Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for October 10, 2021
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| Photo from packersnews.com |
Well, that was just about the craziest ending to a football game that I have ever seen. I will admit that I had the sofa pillow in front of my face for the final field goal attempt. Now back to baseball mode for tomorrow!
September was one of those months where we had a fifth Wednesday, so there was an off week for committees the week of September 27th, but we were back for the full council meeting last Wednesday and have a full slate of committee meetings this week.
Wednesday’s
meeting was fairly short, with no items being separated for individual discussion
or votes. I heard a joke that the mayor should issue a proclamation stating
that last week was proclamation week in Appleton, as he did issue six of them.
All kidding aside, these are all important proclamations:
Mental
Health Day (October 10), Coming Out Day (October 11), Indigenous Peoples’ Day
(October 11), White Cane Awareness Day (October 15), Fire Prevention Week
(October 3-9) and Domestic Violence Awareness Month (all of October).
The proclamation
for Indigenous Peoples’ Day will be read by the mayor at the Peace Tree
Dedication ceremony Monday at 1:00 at the Paper Discovery Center, 425 W. Water
St. The tree was a gift from Menominee Tribal Enterprises.
https://esther-foxvalley.org/date/2021/10/11/peace-tree-dedication
During the
COVID-19 update we heard that Appleton was still at the Very High burden rate
and High transmission rate, with 458 new cases over the past two weeks. 158 of
those cases were in people under the age of 18. There were 102 people
hospitalized with COVID, 24 of them in intensive care as of October 6. More
than 98% of those people are unvaccinated. One note I was happy about is that
the vaccination rate of 12-17 year-olds has been increasing by 2% each week. COVID
testing and vaccines are available at the old Best Buy location at 2411 S
Kensington Dr. Check the city webpage for dates and times for each week:
https://covid-19-appleton.hub.arcgis.com/
We received
our copies of the 2022 Executive Budget (I checked – it came it at 20 pages
more than last year – 668 total) and the mayor made some remarks about the transmittal
memo and the budget itself. He is planning to expand on these remarks and talk
some more about the budget at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting. More on that
and on the plans for the first portion of the American Rescue Plan Act funds
allocated to the City of Appleton in the Committee Agendas section of the update.
I’ll be spending most of my time in the next three weeks studying the budget
and sending questions to department heads in preparation for Budget Saturday on
October 30 where we will review the entire budget. More on the process as it
goes along.
Some of the
major items approved in the committee reports were:
· Rezoning of 2121 S. Schaefer St. to allow
reconstruction and a second commercial building.
· Awarding of the contract for the design
of the new WE Energies Trail to KE Engineering. From the notes on the project: There
will be 1.6 miles of off-road trail developed under the WE Energies power lines
starting at Oneida Street and ending at Woodland Park/Horizons Elementary
School. Additionally, another half mile of supplemental wayfinding and route
signage along Schaefer Circle connecting to Lake Park Road is also included in
the project. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $1,200,000,
of which $516,292 will be federal Department of Transportation funds. Design
is to be complete in 2023 and the project to be completed in 2024.
· Request
to award the Transportation Utility Funding Study to Ehlers/RA Smith consulting
team in an amount not to exceed $72,187. This is the study to determine if a transportation
utility is a viable solution to the gap we have between our road construction
and repair needs and our revenue. As noted, we have moved to about 25% of our
road construction being debt funded to more than 70%. The wheel tax was adopted
as a replacement for special street assessments and does not meet the full need
for street construction and repair.
In committee
meetings this week:
Redistricting
Committee – Monday, October 11, 3:45 p.m.
In the last
meeting, the committee was presented with three options for the required
redistricting – Options A, B and C. All were drawn to basically correspond with
the county supervisory redistricting plan (remember that parts of Appleton are
in Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago County). Option A most closely matched the
current ward boundaries, and while the redistricting plans are drawn blind to
where current alderpersons reside, this option kept all sitting alderpersons in
their districts, while Option B and Option C each had the effect of “moving”
several alderpersons out of their districts. I’m linking the agenda of the last
meeting here so that you can look at the options.
In Option A
and Option B, Northland Mall and the neighborhood west of N. Mason and north of
Northland Mall (across Mason from Festival Foods) and the south side of Ridgeview
and south to Northland moved out of District 6. In Option B, most of the area north
of Wisconsin and south of Northland and between Richmond and Meade (except for
the area between Oneida and Meade and Lindbergh and Northland) moved out of District
6, along with the neighborhood bounded by Northland, Meade, Capitol and
Memorial Park (the old ward 17). In Option C, Northland Mall and the
surrounding neighborhoods stayed in District 6, which extended north all the
way north of 41 past Highview Park. The old Ward 17 was also not in District 6
in this option. Note that all the wards are renumbered but the districts are
not. Full disclosure – in Options B and C, I would no longer reside in District
6. Under the rules of the council, any alderperson who is redistricted out of
their current district would serve until the end of their term and then have
the option to run in the new district.
While I am
not on the redistricting committee, I attended the meeting on the 27th
and heard the committee agree that they wanted to pursue Option A with some minor
changes. In the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, those changes are noted, but
staff has also presented Option D, which appears to have been created to reduce
the population disparities between the districts.
