The next week Mayor Todd Krause schedules back-to-back meetings of a special Plan Commission and city council on the same day.
Mayor Todd Krause states at the beginning of a special plan commission meeting on 5.28.2024 “This Is relative only to the permanent zoning of before us. It’s not talking about anything with annexation, so if you want to make public comment, please keep it to that topic. OK, we’ll deal with that at Council. It’s a public hearing and recommendation for a zoning map amendment application filed by Bloomfield Holdings LLC to assign permanent zoning of single-family resident for SR4 for property located at 875 Townline Rd.”
Plan Commission member and former alderman Doug Skates again recuses himself for some unstated reason again.
SB developer Brian Pollard, representing Bloomfield Holdings, 875 town Line Rd. speaks,” We were here last week talking about what we call our phase eight, what we’re asking for here tonight is a permanent zoning of SR4.”
The “bums” rush begins.
Motion by Fueredi, seconded by Gibbs to close public hearing.
Mayor Todd Krause made motion to approve, seconded by Gibbs.
Peg Esposito opens the discussion “I’m very uncomfortable with putting this through already and I just, I don’t think that we’ve had time to really review it and it looks like we’re giving away a lot of things on this. And it worries me that by approving it at this point I’m going to be stuck with things that that maybe we should discuss as a Planning Commission later.”
A member of the “staff” comes to the developer’s defense. “A number of these issues that we’ve been discussing have been addressed in the development agreement components of the proposed development are captured in the development agreement, including trail connections to early phases of Symphony Bay number of units, anticipated density and then of course improvements to city infrastructure that are needed to serve the development.”
Mayor Todd Krause “So again, this is strictly the zoning that we’re approving, nothing more than zoning.”
Peg Esposito points out that “it includes recommendations like no input from the developer on the roads is written in here.”
That is true, the pre-annexation developer’s agreement presented at this meeting specifically exempts the developer from paying for a stop light or having to improve Townline Rd., exactly the issues Council President Mary Jo Fesenmyer and Council /plan commission member Peg Esposito brought up at the last meeting.
John Gibbs, Cindy Forster Fueredi, Jeremy Nafziger, and Kyle Cary voted in favor Doug Skates did not vote and Peg Esposito voting no.
That took only 7 minutes.
In the Developer’s Agreement passed at this special meeting the following items was included:
- No improvements to E. Townline Road, North Road, or N Bloomfield Road
shall be required of the Developer. - No traffic signal lights are anticipated for any intersection of a Symphony
Bay Phase 8 street, road, or private way with North Road or N Bloomfield
Road, or within Symphony Bay Phase 8.
Now the city council meeting two hours later.
The final act of this saga, whether viewed as a tragedy or drama, unfolded on May 28, 2024.
On this date, the council addressed the crucial pre-annexation and developer’s agreement, along with the permanent zoning between the city of Lake Geneva and Bloomfield Holdings, LLC.
Public comments commenced:
Kathy Ranji, SB “Let’s please not lose the opportunity to keep it in the city of Lake Geneva, not only for the people of Symphony Bay, but for all the people of the city of Lake. 80% in favor in SB”
Ralph Kelsey, SB recommends annexation.
Judy Darrell, SB “I am also in favor of annexation.” Was also again concerned when the HOA will be enacted.
Pro-growth ex-mayor is up next. Speedo Condos stated “You never want to remain stagnant. You always want to have an area for growth. I’m not saying out of control growth. It has to be in proportion with your city services. Because you don’t want them to have to catch up to the growth. So, as it stands today, you have more than enough.”
Anthony LaPorte, SB stated “I’m in favor of the annexation of phase eight into Symphony Bay based on been promised to us that it’s going to be 140. If it goes to Bloomfield, you’re talking about a neighborhood of about 400 homes”.
Chris Moran of SB “My reasons are pretty simple. I hope that our elected officials, older men, older women. I hope that you all would not want Bloomfield Township to be in charge of what goes on in a development that is part going to be part of Symphony Bay.
Linda Donnan SB “The people at the majority that have written and spoken are in favor of the annexation, and I would just encourage you to honor the will of the people and vote yes for the annexation of phase eight to Symphony Bay.
Dennis Loser of Lake Geneva and former developer points out “And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t annex it into the city, but it’s some of the cheapest stuff I’ve ever seen built. as my friends used to say to me, my Jewish friends-trust me.”
“He’s (the developer) got you in a corner.”
Pete Peterson of Lake Geneva adds “And I’ll be one of the few up here that is opposed to the annexation and the agreement. And I hope you have read it and that you can look yourself in the mirror and say this is good for Lake Geneva…”
“He’s got a hatchet over you. But you need to be sure that this is best for Lake Geneva. All of Lake Geneva. Not just Symphony Bay.”
