“A public appraisal, a former mayor, and the kind of civic transparency that only arrives after someone files a FOIA request”

by lakegenevanews.com

Sweet Jesus, where do you even begin with this one.

Mayor Todd Krause has finally, finally, dragged the appraisal for the public land sold to former Mayor Tom Hartz into the cold light of day — and what emerges from the bureaucratic fog is a document riddled with assumptions, asterisks, and the unmistakable stench of a deal that was cooked long before anyone bothered to tell the public about it.

And let’s be clear about something from the jump: it is not known if this was the final “draft” the council used when they went into closed session, because the alderpersons were not permitted to keep copies of the appraisal. Read that again. The people elected to represent you weren’t allowed to walk out of the room with the document they were voting on. That’s not governance — that’s a magic show where the audience isn’t allowed to see the trick.

The city engaged L.A. Duesterbeck & Associates — a legitimate, well-respected commercial real estate firm with offices in Janesville, Appleton, and Milwaukee — on October 13, 2025, with their opinion rendered as of November 13, 2025. Those dates, dear readers, will become very, very important in a moment. Burn them into your skulls.

Now, the land itself. We’re talking about a parcel that at one time was part of a natural gas operation. There’s a We Energies natural gas utility substation squatting on part of it, currently moonlighting as the city’s only owned parking lot — used as a park-and-ride shuttle to downtown. The gas company also retains a 30-foot-wide easement to that substation running across Parcels A and B. So you’ve got utility easements, former industrial use, and a parking lot baking in the Wisconsin sun. Romantic stuff.

But here’s where the appraisers had to get creative. They applied what is called, in the bloodless language of real estate valuation, an “extraordinary assumption” about the property’s dark past with the natural gas utility:

“The appraisal is subject to the extraordinary assumption that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Remediation & Redevelopment Sites map reveals past contamination of the subject property, but both cases are closed, and we assume there is no residual contamination on the property.”

They assume. They are assuming the ground isn’t poisoned. And they covered themselves accordingly:

“The reliance on an extraordinary assumption may impact the results of the appraisal assignment. If any of the extraordinary assumptions noted above are found to be untrue, we reserve the right to modify our appraisal conclusions.”

In other words: we think it’s fine, but if it turns out the ground is full of whatever hell a natural gas operation leaves behind, well — don’t blame us, we told you we were guessing.

The firm also noted a 125-foot-wide recreational trail easement across the southern edge of Parcels A, B, and C along Sheridan Springs Road referenced in surveys — but they were unable to locate the recordings of the easement. An easement they can’t find. On land they assume isn’t contaminated. Being sold to a former mayor. By a city council that wouldn’t let its own members keep a copy of this document.

Everything is fine. This is fine.

The appraisers landed on a cumulative market value of $725,000 — then applied a “bulk sale price” discount down to $685,000, because “almost all land is worth less per acre as the amount of land goes up.” Fair enough. That’s standard math.

Tom Hartz, principal of Simple Food Group, opened his offer at $610,000. The city council countered at $750,000, and Hartz accepted. So the former mayor of Lake Geneva agreed to pay $65,000 over the appraised bulk value. The city will tell you that’s a win. Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s the price of a very smooth transaction.

The appraisers also evaluated highest and best use, concluding the property, “as though vacant, is developing the parcels with a commercial or industrial use.” And they estimated appropriate market exposure time thusly:

“A reasonable time is supposed to be allowed for exposure in the open market; Estimated exposure time of the subject, at our opinion of the market value of the subject, is one year or less considering a reasonable and diligent effort has been made to market the subject property. This is based upon historical exposure times of comparable property in the subject market.”

One year. The appraisers said it themselves — “a period of about one year is also considered a reasonable interval to prudently market the subject property.”

Now. Remember those dates? Here they come.

The Lake Geneva City Council declared this property “surplus” on September 22, 2025 — the first moment it could legally be offered for sale under the city’s own land sale policy. The council then went into closed session on January 12, 2026, to sell it to Simple Food Group. On January 26, 2026, they finalized the deal with Tom Hartz.

That is two and a half months. Two and a half months between “this property is available” and “it’s sold — meeting adjourned.”

The appraisers called for a year of diligent marketing. The city managed somewhere between ten and twelve weeks — and it remains entirely unknown whether the city ever listed this property publicly, ever advertised it, ever so much as stapled a flyer to a telephone pole before walking into that closed session.

The answer appears to be: not so much.

How do we know? Because when the council met on January 26, 2026, to make it official — when it was already a done deal — potential buyers showed up who had just found out the property might be for sale. They came to a closing ceremony, not a competition. The market was not tested. The public was not informed. The “diligent effort” the appraisal demands appears to have consisted largely of one phone call to one man.

This is the thing about small-town power — it doesn’t announce itself with a villain’s monologue. It operates in closed sessions and expired deadlines. It lives in the gap between what the rules say and what actually happens. A policy was followed, technically. An appraisal was conducted, technically. A counteroffer was made, technically.

But the land was sold to a former mayor, on a compressed timeline, through a process the public knew nothing about, based on a document the elected council members weren’t allowed to keep.

And now, at long last, we have the appraisal.

The question is what Lake Geneva intends to do about what’s in it.

And if you still need convincing that the machinery of Lake Geneva’s civic apparatus runs exactly the way it looks like it runs, consider this final, crystalline moment of democratic theater.

Below, captured for posterity in the cold, unblinking eye of a camera — because someone, thank God, had the presence of mind to document it — is Mayor Todd Krause himself, casting the deciding vote to hand this public land to his predecessor:

There he is, folks. The man himself. No smoke-filled room required when you can do it right there under the fluorescent lights of a municipal meeting hall, gavel in hand, conscience apparently at rest.

Watch it as many times as you need to. It doesn’t get more or less true with repetition.