District 6 Update, November 9, 2020

 It’s hard to believe that the last time I wrote an update, I was complaining about snow on the ground when it’s 70 degrees outside right now.

Even though it feels like summer, the leaves are basically down – we here in Zone 2 have one more chance for the leaf pickup – get them out this weekend for pickup next week. After that, you’ll need to take them to the yard waste site.

From everything I hear, the election was very smooth in Appleton. I heard from a couple of people who voted in person that everything at the Mt. Olive polling place ran without a hitch. It certainly helped that there was beautiful weather to make standing in the socially distanced line more comfortable. We have a tradition in Common Council where the alderperson whose district has the highest voter turnout percentage gets to keep a small U.S. flag on their desk as a trophy until the next election. The City Clerk hasn’t given us the official numbers yet, but I did my own quick calculation, and it looks like we didn’t win this time – those folks up north in District 7 and District 13 vote in big numbers. Within District 6, it looks like Ward 15 (basically between Glendale and Northland and Richmond and Oneida, along with the area west of Richmond and North of Northland and the Hillock Ct./Edmund Dr. neighborhood West of Mason) is the winner with over 93% turnout.

My own tiny Ward 50 was the one that needs to get out the vote in the next election.

October 31 saw us celebrating Halloween and Budget Saturday. I did my preparations for Halloween on Friday, certain that we would be in our Zoom meeting on the budget until 6:00 p.m. as scheduled. However, probably due to the status quo nature of the budget and the fact that so many alderpersons submitted questions and got the answers in advance (Council President Lobner collated them for us and it came to 38 pages), the process went very quickly and we were done by mid-afternoon. We had the public hearing on the budget last Wednesday. Other than some general concerns with the wastewater rate increase and the budget item for updates to City Hall, most of the comments concerned the library, with the majority of people speaking in favor of the plan to remodel or rebuild the library at its current location. The special Common Council meeting to adopt the budget will take place this Wednesday, November 11, where we will consider any amendments to the budget by Council members. I did not propose any amendments to the budget. As I have noted before, it is a difficult time for the city financially, but I am generally pleased with the efforts to hold down spending and keep a rein on the rate of our debt increase.

From my very small sample, it seems that families did get out for Halloween – I was able to sit by my front window and watch the children stop by to pick up treat bags from the table on my front porch. It looked like mostly family groups and people were sticking in those groups.

The regular Common Council meeting followed the public hearing on the budget. As always, we began with the COVID-19 update from Health Officer Eggebrecht. At that time we were a bit optimistic because, while we were still at a VERY HIGH level based on burden and trajectory, we had seen the first decrease in the weekly positive results, but as of today, we are at the highest 7-day level since we started reporting. At this point, we all know what we should be doing. There was good news about a vaccine being developed by Pfizer today, but any large scale application would be many months away.

The rest of the agenda was light – a couple of rezoning resolutions for the Emerald Valley and Trail View Estates subdivisions on the north side, accepting CARES Act funds for the administration of the election and awarding a contract for HVAC repairs to a Wastewater building.

In this week’s committee meetings, the Finance Committee will be addressing a resolution firming up the commitment to work with the City of Menasha for the new raw water line. Parks and Recreation will be reviewing the Reid Golf Course fee schedule – the only change is a $1 increase in the twilight rate with cart – from $23 to $24. I do have some concerns with the fact that we are proposing a loan from the General Fund for the parking lot reconstruction – Reid Golf Course should be self-supporting and there is still an outstanding loan from the General Fund to the golf course. I did see that the sign for the Ellen Kort Peace Park has been put up – looking forward to seeing work beginning there!

Community and Economic Development Committee will be allocating the federal Community Development Block Grants – this is federal money that is awarded by the city.

That same committee will be discussing a proposal to extend the agreement with a developer looking at options for a mixed-use development on the sites of the former Conway Hotel and the Blue Ramp. The original agreement is set to expire on November 30 and the developer has asked for more time for the study.

Finally, the Taskforce on Resiliency, Climate Mitigation and Adaptation has submitted our report. I have not seen it distributed to the Common Council as yet, but I expect to be submitting some resolutions to act on the recommendations of the Taskforce, particularly some of those that could reap substantial benefits without large expenditures.