Appleton Common District 6 Update for the Week of April 22, 2024

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

There are signs of spring all around, although the cold, windy Saturday let us know that winter is not quite ready to give up just yet. The fact that today is Earth Day (the brainchild of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson) is a reminder that Appleton observes No Mow May by suspending issuance of citations for grass exceeding 8 inches for the month of May. This is a strictly voluntary practice and you do not have to sign up with the city as is required in some of our neighboring communities. If not mowing until the end of May isn’t working for you, consider raising your mower blade and letter the grass be a bit higher during the early spring to help out pollinators before the later blooming trees and shrubs increase the food supply.

Spring yard waste collection is also continuing.

You can check out the guidelines again here: https://www.appleton.org/residents/street-maintenance/leaf-yard-waste-collection

I know a lot of us have a ton of branches and sticks from our early April snowfall – just remember that branches and sticks need to be bundled for pickup.

The 2024-2025 Common Council officially began the year last Tuesday when we were sworn in under very blustery conditions in Houdini Plaza. Then, we adjourned to Council chambers for the informal organizational meeting, or as Mayor Woodford put it “to continue the blustering.” The informal meeting gave us a chance to discuss the proposed rule changes freely, with the hopes that we would arrive at a consensus before the formal meeting on Wednesday. We did that with the proposal to return to allowing alders to give original invocations, settling on my proposal to allow an original invocation no longer than about two minutes and not related to any action item on the agenda OR a moment of silence OR the scripted invocation that was used in the last term, amended to say that alders could only give two original invocations per year and to add two other alternate scripted invocations to the choices.

There was also little support for consolidating the Utilities Committee with the Municipal Services Committee or for Alder Hartzheim’s proposal for a dress code, which was withdrawn before the formal organizational meeting.

At the formal organizational meeting on Wednesday, we voted to keep the secret ballot for electing our Council President and Vice President, to agree to the staff request to change the name of the Community and Economic Development Department to the Community Development Department and the Parks, Recreation and Facilities Management Department to simply the Parks and Recreation Department, recognizing in both cases that the other functions still exist within those departments.

We were evenly split on the proposal to remove the requirement introduced last year to have the Pledge of Allegiance recited at every committee meeting, and thus the rule will remain the same. At the suggestion of one of our District 6 neighbors, we researched the flag code to see if a flag could be placed somewhere else in chambers, but the code requires that the flag be located next to the speaker (or the dais where committee members sit). Other alders noted that because committee meetings run back-to-back, there are generally people coming in and out at the beginning of meetings and that there is often business being conducted at the clerk’s office across the hall from chambers during committee hours, resulting in distractions from the Pledge.

We also learned our committee assignments for this coming year. I will be chairing the Municipal Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Public Works. I will continue to serve on the Finance Committee, and, for the first time, on the Safety and Licensing Committee. I was also elected by my colleagues to continue as the council representative on the City Plan Commission.

We re-elected Alder Van Zeeland as Council President and elected Alder Meltzer as Council Vice President. Alder Van Zeeland has done an excellent job as President, mentoring new alders and making sure that council members are included in events where traditionally the mayor might be the only city representative, so I was happy to support her re-election.

Moving to the regular council meeting, as expected, the public hearing on the proposed rezoning of the parcel on E. Plank Road had several people speaking. Representatives from the Wisconsin Realtors Association and from the Fox Cities Chamber Regional Partnership stressed the importance of building more housing in Appleton, while a representative of the neighborhood expressed concerns about various aspects of the rezoning. It was noted that we could not make the decision based on anything we might have read or heard about the proposed project, just whether or not the rezoning met the criteria in the Comprehensive Plan. The neighborhood representative did point out what she said was a lack of transparency in the process, which was something that was brought forth by the Mayor’s Housing Development Task force. I look forward to some changes brought about by the Housing Development Policy Guide that should make things clearer. I have served on the Plan Commission for several years and as chair of (what is now ) the Community Development Committee last year, and I admit that some of the language in the staff reports is often very technical. The action item on the zoning passed with no nays and one abstention.

Committee meetings for this first week with the new committee rosters:

Municipal Service Committee – Monday, April 22, 4:30 p.m.

All standing committees will elect a vice chair, set the meeting date and time and designate a contact person for the committee at their first meeting. The contact person is the department chair of the department over which the committee has jurisdiction. Municipal Services will also designate a Central Equipment Agency board member. The CEA has a board member from the Finance Committee as well.

We’ll vote on two action items:

• Approving the street design for Emerald Valley 8, 9 and 10 Subdivision Plat on the north side of the city. This is part of the new complete streets process and will now be completed prior to approval of the final plat and development agreements for new subdivisions.
• A request from Chandelier, LLC (Eclectic Candle Company) to add tables and chairs to the amenity strip at 215 W. College Avenue.

