Looking On The Bright Side
What if the Driehaus fountain looks ready to collapse.
Yes, this rather large central feature of the park, in front of the Riviera Pier, is tilting like a Don Quixote windmill and it could go over at any time. What if that event occurred on a busy summer day? It would be a disaster of more than financial proportion. What can be done? More money must now be spent to fix the supporting columns, or legs, of the structure and it must be spent rather quickly. Can the structure take a freezing winter of expansion and contraction along with possible large loads of snow and ice piled onto the upper structure? The answers to these questions are unknown, and the fact that the potential damage and degradation of the structure was not noticed until it became critical is something else to think about. What’s going on down at the beach and pier and how much money is being spent on people who might be really working instead of doing whatever the hell it is that they do.
Once again, gunfighter Utah Blaine, Lake Geneva’s trusty, dependable and bright City Administrator needs to strap on his irons and mosey on down there to see what he can see for himself. The beach proceeds were also down this year, following a much better summer than the one that preceded it the year before. What gives with that? Why were beach revenues not higher? Utah Blaine, get down there!
Although there was a $200,000 summer long project to “Rehabilitate the Riviera Grounds”, the most important area of the newly named Driehaus Family Plaza appears to have been overlooked. The problem became glaringly apparent when the fountain water was shut off, one could then clearly see the deterioration and tilting of a support column under the large water basin.
