties. The owner or occupant of any property that isn’t in the BID district is responsible for removing all snow and ice the entire width of the sidewalk in front of and adjacent to their property no that than 24 hours after the snow has stopped accumulating. The BID has 12 hours to remove all snow and ice after accumulation has decreased. If sidewalks have not been cleared, and the city must do it, or hire someone, the property owner will be billed for the snow removal. A friendly reminder that free parking ends on February 1st so enjoy and take advantage of the last month of free parking.
The controversy continues, as two reporters are dedicated to tracking down what is going on.
From the reporting desks of Lisa Otto and Jen Lepkowski, independently reporting: “The chair of the Business Improvement District Speedo Condos requested a forensic audit for the BID. The request was submitted after Condos discovered some discrepancies with the financials from the previous BID board. The money issues found were not from just one year but several in the recent past. The original request was filed in August and was added to the city council agenda on August 23, 2021, and has been addressed at several different meetings since. The original audit that was done, as is done every year in every city department, all the BIDs money was accounted for and traceable. The only irregularity found was late bill paying that ran over into the next year’s budget. At the October meeting, the discussion resulted in the audit issue being sent back to the BID. The city council determined the BID should choose one of the three proposals it felt was the best due to the fact the BID should be responsible to pay for the audit.
The city council did not vote to send it back to the BID. Only one member of the council indicated should be returned and that was it. His move was not legal. When the BID received the agenda item the BID members discussed the issue and Condos, the BID Chair was adamant that it be sent back to the council claiming that the council did not vote and should be partially responsible for the audit. The BID members did not seem totally in agreement with Condos regarding the audit and were asked, “what is our end game?”
The item ended up back at the city council last Tuesday, December 28th and was continued to the first January council meeting for lack of any BID members or chair being present at the meeting, not that any of them legally had to be for the council to vote.”