Finance Committee – Monday, April 22, 5:30 p.m.

The Finance Committee will vote on a Tax Payment Appeals Board member in addition to the other positions noted. The committee has two contracts to vote on:

• Unit O-24 Sanitary and Storm Sewer CIPP (Cured in Place Pipe) – Insituform Technologies ($384,975.43). Both bids were over budget, so the bid was adjusted to remove two CIPP liners from the project. Those will be completed if excess funds are available or will be moved to a future project.
• Replacement of the Parks and Recreation facility generator – Van Art Electric Co., Inc ($320,366.00 including contingency) This bid WAS under the budgeted amount.

Fox Cities Transit Commission – Tuesday, April 23, 2:50 p.m.

The Commission will elect a chair and vice chair, vote on approving the March 2024 payments, and vote on approving the contract with Running, Inc. for Paratransit Services with amended terms to correct the terms of the contract (five years with three one-year options).

Utilities Committee – Tuesday, April 23, 4:30 p.m.

The committee will vote on a sole source contract for engineering services for the 2024 Primary Clarifiers #1 through #4 Rehabilitation Project to McMahon ($66,585.00 with contingency). The sole source was justified given that McMahon has produced much of the preliminary design work that will be used for this project.

Information items include a smaller engineering project and the water main break report for March of 2024. Breaks were up by two for the month compared to 2023 but still below 2023 YTD.

City Plan Commission – Wednesday, April 24, 3:30 p.m.

The Plan Commission will be holding a public hearing and voting on a recommendation for a special use permit by the owners of the Mobil gas station and convenience store at 1201 N. Badger Avenue to remodel the existing storage area of the building into a small tavern (521 sq. ft.) that would seat 56 people. Staff is recommending approval, contingent on the applicant obtaining the appropriate liquor license. This will require completely removing the connection between the convenience store and the proposed tavern area as there cannot be two licenses for premises that are connected.

I want to note that the Plan Commission (and the Common Council) cannot deny a special use permit for an applicant meeting all of the legal requirements and conforming to the Comprehensive Plan because we don’t think it’s a good business idea or because we don’t think more of a particular kind of business is desirable to us personally. (see repeated car wash discussions).

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee – Wednesday, April 24, 4:30 p.m.

The committee has no action items. I imagine that they are meeting primarily to discuss changing the schedule back to 6:30 p.m. meetings. Last year, we switched the HR/IT and Community Development Committee meetings to accommodate the schedule of a member of the Community Development Committee who is no longer a member of the Common Council.

Information items include modifications to the Asbestos Policy and the Personnel Records Retention Policy and the Recruitment Status Report.

Safety and Licensing Committee – Wednesday, April 24, 5:30 p.m.

In addition to the usual license applications and renewals, the committee will again be considering the bartender license application that has bounced between the committee and the full council a couple of times. I truly hope that the applicant will be able to appear and that we can resolve this issue with a clear recommendation to Council.

We also have a request from OB’s Brau Haus for a premise amendment application to add tables and chairs outside during the summer months. The Plan Commission approved an amendment to the Special Use Permit previously, which did not have to go to the full council as it was for a less than 10% increase in the premise area. There have been concerns expressed as this location has been the scene of some of the violence that has affected downtown in recent months. I’m not sure what we can do legally here and the application states that the outside tables will only be used until 10:00 p.m.

There is also a request to recommend approval of the sole source contract with All City Management Services (ACMS) for crossing guards. The cost of the crossing guards is shared equally between the City of Appleton and the Appleton Area School District.

The Appleton Fire Department Automatic Aid Agreements with the Kimberley and Grand Chute Fire Departments is also on the agenda.

The Parks and Recreation and Community Development committees will not be meeting this week.

As always, you can watch live and recorded council and committee meetings and read agendas and meeting minutes here:

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

If you haven’t stopped reading already (this was a long one), I just want to share some thoughts I had last night about how lucky I am to live in Appleton. We attended the final performance of “TINA – The Tina Turner Musical” at the PAC after driving less than five minutes from our home and walking a couple of minutes from where we parked. I was thinking about which of the Broadway touring shows I want to see next season, which we will get to see because we have a state-of-the-art facility, which also hosts our excellent (and national award winning) symphony orchestra. I take no credit for the PAC as it was built before I moved here, but I think it shows the vision of our community. I was also able to attend a breakfast meeting hosted by the Appleton Public Library trustees last week where the Friends of the Library were working to pass the final goal of private fundraising for the new library, which will also be state of the art and a center for learning and community.

I know that our city isn’t perfect, but I can’t think of too much that is lacking here (do you hear me, Trader Joe’s?) and I look forward to trying to make it even better for the next two years.

Denise