“You can vote in the annexation, but you shouldn’t vote on the developer’s agreement until all these questions are answered. And the main question should be.
“Is it good for Lake Geneva and stop this threat? That he can build 400 houses in Bloomfield. They don’t have sewer capacity at the plant. It cost him a fortune to put in. It just seems to me we’re not getting anything.”
Cindy Flower former alderperson and wife of Lake Geneva’s former code enforcement officer who now works for Brian Pollard “So I am for the annexation. You can be potentially sued for not approving something that’s in our comprehensive plan, so I would be asking your attorney for some of those.”
Doug Skates who recused himself from voting on this matter at the plan commission now at this council meeting speaks in favor of annexation.
The city clerk now notes that she has received a total of 15 items of correspondence, all of which are included in the meeting packet. Mayor Todd Krause points out “they were 15 items that were in favor of the annexation.” That is true but at the last council meeting the letters submitted were NOT included in the packet for the public to view or put into the record. I wonder what they said.
Council member Joel Hoiland makes a motion “I move that we approve the pre-annexation and development agreement.” Seconded by Linda Frame.
Mary Jo Fesenmyer now tries to separate out the developer’s agreement from the annexation but at the special plan commission meeting two hours before this council meeting, they put in the following condition in the pre-annexation agreement.
SECTION 13.1. Developer Right to Detach. Developer and City agree that Developer shall have
the right to detach Symphony Bay Phase 8 from the City should Developer, in Developer’s sole
discretion, be unable to obtain zoning, platting, and other approvals to develop Symphony Bay
Phase 8 in a manner acceptable to the Developer. City hereby agrees to effectuate said detachment
by deannexation or any other legally permissible procedure for detachment. Upon completion of
detachment of Symphony Bay Phase 8, this Preannexation and Development Agreement shall be
deemed null and void and the parties shall have no further obligations related to this Agreement
City Attorney Dan Draper points out “Without the pre-annexation agreement, they’re going to withdraw the petition if it’s not approved. The agreement says it’s got to happen simultaneously.”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer “Well, I just to say I was hoping that we could have worked on the development agreement separately, because I think even the people that spoke that had issues with the developer’s agreement stated that they were in favor of the annexation.”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer is concerned that adding model homes to phase eight can potentially lengthen the turnover of the HOA.
The Developer Brian Pollard is now given special permission to speak, he says he is open to having only two model homes open in the whole project in this new phase. “I have no desire to have two sets of model homes.”
Joel Hoiland doesn’t want a formal motion about the model homes “This is public hearing is being recorded. We just heard the developer state what he would do. I don’t think we need this motion. Because, you know, we don’t need anything more than his words and it’s recorded. It’s part of this public hearing. So, we’ve got what we want we don’t need.”
So, the whole council votes in favor to limiting the number of model homes to two except Joel Hoiland.
Peg Esposito “So I want. I just want to make it clear that I’m not against annexation. I’m just not sure that I have all the information that I really would like to have in order to make this decision when it comes to the way that we get revenue, property taxes in Wisconsin are 34.7% of the income of a normal town, and we’re close to that 40, let’s say 40%. So our four sources of revenue are property tax, interest income, state, shared revenue, fire, EMS service charges. So, what we’re saying is every house pays for about 40% of its of what it costs us to have. So, in 2010, our population was 7651 and in 2020 it was 8277 or an increase of 626 people. Now when I look at Symphony Bay, I’m thinking there’s probably more than 600 people out there, right? And so having done this census. If somebody has a second home in Lake Geneva, we don’t count them as part of our population. They are then just kind of a tax burden. Essentially, we don’t. We don’t get when Wisconsin gives us any money for any of the things that a state gives us money for, they only count the people who live here full time. They don’t count our second home people. So, we are kind of carrying the burden of a lot of people who have second homes here, right? So, the increase in our budget from 2023 to 2024, the majority was for staffing, for public safety. Most of the second people who have second homes here aren’t, you know, accumulating any money for us besides the property tax, which is only 40% of the cost. And the other thing is we are looking to expand our school-age population. I sure would like to hear some statement that these are going to be family homes and maybe somewhat affordable. But I’m hearing that the prices in Symphony Bay are somewhere around $500,000. Now that’s not a starter home for any family I know of.”
“And so, you know, I’m just, I don’t think I have the right information. The other thing, one other thing is that we haven’t really talked to Bloomfield. Where is this 400-home thing coming from?”
“When I talked to my friends who live in Bloomfield, I don’t think that they have a sense that they want to put in like hundreds of homes. I don’t think that they want their communities to grow at super-fast rates. I mean, I think we need to talk to Bloomfield. I think we need to do a little bit more of the needling of the numbers and I think we should just look.”
