Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for October 9, 2023

Greetings District 6 Neighbors, 

Maybe Old Man Winter is making an early appearance to let us put this baseball season behind us as quickly as possible after the Brewers’ early exit from the playoffs. Let’s hope that the Packers turn around out in Las Vegas tonight or I guess we’ll be turning to basketball early. 

The Common Council meeting last Wednesday took place under the not quite as bright as Las Vegas lights of City Hall. After presentation of the Civilian Fire Department Awards and the commendation for Firefighter Cory Asimus for his world record marathon achievement, we got a briefing from Mayor Woodford on the 2024 Executive Budget. I will be making my way through the budget over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll share a few of the mayor’s observations.  

Net new construction in the city was up over 2% last year. That doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but that was higher than it has been in quite a few years. The total equalized value for all properties in the city is about $8.033 billion.  

As you know, the city’s shared revenue from state income taxes is increasing by almost $2 million for 2024. That extra revenue will be spent on infrastructure projects ($963,000) and public safety (Axon body camera contract $165,000 and public safety compensation $698,000). 

The mayor is proposing a 3% merit-based increase for non-represented employees. Note that police, fire and Valley Transit are represented by their respective unions and contract negotiations are a separate process. This builds on a similar increase last year. Fairly compensating our employees enables us to maintain our level of service to the community and avoids the attrition issues that other communities (and Outagamie County) have been experiencing. Mayor Woodford noted that 46% of all city employees will be eligible for retirement in the next ten years, so it is vital that we keep the City of Appleton attractive for job seekers. However, the budget proposes an employee cost share for health insurance for the first time. An employee with a family plan would pay about $44 per paycheck and a single covered employee would pay about $16 per paycheck. I assume that all employees are paid biweekly. Honestly, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t pay some part of the premium for my health insurance while I was working full time, and the proposed amounts are definitely less than what I contributed in the last few years of my full-time employment. There will be some other cost-saving measures and wellness options offered in the new plan. 

The bottom line that we all immediately flipped to in our budget books – the millage rate (for the city only) in the proposed budget is decreasing by $2.4854 per $1000 of assessed value. Remembering the calculation that we went through during the assessment process, that would mean that if your assessed value increased by the approximately 39% that was the citywide average, your CITY taxes would decrease slightly. If your assessed value increased MORE than that amount, you would see an increase in your city taxes, but less than what we saw in the estimator since the millage rate is decreasing. 

I will share the questions that I send to department heads before Budget Saturday, October 28. If you want to participate in the listening session on Tuesday, October 17 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., please call (920) 832-5814 to get the link – this will be a remote session. The public hearing on the budget is Wednesday, November 1 at 6:00 p.m. You can call the same number to sign up for that in-person hearing. Sign up is not required, but appreciated so that staff can know how many people to expect.  

Moving on to the rest of the council agenda - although a number of items were separated for individual votes, it was largely because people interested in the outcome of those votes were present at the meeting.  

The final plat approval for the Fourth Addition to Clearwater Creek subdivision passed without any testimony from the neighbors, with the same four alders voting nay as for the preliminary plat in the meeting before (Hayden, Meltzer, Schultz and Del Toro). 

The consulting contract for facilitating the work of the Appleton Housing Development Policy Task Force was approved unanimously, in spite of what seemed to be some fairly strenuous objections from Alder Hartzheim at committee. 

Although several members of the public, including representatives of Appvion, spoke at the meeting, the resolution calling for further study of the designation of Lawe St. as a truck route was referred back to the Municipal Services Committee since it was understood that the authors planned to submit additional amendments. 

As noted in the minutes, the council went into closed session to discuss the temporary location and lease for the Appleton Public Library. A closed session is allowed to allow discussion of contract  negotiations, etc., that need to remain confidential. No action was taken during the closed session. I expect that there will be some public information in the near future. 

Coming up in this week’s committee meetings: 

Municipal Services Committee – Monday, October 9, 4:30 p.m. 

The Lawe St. truck route resolution is back on the agenda, having been referred back to committee at the council meeting last week. I believe some additional amendments will be offered that would reduce the scale of the studies requested. 

There is also a request from Appleton Downtown, Inc. to waive all parking fees during Small Business Saturday, which will be held on November 25. 

They will also be taking up a request for a terrace garden permit at 508 W. Wisconsin – along the Alvin St. frontage. Staff is recommending approval. 

The Public Works Department budget will be presented as an information item, along with the Bird Scooter report and the Inspections Permit Summary Report. 

Finance Committee – Monday, October 9, 5:30 p.m. 

The only action item on the agenda for this evening’s meeting is a request to transfer $37,400 from the Jones Park Shade Project to the City Hall Renovations Project. The City Hall project encountered a code compliance issue that needs to be addressed and the excess funds can be used to take care of it. 

