Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for the Week of September 15, 2024

September 17, 2024

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

This is a full council week, but we do have a couple of other meetings this week.

The Joint Review Board for Winnebago County met to review the annual report and financial statements for Tax Increment Financing District #7 (within Winnebago County) and the Library Board is meeting this afternoon (Tuesday, September 17th at 4:30 p.m.). The Board will approve the bill register and cash flow report for August, and vote on the Board committee assignments for 2025-2025. Administrative reports include the library building project update, APL hiring process update, library website and branding update and the launch of the Appleton Poet Laureate program. The President’s report will be Trustee Training: Updated Policy Review Schedule and staff updates include Children’s Program updates and Community Partnership updates. Remember that you can keep track of the library project here: https://apl.org/building/ The Friend of the Appleton Public Library is very close to their $12 fundraising goal for the new library. You can donate here: https://friendsofapl.org/building-beyond-words-capital-campaign/

We will have a special meeting of the Finance Committee before the Common Council meeting tomorrow night to discuss the purchase of workstations for the new employees housed in the Police Department. While we understood the reason for the sole source contract, we all had questions about what we felt was the high amount ($48,100.37 for the two workstations – that does include the walls and furniture). Director Gazza was unable to attend the last meeting, so we held the item. Per Director Gazza, they did not want to wait until the next normally scheduled meeting on October 7th, so we will meet tomorrow evening to hopefully get answers to our questions.

The business presented by the mayor at the Common Council meeting will include proclamations for Constitution Week and Co-Responder and Crisis Responder Week, and appointments to the Historic Preservation Commission and the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

The agenda for the meeting does not include any items that I think will result in a whole lot of discussion – most of the items are pretty straightforward, with the possible exception of the workstation contract discussed above. We will not be discussing the driveway extension on Ballard Road that was referred back to the Municipal Services Committee for last week, because that item was held again in the absence of the homeowner and Alder Croatt, who is not on the committee but had some points he wanted to discuss. We hope to discuss it again at next week’s meeting.

I wrote a bit about the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Group in the last update. We’ll have our first meeting on Thursday, September 19th at 11:30 a.m. in Council chambers. This meeting will be an introduction to the work of the group, including the process and timeline. We’ll also be reviewing the public participation plan (approved by the Plan Commission last week) that will be voted on by the Common Council on Wednesday evening.

I’d like to remind everyone that the spring and summer bulk item pickup will end at the end of this month – we should have one more pickup on the week opposite your recycling day. The same crew that performs the bulk item pickup is responsible for the fall leaf and yard waste pickup and for snow removal on city-maintained properties in the winter.

Finally, I got a reminder about the road report, which I thought I’d share. I casually asked before the Municipal Services Committee meeting last week what was going on that had a portion of W. Parkway Blvd. closed. You can go to the road report from the city website: