OUR PLACE
The United States Postal Service.
Once again, this wonderful, warm and so well respected, and very American, public service must raise its first-class postal rates to a higher level. The new cost of a forever stamp is seventy-three cents, up from sixty-six cents last year. The American postal system is the most responsive, responsible, and dependable mail service in the world. The average price of a first-class stamp in Europe is $1.60, with Denmark at over $4.00 and no European country as low as the U.S. South America charges about $2.30. Asia is right at about $3.17. None of those places is mail handled and delivered like in the United States. Mail simply disappears or fails to get delivered so seldom that the citizens of this country don’t even consider the possibility. In Europe, a first-class letter is mailed with only a 91 percent likelihood that it will be delivered! Imagine the outrage in the U.S. if that was the case here. The 73-cent rate is so very worth it on any comparative basis.
This week’s public works meeting was full of great ideas.
The traffic in Lake Geneva can be extremely frustrating for locals and the public works department understands the challenge and spent most of the meeting discussing real ways to improve the flow of traffic and improve safety for vehicles and pedestrians. Tom Earle, Director of Lake Geneva Public Works gave an update on what has been going on which included several different sidewalk and road improvement projects. The DPW has met with WisDOT several times on the upcoming Highway 50 project and the 120/Edwards Boulevard project. Both of these jobs are going to be impactful to everyone and public works is determined to make it as smooth of a process as possible.
Improvements to the Center Street, Interchange North, and Sheridan Springs area are needed. DPW and the City Engineer are looking into possible solutions for this area. The other areas where traffic does not flow well and backs up during the busy summer days need some creative solutions, however, the public works committee focused more on the safety concerns. Both intersections have an issue with the stop sign and vehicles not seeing or just ignoring them. This not only causes traffic accidents it is also dangerous at times for pedestrians crossing the street. Discussion and recommendations regarding traffic control at the intersections of Geneva Street and Broad Street and Geneva Street and Center Street.
The committee would like to see a list of all issues in the problem areas and a list of possible solutions and revisit the items at the next public works meeting. Of course, all ideas and recommendations for resolutions to the issues discussed need full approval from the city council. Lake Geneva Public Works is tasked with traffic control issues regularly as Lake Geneva is a popular destination and its hard work and creativity are not unnoticed.
