The Mayor consolidates his power

In the sweltering dog days of summer, on August 14th, 2024, the council meeting in Lake Geneva turned into a theater of the absurd, a grotesque carnival where Mayor Todd Krause and his sidekick, City Attorney Dan Draper, played the dual roles of slick con men and tragic clowns. The meeting was supposed to be a grand spectacle, the unveiling of the “referendum” that Krause had promised a beacon of democracy in a fog of bureaucratic bullshit. But lo and behold, the grand promise was nothing more than a mirage in the desert of municipal deceit.

Let’s roll the tape back to spring 2024. Todd Krause, the slick operator, had Mary Jo Fesenmaier a previously loyal supporter of the former mayor, Charline Kline swooning under his charm. It was a classic political swindle: Krause promised a referendum on the future of the former Hilmoore golf course land, which the city had purchased for a cool $6 million. The idea was that the land would be subject to the will of the people, as though the citizens of Lake Geneva were given the keys to the city’s future.

Mary Jo, ever the champion of “the people’s right to decide,” was lured into Krause’s camp with this tantalizing promise. A referendum, she was assured, would let the locals vote on whether to sell the land to the local Christian YMCA and the Lake Geneva Chamber of Commerce. But, as is often the case with such promises, it was too good to be true. The city’s citizens, who I’ve surveyed like a rabid pollster on a mission, are vehemently against selling the land, particularly to the Y. Former Alderman Pete Peterson nailed it when he declared at a recent public hearing that the land should remain untouched, a natural sanctuary for hiking and biking, not a real estate playground.

Mayor Todd Krause and city attorney Dan Draper are like the Mario and Luigi, Frodo and Sam, Iron Man and Captain America. Todd Krause during his campaign for Mayor in May 2024 promised the moon without the means to get there, saying he would hold a referendum on Hilmoor. The dynamic dual of Draper and Krause strikes again.

Now, here’s where the plot thickens. In July 2023, the state legislature, run by the Republican machine in collusion with Democratic Governor Evers, slammed down a mandate forbidding advisory referendums on anything but fiscal matters. This sinister legislation effectively shackles local governments, chaining them to the financial question mast and ripping away their ability to gauge public sentiment on broader issues.

Mayor Kline’s attempt in February 2024 to set up an advisory referendum asking voters whether the city should prohibit the sale or lease of any Hilmoor property was nipped in the bud by city attorney Dan Draper. His message was clear: No can do.

And so, Todd Krause, the man of the hour with his perpetual grin and grand promises, stood at the council meeting on August 14th, breaking the news that the referendum was a pipe dream. But wait there was a twist! He and Draper were “exploring” a new path, a clever maneuver involving “capital projects,” which sounded like a line straight out of a bad B-movie script.

Dig deeper, and the plot thickens even more. The YMCA’s finances, as of 2022, are far short of the $20M they would need to build a new Y. The organization’s recent history includes loans and pandemic relief that barely keeps them afloat. In 2014 the Y took out two bank loans of $100K and $500k which were paid back in 2022 after getting pandemic refief money of $210,00 and $184,577 in 2021. So, is it possible that the real scheme here is for the city to foot the bill for the new YMCA building and then lease it to them, effectively making taxpayers the unwitting financiers of this grandiose project?

Mayor Todd Krause’s power grab

As if that wasn’t enough, Krause and Draper pulled a fast one, proposing changes to the Park Board, Tree Board, and Plan Commission that would consolidate power in the mayor’s hands. The Park Board’s Alderman representative would be stripped of their vote, the Tree Board would be filled with Krause’s cronies, and the Plan Commission would be revamped to include only the mayor’s hand-picked citizens.

These changes will do the following:

On the Park Board the Alderman representative will no longer be able to vote.

The Park Board will no longer create the Tree Board. The mayor will now appoint all members to the Tree Board and any Alderman appointed will no longer be able to vote.

The Plan Commission will no longer have the President of the Park Board on it or any other representative from the Park Board, but instead will have five citizens cheery picked by the mayor.

Alderman Joel Holland pointed out at the Council meeting on 8.26.24:“The responsibilities of the park board and it has a lot to do with land use, about buying and selling real estate, about a lot of things that frankly no other department in the city has really oversight over and is involved in.”

“Natural connection between the park board and the Planning Commission. It seems like there should be a representative on it, so the thought was that instead of eliminating the President of the Park board to say, a representative from the Park Board and you know you could limit it to one year, or it could be.”

Alderman Holland made a motion to amend the changes Krause wanted to make on the composition of the Plan Commission to include someone from the Park Board be on the Planning Commission.

Unfortunately, no other Aldermen would support his amendment, so it failed.

Mayor Todd Krause is showing his true autocratic tendencies with the women on the city council falling in line like a bunch of bobble heads. The good ol boys have had one overriding philosophy concerning parks in Lake Geneva over the last 25 years and that is they don’t like them since they don’t want to pay to have the grass cut.

The following Aldermen voted to make all the changes Mayor Todd Krause proposed for the Plan Commission, Park Board, and Tree board. Council President, Mary Jo Fesenmaier, Council Vice President, Cindy Yager, Alderpersons: SherriAmes, Peg Esposito, Ken Howell, and Shari Straube

Joel Hoiland, is the only one to vote no.

We should also give credit to our politicians at the state level for limiting municipalities from placing advisory-only questions on ballots that do not have the force of law. This change was part of broader Republican effort to reduce the frequency of such non-binding referendums, which had become more common in the state in recent years as a means for municipalities to gage public opinion on a range of political and social issues.

The bill, which passed with a 63-34 vote, saw unanimous support from Republicans and opposition from Democrats. Notably, Lake Geneva’s own state legislators, Senator Steve Nass and Representative Tyler August, supported this measure.

And there you have it, folks. Todd Krause’s masquerade as the champion of democracy has been exposed for what it is a sordid dance of political trickery, an unholy alliance of greed and power. The true face of Lake Geneva’s leadership has been unmasked, and it’s as grim as it gets.