Surprising Stuff
Of what value will a public hearing on the changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan be, if city council members have already made up their minds, and will ignore the public’s comments as they have done in the past?
It takes only 6 members of the city council to override the will of the city’s 7,700 residents. The city council has, over the objections of the majority of the residents, annexed the Hummel property that increased the city’s size by 30%, and then a few years later, in order to bail themselves out of the law suits that the annexation had caused, they changed the city’s Comprehensive Plan’s zoning on that annexed land. That change tripled the value of the property for the owner, in exchange for settling the law suit which included dropping law suits against 5 of the eight Lake Geneva City Council members who voted on that Comprehensive Plan change.
The Lake Geneva City Council, like the federal government, cannot be trusted on certain issues, and therefore a Comprehensive Plan, like the U.S. Constitution needs to protect those issues by restricting the government’s authority to change them without an approval vote of the electorate. Any change or amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan needs a 2/3 approval vote of the city’s residents, in a manner somewhat analogous to an approval of 2/3 of the states to amend the U.S. Constitution. For residents of a city to have any control over the direction and future of their city, their approval needs to be part of the approval process. For people to be free there need to be restrictions on what a government can do, and those restrictions cannot be changed by the government by representative vote alone (local, state or federal). Changes must require an approval vote of the electorate. Recalling elected officials or voting them out of office at the next election is not sufficient to prevent irreversible damage, such as: the destruction of historic buildings, the annexation of the Hummel property, settling law suits with zoning changes, or the possible selling out of the city’s future by changing the zoning on the Hillmoor property from private recreation to include commercial or industrial development for some developer.
The only way to prevent these kinds of actions is to amend the City of Lake Geneva’s Comprehensive Plan’s amendment procedure to require an approval vote of the electorate to make changes to the comprehensive plan. Because the procedure to amend the city’s Comprehensive Plan is in the Comprehensive Plan itself, it could not be changed by the city council without an approval referendum by the residents, thus protecting it from the arbitrary whims of the city council. This protects it from changes by votes of the city council alone, without the approval vote of the electorate, as the city has done with other city ordinances that were intended to restrict the city council’s actions. The city council eliminated the Big Box Ordinance that required 6 votes for approval, so that 5 votes could approve large stores. In the past the council eliminated the ordinances that restricted the city’s percentage to 50% of the lake front and parking funds, and now take all but $75,000; they gutted the direct legislation ordinance that required an approved referendum before the city could spend over $1,050,000 on a project.
If an approval vote of the electorate is not required to change the city’s Comprehensive Plan, then nothing in the city’s future can be safe or secure from pilferage by unscrupulous city councils. The Comprehensive Plan, like the U.S. Constitution, is the resident’s last line of defense against an overbearing or out of control government willing to sell away, or give away the City of Lake Geneva’s future, as was done with the portion of the Hillmoor property that the city had once owned.
Let’s not forget that the opposite effect is possible as well. You’re worried about people being on the council that are “unscrupulous” and I agree, but that knife cuts both ways. While it seems that your main concern is pro-growth people changing the “plan”, mine is that the Anti crowd and the NIMBY folks will do the exact same thing. The plan is just that, a plan. It’s not set in stone and should be flexible. If something that’s in the best interest of the city comes up, the people we elected need to be able to make changes to said plan in order to accommodate. As the old saying goes, strike while the iron is hot, having to put everything to a referendum is not an efficient way to govern. I’d hate to think that a deal which would benefit the city, it’s tax base, and it’s residents would be scuttled because we couldn’t act without a 2/3 vote from the citizens. The other worrisome thing about that policy is that many times the end result isn’t based on what’s ACTUALLY best, but rather who gets their message out best.
We elect people to represent us and to vote on our behalf for the purpose of governing. If we can’t trust those people to do the right then the blame is on us for electing them in the first place. The answer isn’t to change the rules or put everything to a vote, it’s to make sure quality people are in those positions.
Agree wholeheartedly Micheal.
And thank you for your input
BUT looking at the dearth of candidates in past elections and the financial liabilities the council put the citizenry to in the past
maybe looking at some alternatives may be overall a beneficial to the electorate?
I think part of the problem are the positions themselves. To Daniel’s point, it’s hard for a quality person to find the time to put into a position like alderman. Between the meetings, committees, boards, etc, it’s like having a part time job at least. I don’t see how a person working full time could do that and manage to have quality time for themselves and their family. That’s why you see specific types run for office and stay in office for the long term.
Another issue I see is that many times government tends to be quite incestual. Often you see the same names go from one committee to another or sit on one board, run for office, then be appointed to another. Hard to get new blood and new ideas when they do a better job of recycling than Waste Management. When an opening does come about, the Chair or the person in charge will likely look to those they know or people in their circle, hence the problem.
How about this. If the city has decided that various boards and committees are needed, why not have an open meeting where people can attend and volunteer? I’m sure many would have no idea how to go about getting involved. Place an ad in the local papers and on the website advertising said meeting and give regular people a chance to offer their services. Let’s shake up the status quo. Let’s have people making decisions that are worried about the community more so than not ruffling the feathers of other positions.
Just a thought.
Thanks for your input, Michael.
The more citiznes get involved the more easy the “Sstatus Quo” finds itself a bit on edge.
It doesn’t seem like they’re any “quality people” on the City Council.