Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for the Week of February 19, 2024

 Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

Happy Spring Primary Day to those who celebrate! 

That doesn’t include District 6, as the only primary election for Common Council is in District 4. We’ll have our first opportunity to vote on April 2. District 6 is split among three Outagamie County Board of Supervisor districts:

Wards 17 and 50 are in County Board District 20, Ward 18 is in County Board District 18 and Wards 19 and 49 are in County Board District 17. Supervisor Districts 18 and 20 are contested races, while Board Supervisor (and Appleton Alder) Croatt in Supervisor District 17 is unopposed.

Moving back to the current council, I don’t expect too many fireworks from the meeting. The one item that had generated a lot of discussion was the resolution to close the Whitman Avenue yard waste site. As I noted in a couple of updates, the Town of Grand Chute pays Appleton around $63,000 per year so that its residents can have use of the both the Whitman and Glendale sites, but if Whitman were closed, the terms would probably have to be renegotiated. Staff recommended denial for the resolution, and the Municipal Services Committee (including the author, Alder Doran) voted unanimously to recommend denial.

In the Finance Committee, we voted to hold the item recommending that Appleton accept a matching grant from the Fox Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau and use funds from the Park Open Space Fund (this is where the payments in lieu of parkland from subdivision developers are held in order to provide funding for parkland acquisition and other park projects) to construct a concrete pad and purchase kayaks and storage racks for rental. A third party that operates in other Fox Valley communities would be responsible for the operation of the rentals. At the meeting, we agreed that we did not have enough information about a number of aspects of the project, including any potential liability for the city, to decide on the matter. We have since received the answers to some of our questions and I see no reason not to move forward at our next meeting. I did ask and find out that the planned location is near the hotel and parking lot at the end of Riverheath Way rather than further down the trail near the boat house.

We also voted at the Finance Committee to recommend rejecting all the bids for the HVAC work on Fire Stations #1 and #6 as they exceeded the budget. There was some concern among the members of the committee that this would be a trend, but city staff seemed to indicate that the bids were out of line and that reworking the bids would produce a more reasonable result.

Another item that we won’t see on the agenda at the Common Council yet is the report that the Municipal Services Committee received on the Complete Streets Study. This study was funded from budget carryover funds in order to find ways to increase pedestrian safety in Appleton. Several locations in and around District 6 were noted for potential corridor study in the report, including Meade St. from Wisconsin Ave. north to the city limits and Northland Ave. throughout the city limits. Areas with high active trip (walking, biking, etc.) included Northland Ave. from Meade to Oneida and Glendale Ave. from N. Morrison to N. Drew. Potential projects near schools and parks included Northland Ave. at N. Mason St.

There is a virtual open house on the Complete Streets study on February 29 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. You can register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mxQiFcdaQb25bHKuhIgPag?fbclid=IwAR09Ij6A_qSQQTDd5NfMEmM2_pIKShS7dIgFM1sl6_Y5p2I5FUakC09ncNI#/registration

There should be action items related to the study in March or April.

We also have a closed session on the agenda for tomorrow night “…for the purposes of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties and the investing of public funds, regarding the U.S. Venture development project…”

I can assume this means that there are further developments in the company’s purchase of the 222 Building. I will not be able to report on anything from the closed session, but I would expect there would be some kind of announcement at a later date.

 

That about wraps it up for this council week. As always, you can watch video of council and committee meetings and review the minutes and agendas here:

 

https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

 

I’ll be out of town over the weekend and next week doing some grandma "duty", so I will miss the Finance Committee meeting on Monday and will attend my other committee meetings virtually. Next week’s update might be delayed as I will be traveling on Monday.

 

I don’t know about everyone else, but I think there is a good reason that February is the shortest month – it feels like the longest since most of it is so dreary – and I almost resent there being an extra day of it this year. With all that, try to have a good week anyway!