Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for October 17, 2023

Greetings District 6 Neighbors, 

I’m jumping right into the subject that is in the news and all over social media today – the relocation of the temporary library.  

The library has a lease through the end of the year at the former Best Buy location on S. Kensington Drive. It was originally through August of 2023 and extended through the end of the year after the initial bids necessitated re-engineering of the original design.  My understanding is that the city would attempt to renew the lease until the downtown library rebuild/remodel is completed. However, city staff were informed just a few weeks ago that we would not be able to renew the lease because the property has secured a market rate rental with a national company to take over that space. Obviously, bringing a new retail tenant to the property is a good thing, but it would leave the library without a temporary location. 

City and library staff immediately began looking at other options, some of which (the old Shopko in the Northland Mall, for example) were dismissed quickly as being too expensive. The Thompson Center on Lourdes (TCOL) had been looking at the space at 3000 E. College Avenue, the former site of a Habitat for Humanity ReStore location, as a replacement for their current space in St. Bernadette’s. The parish is looking to use that space for another purpose. TCOL was already planning to apply for ARPA funds though the city to build out that space for their use. The city and library proposal would be to award a $1 million grant to TCOL for the buildout and sublease the space at 3000 E. College for the new temporary library location. The monthly lease would be somewhat less than the library is currently paying for the E. Kensington space. Moving expenses would be incorporated into the library project budget, and the lease payments would be part of the library’s operating budget, as was the lease on S. Kensington Dr. The move would require the library to be closed from November 22 through January 8. 

At the last Common Council meeting, there was a closed session to discuss the options. Closed sessions are permissible when discussing contract negotiation, etc., where information being made public could affect the negotiations. Mayor Woodford laid out the options, which included keeping the library closed until the construction on the permanent location is completed. No actions were taken during the closed session, but I left feeling that I understood the options available to us. The Library Board will vote today on the sublease agreement, the moving contract, and the temporary closure of the library. 

The Common Council will vote on the ARPA award at tomorrow night’s meeting. This is the breakdown of the remaining ARPA funds: 

None of this is great – I honestly felt physically ill when I first heard about the lease not being renewed. However, this seems to be the best solution under the circumstances. In my opinion, closing the library until the new building is completed is not an option, so we have to make the best of an unfortunate situation. I think we are lucky that the space on College Avenue is available and that TCOL and St. Bernadette’s were willing to extend the lease on Lourdes St. to allow the library to use it.           

I have been seeing a lot of questions, some of which we also saw at the beginning of the project, so I’ll try to list some answers: 

• Why did we move into the temporary location before construction began? The library had to lock in a date with the movers in advance, and pack what was moving and arrange storage for what would not go to the temporary space. There was also work that needed to be done for testing of geothermal heating/cooling that couldn’t be done with the building occupied. Although the team was aware of the effects of inflation on building projects, the fact that the bids were so extremely high, and that some portions of the project did not receive bids, was unexpected. The original bids were far over budget, and the council agreed that we were not willing to go above our original commitment of tax dollars for the project. Thus, the design had to be reworked and the whole project rebid. 
• Why didn’t we lock in a lease for the entire period of time that the temporary library might be needed? Facilities and library staff explored a number of options for a temporary space that would fit into the operational budget for the library. The lease is under market rate for the space, and it was difficult to lock in a long-term lease at any of the available locations. 
• Is this an extra $1 million added to the cost of the library project? No. TCOL has agreed to perform the portion of the buildout that would allow the library to occupy the College Avenue space temporarily and then complete the work after the library moves out. These ARPA funds had been allocated to the uses in the chart above in previous city budgets. 

Moving to the rest of the agenda for Wednesday's Common Council meeting, I expect there will be discussion on these items:

• The request from Appleton Downtown, Inc. for free parking in the ramps and at meters downtown for Small Business Saturday – November 25, 2023. The Municipal Services Committee voted unanimously to recommend this for approval without much discussion. I would ask, as I assume others will, for an estimated lost revenue for this proposal, but I am leaning toward voting in favor of it. Small Business Saturday is a great event for our downtown (and near downtown) businesses, and I’d like to see them as busy as possible on that day. 
  

• The resolution calling for further study of Lawe St. as a truck route. The requested research from the original resolution had been completed before the first Municipal Services Committee meeting at which it was discussed. At that meeting, the resolution was amended to ask for a number of additional studies, passing 3-2. I had understood that the authors planned to move too amend again after it was referred back to committee, but instead the committee recommended denial. At this point, I believe that the work requested in the original resolution has been completed, and while I understand the concerns of the neighbors, there are plans for traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures in the new design, truck traffic is the small minority of the traffic on Lawe St., and there is a risk of losing the federal/state funding for the reconstruction if the classification of the street as a major collector street as opposed to a local residential street is altered. For these reasons, I plan to vote to deny any further requests for additional work on this resolution. 
  
  
• Mental Health Resolution #9-R-23. After we were unable to watch the video of the first Board of Health meeting where this was discussed, it was referred back to the Board. There was a pretty lively discussion, especially for 7:00 a.m., last week, and the resolution was amended to add a reaffirmation of the plans to award $1 million in ARPA funds for mental health. I intend to question this amendment against the stated ARPA budget, which allocates $1 million to “community wellness, mental health and violence prevention.” However, my conversations with Health Officer Sepers and watching the discussion at the Board of Health meeting leads me to believe that there is nothing in the resolution that would take away from the work already being done by the Health Department, and that focusing on such an important issue is a positive, so I am inclined to vote for the resolution. 

I am just about through with my review of the mayor’s proposed 2024 budget. I will be submitting my questions to department heads over the next day or so in preparation for our “Budget Saturday” discussion on October 28. 

Don’t forget the public listening session this evening at 5:00 if you have registered. There will also be the public hearing on the budget November 1 at 6:00 p.m. and the budget adoption meeting of the Common Council November 8 at 6:00 p.m. 

Have a great week!