Editorial by Dave Schmidt

The other day I drove to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with my wife to visit my daughter and her family who were vacationing in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Lake Geneva is about a 40 mile drive from my home in Machesney Park, Illinois. It was a very enjoyable trip, the little towns had different names, but it sure reminded me of Mercer County. Farms along the way, something I don’t get to see much living in the Rockford, Illinois area, so it was almost like being home again.

We arrived in Lake Geneva and boy was it beautiful, having lived in Celina for over 35 years it was nice to be on a drive around the Lakeshore. The kids had a great place to stay for a couple of days and than we decided to drive into town to eat at a restaurant everyone knows in this area “Popeye’s” and it was good.

Now to why I am writing this editorial. Lake Geneva gets an A+ from me for knowing how to turn a small lakeside community into a tourist attraction that brings in folks from all around the country. There were even those ladies with the “red hats” strolling around the streets after they had arrived on one of the many of the tour buses in the area. The town was clean and attractive and you couldn’t find a parking place very easily. The downtown was a great “tourist trap”, and I mean that in a positive way. Every building on the Main Street had businesses that make the area work, ask my wife about the fudge shop, where they make fudge on site. The building were all very attractive, had the same feel to meet the mood of the area, clean and a great variety of shops.

Down by the lake was a beautiful beach (to cold to swim the day we were there), a great water fountain at the site of the docks that provided boat tours around the lake. My daughter and grandson took the ride and saw some amazing vacation homes around the lake. There were plenty of hotels that overlooked the lake and provided folks a reasonable way to stay a night or two in the area. The area has it all!

My hat is off to the community of Lake Geneva, they have taken advantage of a lake and have made it work for them to provide income for those who live there and keep the city viable.

My last several years of working for the City of Celina I was able to help put together a group of city leaders, county leaders and civic folks to visit sites like South Haven and St. Joe Michigan and a trip to Warsaw, and Winona Lake Indiana. Those were great trips and we saw how those communities used the lake to work for them. From those visits in which Mayor Paul Arnold had asked me to put together, because he saw the value of making the lake work helped to inspire the Lakeshore Park site and the current boardwalk project. These projects are good starters, but now the entire community needs to see the vision of how the Celina side of Grand Lake could prosper. Would you want to come to Celina as a tourist today if I asked you? Probably not, there are many things that need to be done to make this work - like working with Downtown business owners on a plan to make it a “tourist trap”, update the Lakeshore Park area with permanent buildings and venues, find specialty businesses for the West Bank Road, don’t just build the boardwalk, make it work.

My true feelings are that Celina is a great place to live, but in order to make Celina work it needs this to happen. It should have been done 30 years ago, much like Lake Geneva did and now they enjoy the benefits!

http://www.lakegenevawi.com