Information items include the Facilities Management and Legal Services budgets. 

Parks and Recreation Committee – Monday, October 9, 6:30 p.m. 

The committee agenda has no actions items, but there are a number of information items, including the Reid Golf Course Participation, Revenue and Expense Report for 2023, the proposed 2024 budget for the golf course, Parks and Recreation Department 2024 Budget and the Parks and Recreation Special Projects 2024 Budget. 

Reid has had close to 40,000 rounds played and revenue of $1.1 million year to date. 

Utilities Committee – Tuesday, October 10, 4:30 p.m. 

The committee is being asked to approve a contract for Stormwater Consulting Services for the Interstate 41 Project (Brown and Caldwell - $50,000). This contract will cover the coordination work with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the project, including:  

• Assist the City with providing information requested by WDOT  
• Communicate directly with WisDOT’s consultant on the City’s behalf  
• Attend meetings with WisDOT’s consultant as needed  
• Review the proposed WDOT stormwater management plan on behalf of the City  
• Provide clarity of the impact of WDOT plans on City TMDL requirements and the citywide stormwater management implementation plan  
• Provide recommendations to the City on the WDOT proposed stormwater management plan  

 

A second amendment to another contract with Brown and Caldwell for stormwater management consulting to increase the contract by $20,000. Work under these contracts is billed at an hourly rate and is used as needed.  

The final action item is to approve a 7% increase in the wastewater rate for 2024 and to increase the price of compost from the yard waste site from $12 to $13 per cubic yard. The city engaged Trilogy, Inc. in 2020 to perform a comprehensive study of the cash flow needs for the water utility. The study recommended that future rate increases be evaluated annually. The planned rate increase of 4% is not estimated to cover future cash flow needs for the utility. The increase for the average rate payer would be about $4.00 per quarter. Note that the utilities do not receive revenue from the general fund and must support themselves with ratepayer funds. Appleton would still be in the lowest quarter of our nearby communities with our wastewater rates. 

The information items are the 2024 Utilities Department budget and the water main break report. I am happy to report we are at only half of the number of breaks this year compared to last year. 

City Plan Commission – Wednesday, October 11, 3:30 p.m. 

The public hearings and action items on the agenda relate to comprehensive plan future land use amendments and rezoning for property at 213 E. Wisconsin (part of the St. Theresa property). The property would move from public institution zoning to neighborhood mixed use. I’m going to confirm, but I also think that this moves the property from tax exempt to taxable. 

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee – Wednesday, October 11,  

3:30 p.m.  

The committee will be dealing with an over hire request in the police department and with salary adjustments for the Mayor and the City Attorney. 

 

APD has a lieutenant retiring on January 3, 2024, and would like to promote the sergeant a month early to allow for training. 

 

The salary for the City Attorney is set every four years based on the term of the elected office. The salary is set through April of 2024. The pay raise increase was set at 2% per year so that the City Attorney has received a total increase of 8% in four years while the other directors have received a total of 9% over the last three years, with a proposed increase of 3% for 2024. The HR Director is proposing a 3% increase to match the other director increases over the last three years, a 3% increase for 2024 to match the other directors and 2% per year for the remainder of the term. The current salary is $139,018. It would rise to $156,511 by 2027. This is roughly in line with other cities in our area – though I would think not comparable with the private sector. 

 

The situation for the Mayor is similar. The pay increase was set to 1.5% each year for a total increase of 6% over the four-year term. The HR Director is proposing a similar 3% uplift, then a 3% raise for 2024 and 2% per year for the next three years. Currently the mayor’s salary is $106,662, rising to $120,039 in 2027 under this plan. 

 

Information items include an update on the relocation of the Connecting Care Clinic, a health insurance plan update (discussed in the section on the budget above), some changes to the library table of organization and the recruitment status report. 

 

 

 

 

Community and Economic Development Committee – Wednesday, October 11, 6:30 p.m. 

 

The one action item is a request to approve a Neighborhood Grant Program request submitted by the Historic Central Neighborhood. The Neighborhood Grant Program is a program that aims to strengthen and sustain the social networks of the Appleton community and may be applied to projects that  “…enhance cultural, beautification, recreation, education, neighborhood cleanup, neighborhood safety and family/youth issues through resident-driven activities within each neighborhood.” These grants are open to registered neighborhoods in the city’s Neighborhood Program. The Historic Central Neighborhood is requesting an $80,000 grant to add playground equipment and create more green space at Columbus Elementary School. The funding would come from Community Development Block Grant funds. 

 

Information items include all of the CED related budgets. 

 

The Safety and Licensing Committee will not be meeting this week. 

 

Have a great week!