No. 7 Story of 2011: The Fire Pit Story From Heck

• Editor's note: This is the fourth of the 10-part countdown of the top stories on Geneva Patch in 2011. These 10 are my choices. At the end of each story, you'll get a chance to pick your own top story. I strongly encourage you to click on the links to the original story or stories, because that's where you'll find the real fun in this trip down memory lane.

If you like heated debate, hot topics and fiery rhetoric. If you prefer public issues discussed out in the open under a clear night sky () rather than in smoke-filled rooms. And if you're partial to stories that generate a lot of really bad puns, the fire-pit issue in Geneva should light your fire like a Jose Feliciano tune.

I'm telling you, I haven't seen this many puns in a story since I worked with Brian Kulpin. But I digress.

If you're looking for a man with a lighted match, you can start with . Colin's the gentleman who addressed the Geneva City Council and asking if the city might look into adusting its open-burning ordinance in order to allow recreational fire pits.

He reasoned that Batavia and other neighbor towns allow recreational burning, and a lot of folks in Geneva were lighting fires regularly and with impunity, so why not make their use allowable and set some clear rules about the darned things?

The idea smouldered, caught a little flame, then got to nearly forest-fire proportions once Jeff Ward stoked it with the gasoline of hyperbole. In his usual, quiet style, Jeff proposed a .

In actuality, it was for the most part a smart, civil debate over an important policy decision. Among the issues were every American's God-given right to cook a brat outdoors on the Fourth of July versus every American's God-given right to breathe.

There were comments, and and lobbying and testimony at public hearings from average citizens and Geneva icons. Former Park District Executive Director Steve Persinger testified in favor of fire pits; Geneva Township Supervisor Pat Jaeger spoke passionately against them.

What Geneva ended up with was a that contains some vague language and will be difficult to enforce, but at least sets some parameters for recreational burning and helps of the open-burning rules of the road.

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