Living Here

Ordinances for some, but certainly not for all.
Try holding the parking department of Lake Geneva’s proverbial feet to the fire when it comes to enforcing motorcycle parking. The maximum parking allowed in any slot in Lake Geneva is three cycles. Minimum is one, of course. Well, what is a parking meter attendant supposed to do when four cycles are parked in a slot? Ticket all four when the fourth may have come along later and parked without the knowledge of the previous three? Also, what about the fact that parking meter attendants, on a busy weekend day, might use good judgment and let ten cycles park in one space so that three or four spaces are not taken up by the same number of bikes? Now, that’s a tough one. The ordinances do not allow, like moving violations issued by regular police officers, the people enforcing them to exercise such judgment.
Maybe the ordinances, especially with respect to parking, need to be tweaked a bit.

Fountain of death.
Why can’t those who run and direct the city think like a tourist when they design things for the tourists? The city, Chamber of Commerce and the Bid District spend money promoting winter activities, but when the city has spent a small fortune to build restrooms at the far end of Library Park, they did not winterize them so they are closed all winter. The city spent a lot of money to rebuild and update the Library Park restrooms but again did not winterize them either. The Riviera and the Chamber of Commerce buildings have restrooms but they too are closed during the winter and off hours. The city is concerned about places for tourists to park, but not about a place for tourists to get relief.

That’s the past, but once again did the city think like a tourist during its face lift of the Riviera front lawn?

• First, rather than do it in early spring, they had the front torn up for Memorial Day.
• Second, they will be putting in a lot of new benches for tourists to sit on, but where did they put almost all of them?
  In direct sunlight! When is the greatest need for tourists to rest and sit down? When it is the hottest.
  Where do tourist want to sit when it’s hot? In the shade. Will the newly planted trees give any shade for the tourist? No!
• Third, tourists like the area around the fountain – and they would love to stick their hands in the cool water on hot days and feel the water falling off the fountain bowl. But they can’t – because we put toxic chemicals in the fountain water and warn them that the water is toxic and not to touch it. Winkler added the big base around it so that the people can’t reach the water falling from the fountain bowl anyway. Of course, if you question them about the toxic fountain water, they might tell you that they need to put that in to prevent mold. Well, swimming pools and water parks don’t use toxic water and post toxic warning signs.

 Why can’t those who run the City of Lake Geneva think like a Lake Geneva tourist? They can’t because even when they go on vacation and are tourists themselves, they are not like the tourists that visit the City of Lake Geneva who consider visiting a scenic small town a few miles from home a vacation.

Fire!
The interim fire chief selected, upon the Police & Fire Commission acceptance of Jim Connelly’s resignation on Tuesday night, is John Peters. A great selection. Meanwhile, the complaint against Police Chief Rasmussen put forward by and resigned officer Dennis Dyon was dismissed. The police and Fire Commission of Lake Geneva makes two excellent decisions on the same night.

The Humor of Living Here