Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for the Week of November 19, 2023

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

What a glorious Sunday it turned out to be! (other than football based on the groans coming from the living room as I write this). 

As I noted last week, the Public Works Department is planning a bonus round of leaf collection the week of November 27, so if your trees were late dropping leave, or if you have just procrastinated like we have, you can take advantage of the sunny day or work off some of that Thanksgiving pie taking care of the last of them. Just make sure to have them in the appropriate pickup area by the evening of the 26^th. 

I was reminded last week that I didn’t make note of the Appleton Christmas Parade coming up this Tuesday, November 21. The parade starts at 7:00 p.m. at College Avenue and State Street and continues to Drew Street. They’re expecting 80 units to participate, including 20 marching bands. Full information about parking, street closures, etc.,  is available here: https://www.appleton.org/visitors/appleton-parades/christmas-parade/going-to-the-christmas-parade 

The parade will be televised live on CBS 5 WFRV and rebroadcast at 1:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and 4:00 p.m. on Christmas Day. Livestream is at wearegreenbay.com 

In library news – the public fundraising drive has begun! The Friends of Appleton Public Library have already raised $10.3 million of their $12 million goal. For a limited time, ALL donations will be part of a $500,000 challenge grant thanks to the generous support of community philanthropist Mary Beth Nienhaus. You can donate here: https://friendsofapl.org/ either online or by printing a form to mail in with your donation. 

Last week’s Common Council meeting only had one item which generated much discussion. As I noted last week, the committee items were pretty straightforward and not controversial. Unfortunately, we had to relitigate the item regarding alderperson salaries for the term starting in April of 2025 due to a procedural error in the meeting of November 1 – these items require a ¾ vote and an amended salary resolution passed with only 7 votes (there were two alders excused from that meeting). Council President Katie Van Zeeland presented a package of research into alder salaries for the cities closest to Appleton in size and number of council members (Racine and Waukesha, both of which pay alders slightly more than the current salary in Appleton). She also calculated that in inflation adjusted dollars, the current salary has less spending power than the salary in 2013, the year the parking pass was added as a benefit. Alder Firkus pointed out the fact that, unless there were 10 votes for any of the proposed amendments, we were wasting our time talking about it. It was clear that there were not, so the item failed, leaving the salary ($6750 per year with a parking pass) the same until it could be considered for the April 2026 term. 

We have an abbreviated committee schedule for this Thanksgiving week – the Tuesday and Wednesday committee meetings (Utilities, Plan Commission, HR & IT, Safety and Licensing, and Community and Economic Development) along with Monday’s Parks and Recreation Committee) have been cancelled. The committees that will meet are:  

Municipal Services Committee – Monday, November 20, 4:30 p.m. 

This committee will address an item of interest to a number of District 6 residents – the proposal for the reconstruction of N. Morrison St. from  E. Glendale to E. Pershing. As noted in the discussion of the public design hearing – these are the specifications of the street now. 

• Existing Pavement  

o Asphalt Overlay placed in 1996  

o Asphalt placed in 1974, 1976  

o Concrete curb & gutter placed in 1949, 1953  

• Existing Water Main  

o 6” CIP constructed 1943, 1952  

• Existing Sanitary Sewer  

o 8” CIPP (liner) constructed 2011  

o 8”, 12” CON constructed 1942, 1952  

• Existing Storm Sewer  

o 12”, 15” CON constructed 1948, 1949  

 

The proposal: 

PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS  

• Underground utilities to be improved in 2024  

• New concrete curb & gutter and asphalt pavement – 27’ (back of curb to back of curb)  

• Curb extensions (narrowing the pavement) at Marquette St to serve as a traffic calming measure and provide enhanced pedestrian crossing safety  

• Traffic calming circle at the intersection with Lindbergh St  

• On-street parking would be permitted along the east side only. On-street parking would be prohibited along the west side of Morrison, within the project limits.  

