LIVING HERE

Former mayor Tom Hartz and Vandewalle and Associates have very likely conspired to violate the homeowners living on South Street.
When Tom Hartz was mayor, before the reign of Charlene Klein, he had this great idea to get a grant from the state TAP grant fund, so that environmentally sensitive and people-responsive projects could be funded.  This great thought process and idea resulted in the City of Lake Geneva being given approval on a million-dollar grant.  This money was set aside to be spent on a walking/bike path to be put in paralleling South Street, running a mile and a half long from one end of South Street to the other (connecting to paths already there on each end).  That money sits in a fund waiting for plans to be approved, and therein lies the rub.  The citizens who own the properties along most of the course the path will, or would, take were never consulted about this project.  Since South Street lacks curbs and sidewalks, the path is to be built within the confines of the right-of-way established for all public streets and roads in Lake Geneva.

That right-of-way, incidentally, is basically, with very few exceptions, twenty feet from the edge of the road into the private property of the homeowner’s yard. According to city officials, the likely construct of the path would be contained within the first ten feet, with the second ten feet being dedicated to green space.  Regardless of the city’s normal right-of-way ordinance requirements, the citizens owning the property deserved and still deserve plenty of say in what is to be done with part of their property.  The tourists are important to Lake Geneva.  The bikers are important to Lake Geneva.  The money is important.  The ownership of property is important. The city ordinances are important.  But this is no minor use of the word, the city’s citizens are everything.  Nothing has meaning without them.  It is time that the city grew much more sensitive to their needs and the city’s obligation to meet them.

Axe throwing and drinking alcohol while doing this bizarre, supposed sport.  Lake Geneva’s plan commission approved the location for this establishment to open at 253 Center Street (where Bill the Barber had his shop, next to where the shoe repair shop was).  This supposedly very popular new sport is to be opened with seven lanes, where people would throw axes instead of roll bowling balls.  This new sport is said to be safe, with no one anyone wants to write about, being injured or killed.  But, mixing the throwing of sharp-edged weapons (considered more tools than weapons in modern society), or using them at all while inebriated with alcohol simply sounds like a recipe for future trouble or potential disaster.

Why does the alcohol have to be included?  It’s always included in these new centers for the sport for the money, not for any potential enjoyment.   Alcoholic drinks of all kinds are highly profitable, and this new facility will simply add to the oversupply of alcohol serving spots throughout the City of Lake Geneva.  Like the city really needs more of that stuff.  This axe joint must be approved by the city council before it can receive a conditional use permit.  It is sincerely hoped, at least by the staff of the Geneva Shore Report, that the council will reject this bad idea, or, if feeling wildly generous and liberal, approve the throwing of the axes but deny the alcohol part of the permit.  Shooting ranges for guns are considered inherently safe if all the regulations are kept and the facility is up to code, but alcoholic beverages are never served in such facilities for obvious reasons.

Why should this new ‘proto-violence’ sport be any different?  Throw axes but don’t do so while under the influence of alcohol.  Drunk driving in automobiles and boats is against the law, and any violation comes with extreme penalties.  Axe throwing should come under the same umbrella of logical rule-making and rational thought.