Lake Geneva City Council has a bad day

In the sweltering heart of Lake Geneva’s civic theater, where the air crackles with the kind of electric anticipation usually reserved for the last desperate minutes of a high-stakes poker game, the city council a motley crew of local diehards with their eyes squinted against the future played fast and loose with the fate of their watery backyard. They, in their infinite myopia, decided to rip out the lagoon’s boat slips without so much as a whisper of a plan for their replacement, threw water at the Grand Geneva like it was a life preserver, despite it floating comfortably outside city limits, and started babbling about dredging the lagoon as if it were a simple matter of clearing a bathtub drain.

The lagoon itself, a narrow strip of water hugged on one side by boat slips for the local residents to lease and on the other by the mercantile ambitions of the Geneva Towers’ boat rental concession, has been a bone of contention for about as long as the local fish have been swimming. Some fifteen years past, according to the harbor master, the city shelled out $65K to dredge part of it, sparing the Towers the expense. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of a $300K dredging bill, with no one stepping up to foot it, while the fish blissfully spawn, oblivious to the financial turmoil above. So the dredging cannot occur in the spring.

As the council, with only Linda Frame and Tim Dunn dissenting, gave the green light to yank the slips out with no more forethought than a gambler throwing dice, Frame stood out. She, with the fierce tenacity of a former Harbor Master, demanded answers to the when, where, how, and who of the replacement plan, speaking for the boat-owning residents who’ve watched this drama unfold for years. The current Harbor Master could only report on the dire state of the piers, setting the stage for yet another round of civic hand wringing.

Vetoing to remove the lagoon piers: Council President, Mary Jo Fesenmaier, Council Vice President, Cindy Yager, Alderpersons: Peg Esposito,, Ken Howell, Shari Straube, and Joan Yunker

At the next council meeting Mary Jo Fesenmaier reflecting on the error tried to walk back her vote by “reconsidering” but was rebuffed by City Attorney Dan Draper who pointed out the contracts were already signed.

“Any additional new service to our system is taking up part of the service pie that we can offer to the city.”

Meanwhile, the city blithely continues to quench the Grand Geneva’s thirst without so much as a nod to the taxes it dodges by lounging just beyond the city’s embrace. The water utility juggles capacity and demand like a circus act, ensuring the resort’s new dormitory a haven for H2 visa workers – won’t go dry. All while the council, perhaps dreaming of waterfalls of revenue, fails to see the forest for the trees. Josh from the Utility Commission points out, “Any additional new service to our system is taking up part of the service pie that we can offer to the city.” Josh modeled fire flow demands ” we do have capacity within the distribution system to provide service to the existing location.”  Grand Geneva’s contractor, MSA, did the modeling. The city provides Grand Geneva with water, but they are not subject to Lake Geneva’s real estate tax or room tax since they are not in the city. When Bill Chesen was mayor one of his reforms, he wanted to make was to bring them in the City for the tax base. He pointed out that Racine made the same misstate and the city is poorer for it.

Only in Lake Geneva, it seems, does the council get a shot at fixing a glaring oversight and ends up blinking until the opportunity passes them by. The city waters the Grand Geneva without reaping the benefits of taxes, a move so short-sighted that even the ghosts of mayors past shake their heads in disbelief. And as the water flows, the question of who’s really paying for what in Lake Geneva remains as murky as the lagoon itself.