• 11 trees in poor condition would be removed within the project limits  

 

COST ESTIMATES AND ASSESSMENTS  

• Estimated Construction Cost (at 27’) = $465,000  

• Estimated Construction Cost (at 33’) = $550,000  

 

We heard from one resident at the design hearing, and I have gotten a couple of calls as a result of this resident’s reaching out to neighbors. I have not heard back from Engineering about the number of lost parking spaces as of this writing. While I understand people’s concerns about the loss of some street parking and the traffic calming circle (note that this is NOT a true roundabout – but more like the small circles on Glendale west of Richmond that are designed to slow down traffic), my concern is the age of the water and sanitary sewer lines (see above – all from the early 1940s and 1950s). I will reconfirm at the meeting tomorrow if there is a significant cost difference to leaving out the traffic calming circle and curb extensions – my understanding at the design hearing is that there is not – but my plan at this time is to support the reconstruction if the committee votes recommend this for approval by the full council. 

Public participation is available at this meeting – if you have concerns, you are welcome to attend and speak to the committee. The meeting is in council chambers on the 6^th floor of City Hall. There will be a sign-in sheet for those who wish to speak. 

The other major item on the committee agenda is a resolution brought forward by Alder Doran that would close the Whitman Avenue yard waste site. The resolution states that this would save over $50,000 per year. Alder Doran proposed this as a budget amendment which failed and has brought it back as a resolution. During the budget workshop, city staff noted that there could be other uses for the location, including equipment storage. I also understand that there is an agreement with the Town of Grand Chute where Appleton receives revenue for allowing Grand Chute residents to use the Whitman Avenue site, so I will be interested to get the figures for that and a clear understanding of our obligations under that agreement. This obviously affects us in District 6 less than those on the south side of the city, as I assume we all use the Glendale site, but I will still be interested in the discussion, particularly the number of yearly trips to each site. 

The final item on the agenda is a request from The Boldt Co. to extend the permit for their construction fencing around the City Center/Fox Commons project site through February 2024. 

Finance Committee – Monday, November 20, 5:30 p.m. 

We will also be looking at a couple of Alder Doran’s resolutions in this committee meeting. The first would change the timeline of the budget process. Currently, the city code requires the mayor to submit a budget to the Common Council “on or before the first Wednesday in October”. The resolution would move that to the third Wednesday in September – two weeks earlier. The resolution also calls for each department to present a preliminary budget as an information item to their committee of jurisdiction at the second committee meeting in July. The current budget process has departments working on their budgets from mid-June until early September. I would be concerned that the proposal to submit the budget in July would put a lot of pressure on the departments, but I will reserve judgement until we hear from staff. It would also be a departure from the current process for Council to receive a budget presentation before the full budget is assembled – I assume that a fair amount of interdepartmental negotiation takes place between the departments submitting their budgets and the full budget. I personally have not had a problem getting through the budget each year in time to submit my questions to staff and to work on any potential amendments, but I understand that my colleagues who have full-time jobs have more time constraints. Depending on what we hear at the committee meeting, I might consider referring this to staff for further input. 

The second resolution from Alder Doran would take $25,000 in ARPA funds to purchase additional Flock license plate reader cameras. He proposed a budget amendment taking funds from the Mayor’s Office budget for some additional cameras – that amendment failed. I asked the Police Chief about the total cost of the cameras at that time and found that the initial purchase is just part of the total outlay. The cameras come with a five-year contract that covers other items such as data storage. I will ask again how the city would be obligated contractually for these proposed additional cameras. In addition, the council has voted on the allocation of ARPA funds already, so I will be asking which allocation would be reduced by this proposal. A reminder – this is the breakdown of the  ARPA funds as of the end of September:  

The final action item on the agenda relates to the change in the 2024 budget that will assess property owners for 100% of the cost of concrete paving. During the budget process we talked about the fact that all other assessments (sidewalks, water and sanitary sewer lines) are at 100%. The 75% had been set as a way of encouraging the development of new subdivisions. Note that street Reconstruction does not involve assessments to homeowners – that was the purpose of enacting the wheel tax. However, there is a group of property owners on Amethyst Drive who had been advised of the amount of their assessments when the street construction was postponed. The Department of Public Works is proposing that those properties be assessed at the former 75% rate. I have no objection to this exception for work that was planned for 2023 and postponed until 2024. 

I started this note with the Packers behind and just got back to it after taking a break to see the winning drive and final defensive stand. I hope this comeback win is a sign of a great week to come for all of us. 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Denise