ODAM Law

Medians bad for business, owner says

16th February 2002

Medians bad for business, owner says

Date: 2/16/2002

by DEBBIE LUEBKE METRO

KENOSHA NEWS

A Kenosha businessman still claims the newly-constructed medians on Sheridan Road are more than bumps in the road for him and hopes a judge will allow a jury to decide the issue.

Lou Perrine, owner of Lou Perrine's Clark Service, 5145 Sheridan Road, lost a battle to halt the reconstruction project on Sheridan Road last July, and is now fighting to keep his business, his attorney says.

``The construction process and shortening the driveways caused great harm to his business. It's impossible for it to continue in its present form,'' Racine Attorney Jeffrey Leavell said Thursday.

``Now our focus is getting him the access he needs to stay in business or seeking monetary damages.

``Mr. Perrine is entitled to have a jury decide the issue of what motivated the city's plans. Beautification isn't a sufficient reason by law to allow a municipality to strangle a business's trade.''

He is in the process of gathering information about traffic at Perrine's, so no damage estimates are currently available, Leavell said.

At a recent hearing before Judge David Bastianelli, an attorney for the city asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.

``The city had a right to do what it did,'' Kenosha Attorney Robert DuMez, who represents the city, said Thursday.

``They adopted a design with an outside engineering firm. They recommended medians, and the city and the state Department of Transportation approved it.''

There is no evidence showing the median is detrimental to Perrine's business, or that the city is plotting to devalue the property so it can buy it for a piece of a HarborPark project, DuMez said.

``He just got a liquor license -- that doesn't square with a city plan to devalue that land.''

But Perrine testified at the injunction hearing in July that he saw development plans that suggest the city wants to acquire the property, where his family has been in business for 47 years.

Alderman Stephen Casey testified at that hearing that he heard the comment after a public works committee meeting about the median project that, ``Maybe some of those businesses (along Sheridan Road)don't belong there anyway.''

Leavell said it's strange that the median at 56th Street was shortened to accommodate southbound traffic on Sheridan Road trying to make a left turn into a city administration office building lot, when the same consideration wasn't offered to Perrine, who is in a similar spot a few blocks away.

That city office on the northeast corner of 56th Street houses the library administrative staff and some other city officials.

``They accommodate their own business, but not Louie's -- it's deplorable,'' Leavell said.

``They can't give the same treatment to a long-standing city business.''

But DuMez said DOT standards specify that medians must be right up to intersections where there is no 90-degree angle, or where there's a slight turn in the road. The 52nd and 60th Street intersections are like this, he said, while the 56th Street one is not.

Right now the DOT isn't a party in the lawsuit, but they might be if the suit moves forward, DuMez said.

``They should be involved since we're talking about altering a state highway.''

Bastianelli said he will issue a written decision on the case in about a month.