A City Council committee has passed the decision on whether to allow a safety cable over the Fox River to the Park District, which owns the property where the device would be installed.
“We’re all in favor of the cable,” said Ald. Jack Ryan, Public Safety Committee chairman. “The more we looked at it, it just appeared the decision was not ours to make.”
District Director Steve Persinger said the park board would wait to hear a proposal on the project but that some of the same questions raised by city officials have to be answered.
“There still needs to be some determination as to who is going to maintain the cable and if there are any liability risks,” he said.
The idea was the brainchild of friends of a 27-year-old Batavia man who drowned at the Geneva dam on Memorial Day when a boat he was riding in plunged over the dam into the turbulent spillway.
As proposed, the cable would stretch across the river just north of the dam and serve as a last-chance opportunity for boaters before going over the dam.
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A similar device was installed about 10 years ago over the Fox River dam in Algonquin. Officials say no one has drowned since then.