Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for April 19, 2023

Greetings District 6 Neighbors, 

Welcome to spring in Wisconsin, right? Temps in the 80s a couple of days ago, and I started this update yesterday looking out at the light coating of snow. I supposed I should have looked more carefully at the forecast before I packed away almost all of my winter clothes over the weekend. 

Before getting to council business for the week, I’ll just remind you that, even though winter has come back, the spring yard waste collection is still going on. My normal trash day is Tuesday, so yard waste would be collected on Wednesdays for the next four weeks. 

 

 Also, a viewing note: I had the opportunity to attend the screening of the PBS show “Wisconsin Hometown Stories Appleton” last week at Poplar Hall. I learned a great deal about my adopted hometown, and now I want to go watch the shows on all the other Wisconsin hometowns. You can watch it on Monday, April 24 at 8:00 p.m. on PBS. You’ll probably see some people you know onscreen! They also screened one of the documentaries made by students at Appleton East High School – there are six of them I believe, and I will post the links when they are up on PBS Wisconsin’s YouTube channel. The one I saw was so well done – I’m looking forward to watching the rest of them.  

While the calendar says it’s the middle of April, it’s actually New Year’s Day for the Common Council. We begin a new council year with the swearing in of the new and returning council members from the odd-numbered districts (I was told I should stop calling them just the odd districts 😊) this evening at 5:15 in Houdini Plaza. The public is invited. Patrick Hayden will be sworn in as our only new member, representing District 7. 

We will then adjourn to council chambers where we will have an informal organizational meeting. 

We’ll discuss a number of proposed changes to our council rules before voting on those rules at the formal organizational meeting on Wednesday evening. Most of them are purely administrative, but, once again, there has been a proposal to remove the option of participating in meetings virtually. We voted this down last year and have not seen any issues with poor attendance. The alder who proposed removing it actually attended the last council meeting virtually while taking a spring break vacation. Note that eliminating virtual attendance would apply to the public as well as to council members. I attended a meeting of the Board of Zoning Approvals a couple of weeks ago where one of the people who was testifying about a variance was able to attend remotely while out of town. Not having this option would have resulted in his not being able to share his concerns.  

We will also be discussing a big change to the code of conduct for council and city staff. The old code was just a few lines that basically boil down to “be decent people and act in the best interest of the community”. The new version has seven pages of very detailed rules. I understand it, especially given that some of the issues we have faced recently have become contentious and there were signs of some personal rancor between alders, but I find it sad. 

At Wednesday's formal organizational meeting, we will elect a Council President and Vice President, vote on the mayor’s recommendations for committee positions and committee chairs and elect a council member to the City Plan Commission (I have held that position for the last 2 ½ years and would accept it again but haven’t asked my colleagues to nominate me again). We all submit our committee preferences to the mayor – I asked to keep a position on the Finance Committee and to chair a committee but let him know that my relatively flexible schedule would allow me to serve wherever I would be of most use. I’ll let you know what committees I’m assigned in the next update. 

Once the organizational tasks are completed, we will have our normal council meeting. “No Mow May” will certainly take up most of the time and energy as all the other items from committees were recommended for approval without much discussion. I’ve written fairly extensively about my thoughts (and the vast majority of the input from you), so I’ll be brief. This resolution was submitted based on the withdrawal of the paper that found more flowers and pollinators in lawns left unmown during May than in those that were mowed. The paper was withdrawn after another scientist questioned the identification of some of the bee species found, with the intent of republishing with new data. The resolution left out these important details. The number of pollinators was never questioned. While the paper might have been used as an argument for making No Mow May a permanent part of the city code (removing the grass height limit of 8 inches for the month of May), it was not the reason for the initial implementation, and the public enthusiasm and relative lack of complaints during the first two years were the most important reasons for making it permanent. I am really distressed that this has become a personal issue between some of my colleagues – I honestly believe the resolution was submitted in part to discredit one of the authors who is now an alder. The discussion has been extensive, and I hope we just vote on the merits and consider it done. 

Speaking of resolutions, I had signed on to Resolution #1-R-23 to educate and provide guidance to residents about the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides. As I’ve noted before, we had what I felt was a very productive meeting with several members of city staff from different departments. I asked several questions relating to the existing city code and state law, and we had questions for other city departments regarding current usage of chemicals on city property, etc. We planned to have another meeting to get the answers to the legal questions that were going to require research and talk more about other issues. I was honestly a bit surprised that two of my colleagues wanted to rush to submit the resolution at the next council meeting. Fairly soon thereafter, we were informed that staff would no longer be available to work with us. We chose to go ahead and submit, assuming that the resolution would be referred to staff, which it was. The lead author received the staff analysis a couple of weeks ago (131 pages, most of which were downloads of state laws and DNR policy). It is clear to me that the resolution as written is not feasible, as state law supersedes a lot of local regulation. I suggested to my colleagues that the resolution be withdrawn, and that we regroup to explore a public information campaign and some requirements for signage (as commercial applicators are already required to do). At this point I have not heard that my colleagues are amenable to withdrawing the resolution, so I intend to remove my name as a co-author/co-sponsor if they want to pursue it. The lead author and I have a meeting with Mayor Woodford tomorrow morning to discuss the next steps. A further complication is that there have been a couple of proposed council rule changes that would prohibit withdrawal of a resolution. I do not know if Resolution #1-R-23 is the reason for this proposal, but I suspect that it might be. I honestly do not understand the reason for forcing city staff and the council to spend time on a resolution that the author(s) decide to withdraw, but I am not a mind reader. 

Thank you to those who shared their views about this with me. I still believe that minimizing the use of chemicals in our environment is important and I believe that neighbors have the right to know what they are being exposed to and that people who use the sidewalks with their children and pets have the right not to be in contact with chemicals on a public right of way. I hope that we can address public information campaign and some sensible guidelines in the future. 

Have a great week – spring is surely on its way to stay!