Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for January 31, 2022
Good afternoon District 6 neighbors,
I’m sending an update prior to the Common Council meeting
this Wednesday because a few major committee items will not be on the agenda
for that meeting, and I don’t want them to get lost.
The first item was the contract for the city brand study. As
noted in last week’s update, there was a request to award the contract for the
brand study to Unlisted, LLC for a total of $88,840. In the previous Finance
Committee meeting there was quite a bit of discussion from both members of the
committee and other alderpersons, and the item was held in anticipation of
getting some answers to questions from the recommended bidder. However, before the
meeting, Unlisted, LLC withdrew the bid. The Finance Committee received a letter
from the mayor recommending that the Request for Proposal be modified and
reissued. There was a great deal of discussion at the meeting once again, with
the final result being that the item was held indefinitely, which essentially
eliminates the item. I attended the meeting to express my view that there did
not seem to be a point in taking staff time to redo the RFP. The Finance
Committee had recommended approval for a brand study last year, and the funds were
included in the allocation of the unspent General Fund balance from 2020. As I
noted last week, I voted for the allocation with the hopes that the rebranding
effort would include upgrading the city’s website and other measures that would
give citizens better access to information.
After the brand study was eliminated from the General Fund
balance allocation, the committee took up Resolution #2-R-22, which was submitted
by Alderperson Van Zeeland and which I co-sponsored, along with Alderpersons
Firkus, Wolff and Prohaska. This resolution proposed that the funds originally
allocated to the brand study and the implementation of the recommendations
resulting from the study instead by used for updating the city website, adding
to the enhanced crosswalk program and for general technology upgrades in city
facilities. The discussion of this amendment was lengthy, with members of the
committee and other council members expressing strong opinions. Alderperson Doran,
who is not on the Finance Committee, distributed a reworded version of the
resolution (which essentially made it dependent on the brand study and removed
the fund allocations. In order for this proposal to be considered, a member of
the committee would have had to introduce it as an amendment, which no one did.
Eventually, the resolution as written was held until the next Finance Committee
meeting on February 7. I continue to support the resolution – now that the
brand study has been tabled, I think that the $475,000 will be better used as proposed
in the resolution.
You can watch the meeting video here:
The other item that was held was Resolution 1-R-22, which
would make it illegal for a bartender to work while intoxicated, with a penalty
of “revocation, suspension, non-issuance, or non-renewal of the server’s
operator’s license.” The police department submitted six instances from 2021 where
the department had to act on a case of an intoxicated bartender. I did note
that one of these appeared to be a bartender driving after the bar was closed –
handled as an OWI. Again, there was much
discussion in committee, but I honestly did not see anything in these incidents
that couldn’t be handled by existing ordinances. The holder of the liquor
license is subject to demerits and possible loss of the license by allowing
someone to serve while intoxicated, so they have incentives to make sure their
employees comply. Neenah has a similar ordinance passed in 2013, but there have
been no citations under than ordinance since it was enacted. There was an initial
motion to deny, but after the discussion, the resolution was held until the
February 23 meeting in order to make some changes to the language. I will wait
to see what the changes are, but I am inclined not to support creating an
ordinance when the existing laws are sufficient to address the issue.
Finally, a note about the upcoming primary election on
February 15. Remember that our polling place has changed – we vote at the
Scheig Center in Memorial Park. In our district, the primary is only for the
school board. Early voting starts tomorrow at City Hall (100 N. Appleton). Hours
are 8:00 to 4:30 February 1-4, 8:00 to 4:30 February 7-10 and 8:00 to 12:00 February
11. You can still request an absentee ballot at https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/ until February
10, although I don’t think I would wait that long. I got my absentee ballot Saturday
after requesting it on January 26.
Enjoy the warm(er) weather this week!
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