Appleton Common Council Meeting for March 17

 







Little Italy Branch Library, Chicago (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)



Good afternoon District 6,

I normally send updates after the Common Council meeting, but I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of a couple of items of interest in tomorrow’s council meeting.


As expected, the Finance Committee recommended approval of awarding the contract for design and engineering services for the library building to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the amount of $2,721,389 with a 5% contingency of $136,070 for a project total not to exceed $2,857,459. Close budget-watchers might remember that the 2021 budget included $2,400,000 for the design. The following explanation is from Director Gazza:

“The 2021 Budget includes $2,400,000 for library design services. It was anticipated design would begin in 2021 and construction would begin in 2022. This contract also includes construction administration services to be completed in 2022. Rather than creating two separate contracts, it is standard practice to issue one contract to include all services. In order to provide the additional spending authority for the anticipated cost of this contract, a 2021 Budget amendment is also being proposed for $457,459, which will be deducted from the existing project total of $26.4 million as approved in the 2021 Budget and Service Plan. It is anticipated that any budgeted funds related to this contract that are not expended in 2021 would be carried over to 2022.”

The contract is on the full council agenda for tomorrow, March 17. If you have input on the issue, you can send to me before tomorrow afternoon, or you can speak at the meeting either in person (masks and social distancing are required in council chambers) or virtually by calling the City Clerk’s office before 3:00 p.m. today to register at (920) 832-6443. When you register, you will be given the Zoom link to participate.

Another issue that will appear on the agenda is alderperson salaries. Alderpersons do not vote on their current salaries, and state law prohibits us doing so after taking out paperwork to run for re-election. The item was not sent by staff to the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee in time to act for the full council who will be elected in April of 2022. We could have voted to raise the salaries of only those alderpersons who will not be running until 2022, or we could propose the salary for 2023. All on the committee agreed that two different salaries did not make sense, so we wanted to send something to the full council. There was some discussion and a couple of motions that were withdrawn, and Alderperson Martin eventually made a motion to base the salaries on what the City of Green Bay pays their council members, which I understood to be some sort of figure pro-rated by population and number of council members. I was doing some quick calculations and figured that this would work out to a small raise. Eventually, Alderperson Martin moved to set the salary at $10,125, which I think surprised all of us. I voted against this motion, as did Alderperson Firkus, but the rest of the committee voted to approve, really to get it to the full council, where it will certainly be amended to either no increase or a small increase – the last increase was 1.5%.

While no one serves on the Common Council for the money – the pay starting in April is $6221 per year, or a net of a bit over $100 per week, it does take quite a bit more time than just the council meeting every two weeks. We all serve on two or more committees which also generally meet twice a month, and we need to answer calls and emails from our constituents, plus research issues that are before us in order to make informed decisions. I worry that our community and others are taking the ability to serve away from those who are not able to devote the time required because they need to be working more hours at their primary job, or because they need to pay for childcare for meetings. I work hard at being an alderperson, but my life experiences don’t necessarily give me the same perspective as a young working parent or a single person working multiple jobs just to get by.  

All that being said, I just don’t think it is the right time to spend $90,000 more in alderperson salaries. I will join my colleagues to amend the resolution as noted above – for a small increase in 2023 since the last increase was for 2021 and there will be no increase for 2022.

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