LIVING IT
Kayla benefit March 8, 2015. Come on by. There will be a benefit for Kayla, the young lady so grievously injured a few weeks ago in an automobile accident. Sunday, March 8, 2015. Marino’s Country Aire, 34816 Geneva Road, Burlington, WI 53105 at 11:00 a.m. Kayla is a great kid and her mom is a great lady who works for Speedo at the Lake Geneva Harborside Café located at the corner of Wrigley and Broad Streets. Give to help this kid out of a tough spot with her medical bills. Here Mom is back working at Speedos so drop by in and see her to get the latest on how Kayla is doing.
Now that Mayor Connors has declared that he wants the City of Lake Geneva to spend most of its $10 million in TIF#4 funds on rerouting South Lake Shore Drive, the obvious question becomes who made that momentous decision?
Did Connors declare himself King of the City and make the decree himself? The decision certainly didn’t happen at a City Council Meeting, nor was it announced as a closed session item. There is no TIF Committee or TIF Commission or TIF Board listed on the City’s web site of 15 Appointed Boards, Committees, and Commissions that would have had the authority to make that decision. There’s a Joint Review Board that deals with TIF, but that board hasn’t met since around 2009, so where did this decision come from and how many open meeting laws were violated to make it happen?
There’s only one conclusion that seems to make sense. Dan Winkler and his merry group of friends, FOWL (the Friends of Winkler League) made the decision, just like they seem to make all important decisions for the city. Actually, this whole scheme was set in motion in the spring of 2014, as a PLAN #B, in case the parking structure was rejected in the November Referendum.
At the March 15 public works meeting Dan Schuller of the DNR said Dan Winkler came to him last spring with a plan to construct “an LSD re-route” (LSD standing for Lake Shore Drive, although other forms of it may have been involved). Lake Geneva’s Clark Gable already knew the plan he wanted, he just had to figure out how to make Schuller think it was really his own plan. The deal likely was: Dan would give the DNR (Big Foot Park) a bigger sand beach and the revenues from the new larger boat launch; in exchange, all the DNR had to do was suspend its charter beliefs, self-respect and any real care for the environment. Dan’s and now Schuller’s plan decimates the entire front end of BigFoot Park and initiates the “fragmentation of the wild life habitat” by separating the animals from their watering source at the lagoon (a road and fence would block their way).
The DNR stated there wouldn’t be any state funding available for “The LSD plan” until 2017-2019, but Dan clearly replied, without any reservation and for all to hear, “We’ll get this re-route built before 2017.” Dan Winkler and his loosely held together group (FOWL) already appear to have it all worked out. Dan Winkler didn’t reveal at the meeting how the project was going to be paid for, but everyone there seemed to understand that there’s only one way. The ‘unused’ TIF money. The fact that this road is far outside the TIF boundaries, and that it isn’t even on the list of TIF projects, doesn’t appear to faze Dan Winkler or his supporters in the least. Mayor Conners is already giving every appearance of fronting for him and the plan.