Option A
Option D – old
ward 17 is moved out of District 6; Northland Mall and adjacent neighborhood
added back, along with some new area south of Northland Ave.
I plan to
attend the meeting Monday to hear the reasoning behind the new option. I
believe the committee needs to vote on a plan this week to meet the goal of the
full council voting on it by October 20.
Full agenda
with the complete maps here:
Municipal Services Committee – Monday, October 11, 4:30 p.m.
· A number of street occupancy permits –
most for construction projects
· Information items include a request
for an organizational change between the Central Equipment Agency (CEA) and the
Parking Utility – this will be an action item at the Human Resources and Information Technology
Committee meeting on Wednesday – and a Bird Scooter Update. Reminder: if you
want to complete a survey about the scooters, it can be found here: https://www.appleton.org/Home/Components/News/News/21006/6882
Finance Committee – Monday, October 11, 5:30 p.m.
As noted above, the mayor will present the executive budget
for 2022 and have some comments in addition to those he made at last week’s
council meeting.
· Request to approve the use of 2021
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and approve the related 2021 Budget amendment:
Guidelines from the Treasury Department on uses:
Guiding principles set by the mayor and city staff for use of the funds:
They determined two categories and use and split the budgeted funds according to
those categories, with Category 1 as a budget amendment to the current year
budget and Category 2 as part of the 2022 budget:
The full memo is here:
http://cityofappleton.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=9dc70e33-8dc3-4fdd-8d55-c05c0c1190ed.pdf
· Request to award the City of Appleton
Green Ramp Light Fixture Replacement purchase order to Crescent Electric Supply
Co. in the amount of $160,093.05. This was a capital item in the 2021 budget.
· Request approval of a construction
contract for the DAF Conversion to Receiving Tank Project to Staab Construction
Corporation in the amount of $247,000 with a contingency of $24,700 for a total
not to exceed cost of $271,700. This conversion will allow the city to take on
additional hauled waste from outside the city sewer area (a large source of
revenue that offsets the treatment expense.
· Request to award the City of
Appleton's 2021 Police Station Security Fence project contract to IEI General
Contractors, Inc in the amount of $169,000 with a contingency of 12% for a
project total not to exceed $189,280.
· Request to Award Unit U-21 Apple
Creek Court and Plamann Park Sewer & Water to Superior Sewer & Water
Construction, Inc in the amount of $3,899,181 with a 2.5% contingency of
$100,000 for a project total not to exceed $3,999,181. This is a capital item
in the 2021 budget after the city annexed the park.
Utilities Committee – Tuesday, October 12, 5:00 p.m.
· Approve Wastewater Rate Increase of
4% to be effective January 1, 2022. Recommended in the rate study done
in 2020. Since that time, the utility lost a large industrial customer and thus,
a large source of revenue. The average customer will see about a $3.00 quarterly
increase. I will note that the water utility is supposed to be self-supporting;
i.e., the revenues fund the operation of the utility rather than the city’s general
fund.
Board of Health – Wednesday, October 13, 7:00 a.m.
·
No
action items, but there will be a presentation by the Samaritan Counseling
Center of the Fox Valley.
·
Information
items include a couple of small inspection fee increases for weights and
measures (the Health Department is in charge of these inspections.)
City Plan Commission – Wednesday, October 13, 3:30 p.m.
·
Final plat
approval for North Edgewood Estates 3
and an extraterritorial preliminary plat approval for Auburn Estates in the
Town of Grand Chute. (The city has approval jurisdiction for unincorporated
areas within three miles of the city.)
·
Annexations of
property at N2883 County Road EE, the southwest corner of North Ballard Road
and East Mackville Road, currently in the Town of Center, and Lightning
Drive/C.T.H. JJ, currently in the Town of Center for right of way for street,
utilities and stormwater pond construction.
·
Information
item – the Neighborhood Program Fall Meeting will be held on October 28 from
6:00 to 7:30 p.m. via Zoom. Sign up here: https://www.appleton.org/residents/neighborhood-program/neighborhood-program-fall-meeting
Community and Economic Development
Committee – Wednesday, October 13, 4:30 p.m.
· Offer by Hayden Properties, LLC to
purchase properties in the Southpoint Commerce Park at a purchase price of
$1,156,720.00 ($38,000 per acre). There could be a closed session to discuss
the details.
· Information items include a review of
the Community and Economic Development Department 2022 budget.
Safety and Licensing Committee –
Wednesday, October 13, 5:30 p.m.
· Normal liquor licenses and renewals
· Information item – 2022 Budget for
City Clerk’s Office
Human Resources and Information Technology Committee –
Wednesday, October 13, 6:30 p.m.
·
Request
to change Public Works organization structure to combine two part time positions
into one full-time benefitted position for a Service Person. Currently, there
are often skilled mechanics at CEA performing these duties due to the difficulty
of hiring the part time position. The 2022 cost would be $13,124, which would
be covered by reducing the part-time budget.
·
Request
to renew the contract with USI as the fringe benefit consultant to the city.
The new 3-year contract is about a 3% reduction from the previous amount. ($66,000
vs $67,980).
Parks and
Recreation Committee is
canceled but you have one last chance to fill out the Bicycle Friendly
Community Survey (October 11 is the last day)
This was a
long update but there is a lot going on.
Have a great
week, Go Brewers and point Crosby in the right direction!
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