Our Place
It’s going to cost more to stay over in Lake Geneva.
The room tax rate is being increased from 5% to 8%. This increase was approved, after being discussed at several meetings many times. The issue was also postponed several times as the pandemic hit the hospitality businesses hard. Not all council members were pleased with the decision. Alderperson Fesenmaier was not in favor of the rate increase, stating, “this city needs to go after the unregistered short-term renters who are not paying their fair share instead of increasing the ones doing it right.” However, council person Hedlund was in favor of the increase and believes the small amount the increase adds will not even be noticed by those choosing to stay overnight or for several nights in Lake Geneva. The money collected by the city, generated from the room tax, goes right back to the tourism industry (through the tourism commission) as it is mostly spent to draw more outsiders to town for overnight stays. The businesses need notice of the change and time to convert computers over to the new rate. June 1st is the deadline when all notices and changes need to be complete.
Last Tuesday, March 9th, the new harbormaster, Steve Russell, gave his update at the piers, harbor, and lakefront committee meeting.
Steve has a background in manufacturing management, with 35 years working with custom-engineered products. He started as harbormaster on February 16th and is getting acclimated to his new role. Contracts have been mailed out to the current leaseholders of both boat slips and buoys. Those are due back on March 26th, but there is a grace period of ten days, so Steve will know if there are any available spots on April 6th. New leases have been created for buoys that were not rented last year and are now available. The waiting list for potentially available slips and buoys (residents), is currently holding at 75 people.
Given the history of spots becoming available, the waiting list now stands at about 30 years give or take a bit. There are four categories for leases: current existing lessee, residents, non-resident property owners, and non-residents. Right now, there’s a total of 163 people waiting for a slip, with the wait for non-resident property owners and non-residents being over 50 years. The apparent point of firing the old harbormaster (the most excellent Linda Frame) and hiring a new harbormaster was to clean up these lists and change the way they are applied for, especially among the current lessees. There are a lot of requests for bigger slips or moving to a different location, which makes the program tough to manage. Steve would like to limit the number of people on the lists to stop them from asking for more while the lists get cleaned up and reorganized.
The list will be arranged differently, if Steve has his way, it will be based on the requests made and on the location: lagoon slips, west end pier, west end buoy, Riviera pier, and buoys. People could be on as many lists as they want, and this would make traceability easier. Steve will have the new lists and suggestions to present at the next piers harbor and lakefront meeting in April. A quietly undiscussed issue, an analysis of each renting person’s resident or non-resident identification and location, was underway when Linda Frame was the harbormaster. The investigation, following allegations that many of the renters listed as residents are not residents at all (thereby paying much less in fees and also enjoying other benefits), has not been discussed, but it’s not going to go away. So far, no final list of renters has been forthcoming, but as soon as it is then GSR investigators will go to work and non-residents better be just that.
With spring and the end of March nearing, the winter parking regulations will be coming to an end.
During the warmer months, starting April 1st, and going through November 14th, the City of Lake Geneva still prohibits overnight parking in any metered stall from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. Overnight parking is also prohibited in all city lots. Also, vehicles may not be left parked on any city street for a period of time longer than 24 consecutive hours. It is that time of year when paid parking has started and citizens are able to head to city hall to get parking permits. Permit holders are issued a sticker registered for owned vehicles. The sticker allows resident vehicles a 3-hour period of unpaid parking in any combination of metered slots. A car can be moved to any stall within that 3-hour period but must pay after that 3-hour total time is up no matter how many slots were parked in. Parking passes are free to residents. Four stickers per household.
