Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for January 15, 2025

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,
I want to start with some really good news – the library will open on Saturday, February 15 at 9:00 a.m. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:00 a.m., guided tours, library card sign-ups and family-friendly activities all day. It’s been a while since my “hard hat” tour of the new building, so I’m really excited to see the finished product. As of the end of 2024, the Friends of Appleton Public Library was at 98% of their fundraising goal. You can help put them over the top here: Building Beyond Words
The Comprehensive Plan Advisory Group is hard at work on the updates to the Comprehensive Plan and the three subarea updates (including our own Richmond/Northland corridor). If you haven’t completed the survey yet, please take a few minutes to do so. The Comprehensive Plan is our roadmap for the future of the City of Appleton, and we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to share their vision for the future of our community. You can find the survey here: Comprehensive Plan Survey
We are also working on the Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (CORP) – there is a survey for this one, too. The results of this survey will help with developing park master plans, determining future park land developments and acquisition, new trail connections, and park maintenance for the next 5-10 years. You can complete the survey here through January 20: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AppletonCORP
There will also be a public input meeting on Thursday, January 16 at 6:00 p.m. at Reid Golf Course where you can talk with city staff and the consultants and review maps and plans.
I drove all the way down College Avenue this morning on the way home from the Heart of the Valley YMCA and noticed that it was still the Avenue of Angels (no judgement – our outside lights are still up – maybe it will warm up enough Friday to take on that task). The angels are owned and maintained by Appleton Downtown, Inc., and Creative Appleton Downtown, Inc., and the community has supported the upkeep and addition of angels at new intersections over the years. ADI has started a fundraising campaign to preserve the tradition. An anonymous donor has agreed to match donations up to $25,000. The funds will:
  • Replace two sets of angels at the intersections of Appleton Street and Oneida Street
  • Testing of the anchors and cables to ensure the safety and durability of the displays
  • Additional storage facility
  • Ongoing storage and maintenance fees
You can donate here: Avenue of Angels Fundraiser
Getting back to normal business, our first Common Council meeting of 2025 would seem to be fairly routine, with most of the items before us having been approved without a great deal of discussion at committee.  We do have a potential closed session on the agenda “for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating items related to the disposition of land in the Downtown District.”
There is one item before us from the Safety and Licensing Committee that I intend to separate out for further consideration. This is the application for a Class "B" Beer and Reserve "Class B" Liquor License for a proposed business at 823 W. College Avenue. The original application was for a coffee bar where alcoholic beverages would also be sold. There were some concerns from other tenants that the owner planned to install gambling machines. APD investigated and did not find evidence that these machines were being installed. However, the same owner was recently denied a license in Grafton for a “gaming lounge bar”, where the plan was to televised sports and five gaming machines.
The owner and his attorney appeared before the Safety and Licensing Committee last week with a totally new business plan for a bar with board games. They referenced a similar business in West Bend (owned by the brother-in-law of this applicant). It appears from social media photos that that business does have gaming machines. Gambling machines are illegal in Wisconsin, but the state law has a strange carveout for bars holding a Class “B” license that only fines the owner for having the machines.
The committee ended up voting to recommend approval of the license, though some questions came up about possibly restricting it to the hours proposed on the business plan and restricting gaming machines.
I attended the meeting virtually because I had been struggling with the upper respiratory infection that seems to have attacked half of Appleton, and I honestly didn’t participate as fully in the meeting as I would have had I not been feeling terrible. The more I thought about this license, the more uncomfortable I became with granting it with no restrictions. I will propose that we add the 10:00 closing time and a restriction on gaming machines, and if that fails to pass, then I will vote against granting the license.
Stay warm!



Denise


 

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