Appleton District 6 Update - May 24, 2021
Good afternoon District 6,
I hope all the gardeners out there got all their plants in this weekend in time for them to soak up the rain we got last night. I keep saying I’m finished but then I go to yet another plant sale – Saturday was the Paper Valley Garden Club sale, which was held in the district, so I couldn’t really pass it up.
We marked a milestone at Wednesday’s Common Council meeting –
it was the first time in over a year that fifteen alderpersons were in chambers
for the meeting. The mayor remarked that it was the first time since his
election that he had seen the full council in person at a meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting Chief Thomas recognized the
APD Officer of the Year, Chue Thao. Officer Thao spoke movingly of coming to
the United States as a refugee and of his 25-year career with the department.
This award is given by a vote of the force, not by the commanding officers.
In other exciting APD news, Polly Olson was sworn in last
week as the first female Assistant Chief in APD history, becoming the highest-ranking
woman in the department.
There were a number of proclamations issued, including one
for Hmong American Day, which was accepted by several veterans who fought
alongside of American soldiers during the Vietnam war. As the speaker noted, there
are not very many of these veterans left with us, so it was good to be able to
honor them last week. I was also please to read the announcement that Outagamie
County and the Hmong American Partnership of the Fox Valley are working
together to create a memorial at Plamann Park to honor Hmong military
veterans who served in the Secret War run by the CIA from 1961 to 1975. Per the
Post-Crescent story, the Fox Cities have no memorial dedicated to Hmong
veterans, even though they've been part of the community for more than 40
years.
There was also a proclamation noting Public Works Week to “recognize
the contributions that Public Works employees make to our health, safety,
comfort, and quality of life.”
The mayor submitted a list of board and commission appointments
– notably, Dr. Lee Vogel was reappointed to the Board of Health for another
two-year term. I was grateful for her wise counsel to the Board on a number of
issues pre-COVID, and especially for during the pandemic.
Our former colleague Kyle Lobner was appointed to the Board
of Review. It is good to know that Kyle will still be serving our city in this
new capacity.
In the COVID-19 update, Health Officer Eggebrecht (the
agenda had said we would be recognizing him at the meeting, but his last
meeting is actually June 2, so it will be at that meeting) gave us the good
news that our cases were at the lowest level since last June, and that we had
moved down to the MODERATELY HIGH category for the first time since last
August. The vaccine clinic at the Fox Cities Exhibition Center will be closing
at the end of the month as the focus will be moving to making vaccines
available at primary care locations. As of this morning, 32,564 doses of the
vaccine had been administered at the clinic. There will be an event held to
honor and recognize the many volunteers who made the clinic possible. I have written
this before, but I got my vaccinations at the Expo Center and could not have
been more impressed with the care and efficiency exhibited by the volunteer
staff. We still need more people to get vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity”
as we only have about 40% of people in Outagamie County fully immunized. As of
last week, about 54% of all eligible people in Appleton had received at least
one dose of vaccine. I hope these numbers increase as the vaccine is approved
for younger people.
Most of the meeting was uneventful, with no items reported
from last week’s committee meetings getting requests for separate votes.
At the end of the meeting, we were to vote on the ordinance
which would repeal the temporary ordinance enacted in May of 2020 that
temporarily changed the rules for Common Council, committees, boards, and
commissions. This was the ordinance that allowed alderpersons and city staff to
participate virtually in meetings and allowed the public to participate
virtually as well. The new ordinance was scheduled run through September 30,
2021 given the expectation that a majority of residents would be vaccinated by
early summer. After that date, the original rules regarding attendance and public
participation would be in effect. The ordinance also called for a quorum of
committee members to be present in person as of June 1 and allowed the mayor
some discretion as to remote public participation.
I fully intended to vote for this ordinance since there
would still be some flexibility on attendance and public participation while we
worked on developing some new Council rules that would take into account the
technology now available to us for occasional remote participation by council
members or the public. While the pandemic has been terrible in almost all
respects, it has allowed us to develop some creative solutions and I don’t think
we need to abandon all of these. Most Common Council members have “day jobs”
that might require them to travel on occasion – as a matter of fact, our new Council
President attended at least one meeting virtually while on a business trip.
With the technology available to us, I don’t see any reason that someone in
this situation should not be able to attend a meeting virtually.