Brian Pollard interjects, “I can tell you that the village of Bloomfield is moving forward. I’ve heard many comments tonight that I have this axe over your head. I don’t have the axe over your head. The village of Bloomfield has an axe.”
“So, all I can tell you is I own this property. I will develop this property. I’ve always wanted this to be in the city of Lake Geneva. You have a comp plan that calls for this to be in the city of Lake Geneva. I put in a lift station four or five years ago. We designed it and we lowered it so it would be able to handle this property.”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer goes on “Actually, we did not have the developer’s agreement in front of us. This is the first time the Council has voted on it or had it on an agenda. But back to the list, so also in the developer’s agreement is item number six. It says no traffic signals. Are anticipated for any intersection of Symphony Bay, Phase Eight Street Road or private way with North Road or North Bloomfield Rd. or within Symphony Bay. Phase eight. However, we know that it did have an impact on the Townline Rd and Edwards intersection.”
“At $1000 per unit for a signal it would be $140,000, which is not what’s in here, although that might be contrary to some other conversations.”
The developer’s agreement presented does have $140,000 paid for by the developer toward a traffic light. The last traffic light installed on Edwards Boulevard cost the taxpayers approximately $2.4 million.
Brian Pollard “What you’re referencing? Mary Jo is in phase eight. So, we don’t believe there’s going to be a traffic light at the entrance of Bloomfield into phase eight. We don’t believe there’s going to be a traffic light at North St. in the phase eight That’s what we’re referring to. We’re referencing phase eight, the property that I’m asking to be in Lake Geneva.”
Linda Frame “And not having the conversations of I don’t have enough information; I don’t understand something. When we’ve had all of this information given provided for us. And every document for every meeting that we’ve had. It is confusing to me because I’ve read it and I’m not sure I understand why many people have not read it.”
Linda Frame chirps on “We’re going to have a problem in Lake Geneva because we have no more development space to go to. So, what’s going to happen if we can’t develop it and Bloomfield does? We have no other place to develop. What are we going to have to do to make money in this in Lake Geneva? But taxes won’t be going up. We will accumulate their taxes. We will have impact fees, much of which we haven’t didn’t get the full amount last time, but we’re starting over. We’re not looking back. This is a new phase eight”.
“I’m just concerned with all of these questions about and checklist that everybody has that they don’t understand. When we’ve had all of this time to do the homework and it apparently hasn’t been done because you’ve got the same information that I’ve got and it’s very clear to me.”
“Let Brian do the development over there for 140 units.”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer starts to go after requiring the developer to pay for improvements on Bloomfield Rd. she notes in the developer’s agreement that “#5 says no improvements to East Town Line Rd. North Road or North Bloomfield Rd. shall be required. So, we have construction traffic. On those roads and it’s up to the whole city to pay for this developer to put the construction traffic on that road.”
Todd Krause comes to the developer’s rescue and starts to shift the whole conversation about his friend Brian Pollard making improvements “Right now, the north side of Bloomfield Rd. Is the city of Lake Geneva and the center line S is Bloomfield. So too to do you see the difficulty right? Trying to create a road when you have two municipalities that share it. But Brian, why don’t you address this in your agreement?”
Brian Pollard” I that was the point I was going to make. I mean you. You don’t have a agreement with the village of Bloomfield right now there’s no agreement between the two. Entities they own. Half of you own half my discussions with the village. They don’t have any desire or need right now to put money into it. I don’t know if you guys have talked to them about whether they be doing that. I know in the past the town had no interest in doing that. And I would just stay right now, as we all know, Bloomfield Rd. is awful, right, everyone agrees on that. So right now, as it stands, it’s in horrible shape”.
Mary Jo Fesenmyer ripostes. “So, Bloomfield Rd. in front of the middle school is even worse because we have patches, in other words, different ownership. It’s not even straight north side, South side. And so, if you go and look, we did a huge patch. That bordered our city of Lake Geneva property because we couldn’t do the rest because it wasn’t our property, but we were able to do not just half, but a section of it. So, I’m not understanding why the developer wouldn’t commit to the north half of Bloomfield Rd. where all the construction traffic.”
Brian Pollard steers the conversation back to Lake Geneva only owning one half of the road. “But I don’t know how you do a half road. I’ll just be honest.”
Alderperson Aimes now chimes in “We would love to annex and then where are we going to go? So, there’s another property up there. Then what are we going to do with that? How far are we going to go? And at some point, it will have to stop. At some point, so that’s why I’m perplexed, because I like growth, but my constituents don’t.”
Brian Pollard “No place to grow the village of Bloomfield is going to surround you.The Governor of Illinois has bought everything else on the South side of Lake Geneva. There, there is no more growth in Lake Geneva. So, to answer your question, in my estimation this is the last piece that’s going to be next in the city of Lake Geneva. There’s no place you can go.”
