The Elkhart Lake Village Board in Wisconsin voted August 26 to spend $48,000 on a single park bench that plays recorded poetry when someone sits on it. The bench does not have a backrest.
The Elkhart Lake Village Board, in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, approved the purchase at its August 26 meeting. Village President Karl Hoffman signed the purchase order the following Monday. The bench, ordered from a Chicago design firm, was installed on Lake Street on August 29, four days before this article was written.
The total cost, per the purchase order obtained from the village clerk's office, came to $48,000: $31,200 for fabrication, $9,800 for the embedded speaker and solar battery system, and $7,000 for what the invoice lists as 'creative direction.' The bench seats three people. It has no backrest.
"We wanted something that would make people stop and think."— Karl Hoffman, Elkhart Lake Village President
The bench nobody asked for
Resident Donna Krause, who owns a bait shop two doors down on Lake Street, said she found out about the bench when a delivery truck blocked her loading dock for four hours on installation day. She said she has never seen anyone use it. 'People walk right past it,' Krause said.
The purchase order lists a line item of $7,000 for 'creative direction,' billed by a consultant named on the invoice as Priya Nair, who is credited with selecting the poem — a 40-second recording of a Robert Frost stanza that plays through a hidden speaker whenever a sensor detects at least 90 pounds of weight on the seat.
Elkhart Lake, population roughly 1,000, previously spent $12,000 in 2024 on a decorative bike rack shaped like a fish. That project was funded through the same village arts line item used for the bench.
Four days and counting
Trustee Linda Ostrowski was the lone no vote on the board. She filed a written objection with the clerk the day of the meeting, arguing the money should have gone toward repaving Lake Street instead. 'We have potholes that could swallow a golf cart,' Ostrowski wrote in her objection.
As of September 1, the bench remains installed and functional. The village has not announced any additional public art purchases, though the arts line item in the 2026 budget still shows $14,000 unspent, according to the clerk's office.
The bench still doesn't have a backrest.
Man Rides LAWNMOWER 90 Miles
Only In America
Gary Deel, 54, was stopped by Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers on August 28 near Zanesville, Ohio, driving a riding lawnmower on the shoulder of Interstate 70. He told troopers he was headed to see his daughter in Columbus.
Deel had traveled roughly 40 miles from his home in Cambridge, Ohio, by the time he was stopped, according to the Highway Patrol incident report. He was not charged, since driving a lawnmower on the interstate shoulder is not itself a criminal offense in Ohio, but troopers escorted him off the highway.
The mower had a plastic cooler bungee-corded to the back, stocked with sandwiches and a two-liter bottle of orange soda. Deel told troopers he figured the trip would take about six hours at the mower's top speed of roughly 8 miles per hour. He never made it past Zanesville.