However, there was a motion to amend the ordinance to have
the temporary rules expire June 1, which would basically allow us no time to
develop any alternative rules before we would be required to participate only
in-person with rare exceptions. After much discussion, the amendment was
changed to have the temporary rules expire July 1. This motion carried 9-6. I
voted against it for the reasons above – I would have preferred to develop
options BEFORE removing the ability to participate virtually. As noted, all of
us were present in person last week, and I personally have been attending meetings
in person since I passed the “fully vaccinated” milestone. I do not believe
that any of my colleagues would abuse the ability to attend an occasional
meeting virtually and I think that it further limits who is able to serve when
we don’t embrace the technology, we have been using for over a year to give us
more flexibility. I am still hopeful that we can schedule an organizational
meeting and vote for some changes before the ordinance goes into effect.
Alderperson Schultz submitted a resolution, co-sponsored by me
and Alderperson Meltzer, expressing our support for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship
program. The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program was created in 1989 “to preserve
valuable natural areas and wildlife habitat, protect water quality and
fisheries and expand opportunities for outdoor recreation.”
The City of Appleton received a grant for $700,000 for the Lawe
Street Trestle Trail project in 2019. The grant was to have covered half of the
cost. The trail was complete last year for $911,810 – under the $1.4 million
budget, but an anonymous member of the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee
objected to awarding the funds and no hearing was scheduled to allow the city
to press for having those funds awarded. Finally, a hearing was held last week,
and we were awarded the grant funds. The project was budgeted based on the
grant, and not getting it would have resulted in having to take funds from
other projects to make up for the grant funds not received.
The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program has been funded on a
10-year cycle since its inception, but the program was only extended two years
in the last budget. The conservation and outdoor projects it has funded have included
170 projects in the Fox Valley. These are matching funds, which means that the communities
have an equal stake in the projects. We are asking the state legislature to
continue support for these important projects in our community. This resolution
will be considered by the Parks and Recreation Committee Monday, May 24,
2021 at 6:30 p.m.
Other committee business includes:
Municipal Services Committee – Monday, May 24, 2021, 4:30
p.m.
· A
request from a resident for a variance to extend a driveway 10 feet into a
front yard
·
A request from Miller Electric for a permanent
street occupancy permit to install an overhead pipe bridge structure and
associated piers in the Douglas Street right-of-way at 702 S. Douglas Street
·
Request from Hoffman Planning, Design &
Construction to modify the permanent street occupancy permit for the YMCA Ramp
footings and foundations to extend into the right-of-way.
o
Oneida Street-5 feet (no change)
o
Lawrence Street-7 feet
o
Morrison Street-7 feet
o
Soldiers Square-8 feet
·
Request from Appleton Downtown Inc. for a street
occupancy permit for Street Music Week, June 14-18, 2021 – more signs that we
are headed for a more “normal” summer with some events that were canceled last
year.
·
Information item – the parking utility annual
report. As expected, expenses exceed revenue due to decreased utilization as business
were closed and downtown workers were working remotely.
Finance
Committee – Monday, May 24, 2021, 5:30 p.m.
· Contract award for budgeted sewer and water construction - Lightning Drive and Edgewood Drive – Feaker and Sons Co., Inc. - $1,054,464
· Contract award for budgeted Unit Y-21 Sewer & Water Reconstruction No. 3 – Kruczek Construction, Inc. - $857,871
· Budget amendment to reallocate positive bid variances for the purchase of land for the future Spartan Drive and stormwater management. The City Attorney’s office recommended that we move ahead with this land acquisition now to counter the volatile real estate market.
Fox
Cities Transit Commission – Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 3:30 p.m.
· Income
and ridership reports – it does appear that ridership is coming back, but the
YTD numbers are still very much affected by the pandemic when compared to 2020
where the early months were “normal”.
Utilities
Committee – Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 5:00 p.m.
· Award of contract for sewer root control – Duke’s Root Control - $25,000
· Award of budgeted contract for 2021 Secondary Clarifier Drive Removal, Rebuild, and Reinstallation - Sabel Mechanical - $200,447
· Award of budgeted contract for Secondary Clarifier Drive Rebuild Parts - Evoqua Water Technologies LLC. - of $105,964.
The good news about the two above items is that it was determined that the drive unit could be rebuilt rather than replaced for a 50% savings.
T
City
Plan Commission – Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 3:30 p.m.
· · Request to approve the First Addition to Broadway Hills Estates Final Plat
This will be 7 lots for single family homes on the west side of French Road north of Broadway Drive – Phase 2 of Broadway Hills Estates
Safety
and Licensing Committee – Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 5:30 p.m.
Among
the normal license renewals are more signs of a renewal of summer activities – beer
and wine license applications for the summer concerts on Thursdays in Jones
Park, the Jaycees for the Memorial Park 4th of July fireworks, Art
in the Park for July 24-25, the Appleton Firefighters Softball Tournament at
Memorial Park on July 7th.
Human
Resources and Information Technology Committee is canceled this week for no
action items.
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