“I’m not going to buy the piece across the street.”
Brian Pollard “It’s, you know it, it doesn’t have water and sewer to it. I’ve got water, sewer. I own this piece., Now I got to do something. I have investors who have said to me you’ve got to develop this, Brian. So, I am going to develop it and that’s why I would run a sewer system down to the village of Bloomfield. And then if you don’t want growth.”
Aimes now caves “I believe we do need to annex.”
Joel Hoiland put his pro-business bias in now “You want phase eight to be annexed into the city, and I believe that the town and village of Bloomfield are aggressively pursuing an opportunity to grow, because what else do they have? You know, they don’t have. I have neighbors who have vacation homes. I mean, they are from Illinois, and they treat them as vacation homes. They pay property taxes. They’re not freeloaders. They’re helping to support our community. Now, property taxes are divided between the schools and Gateway Technical College.”
“And so I’m really perturbed that, and I’m really irritated that my colleague here is nitpicking the developer now. Some of them may be legitimate and maybe appropriate, but come on, let’s just get this job done. Let’s get the annexation done and let’s move on.”
Linda Frame chirps on, “We’re only voting on annexation. We’re not voting on contract. Lines, line items. We’re not voting on structures we’re not voting on anything but the annexation.”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer reposes,” So I’m going to come back to #5 and I do believe with the amount of traffic from construction that we need to be compensated, we the city equally amongst all of us. And #5 says no improvements that I already read, so I’d like to make a motion by amendment to the following. No improvements to East Town Line Road or no North Road will be required unless those used. Improvements to the north half. Of North Bloomfield Rd. Shall be required of the developer.”
“So, the idea is the two roads that were named in the developer’s agreement, the contract for the pre-annexation town line and North Road, the intention is not to use that for construction traffic, that it would be Bloomfield Rd. So, while it would be nice to help out.The Bloomfield to the South of us, we don’t feel compelled to do that. So, it would only be on the north side of that road. So again, it’s half of a road that and right now you can tell by the condition that was mentioned from the construction traffic.”
She falls into their trap! Shit! She should have just required him to pay for the whole road. I’m sure Bloomfield would be cool with it.
Brian Pollard, “What? What does that even mean? I mean that that that, you know, hey, bring up your pocketbook. I don’t even know what that means, which you just.”
“You’re asking me to take care of half of the road. To what?”
Mary Jo Fesenmyer hits back, “Because the city, all of us, goes not sitting here will have to pay for that road after the construction. So again, while ideally it would be nice to do the whole Rd. it is not possible to do half of the road that you’re using, you’re using the whole road both lanes”.
Aimes also falls into the trap set up by Mayor Todd Krause earlier. “General public would say why are you just doing half the road? They don’t get that we don’t own both sides. We need to work with Bloomfield. It’s been a mess out there for years. It’s not. Oh, it’s a surprise. So, I think we need to answer the public when they say. Why didn’t you finish?”
Todd Krause “The whole road. OK, Alderman Howell.”
Alderman Howell, “I think you’re asking for the impossible. Fixing half the road, and I would like to call the question on this amendment.”
That dear reader is how it’s done in Lake Geneva!
The council goes on to unanimously pass everything the developer and Mayor Todd Krause wants for both the first reading and suspends the rules to pass on a second reading that night. Ordinance 24-03, an ordinance providing for direct annexation by unanimous consent of electors and property owners of territory located in the town of Bloomfield, Walworth County, Wisconsin.
Masterful, just masterful! The developer, the mayor, and city attorney know how to play the great game. City Council President Mary Jo Fesenmyer and Alderperson Peg Esposito gave the good fight for all the residents of Lake Geneva. Those two women definitely have cojones!
Capture1.PNG Capture2.PNGComments from your correspondent.
A few issues were brought up during this discussion which need edification. The primary one brought up by alderperson Peg Esposito is— does residential real estate pay for itself? The answer is NO.
Middle-class residential real estate taxes do not cover the full cost of city services they use.
The Tax Policy Center also highlights that while property taxes are a major local revenue source, they account for only a portion of the overall general revenue required to fund city services.
Does Lake Geneva have to grow?
Shrink the Economy, Save the World? Economic growth has been ecologically costly and so a movement in favor of ‘degrowth’ is growing.—– Is growth good ? To the person selling new homes or installing flooring in the new homes, YES. To the rest of the residents who live in Lake Geneva, not so much!
The rich world has a baby crisis so the lack of families with children is a worldwide trend.
In an ideal city the staff in charge of planning would not be influenced by the politicians and be free to act and negotiate for the greater good, like the Federal Reserve is independent of political interference. So far.
The last time the city updated it’s master plan I asked the paid city planner if this plan was the best overall for the city from an urban economic point of view? His replay was he has to do what the city council wants.
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