Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for the Week of March 23, 2025

Greetings,

This dreary, starting to be stormy, afternoon kind of reflects our statewide mood after both Marquette and the Badgers made earlier-than-hoped-for exits from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The Badgers made a heckuva comeback, but they just didn’t quite get there.

We are headed into a pretty busy week in local government – I wrote about the Common Council meeting last week, which led to a couple of items that we will consider in committee meetings this week, so I’ll get straight into the agendas.

Municipal Services Committee – Monday, March 24, 4:30 p.m.

We’ll take up a couple of street occupancy permits – on College Avenue for the 222 building and at Washington and N. Oneida during construction of a new pizzeria. Both sites will have a temporary dumpster and there will be a debris catch on the sidewalk in front of the 222 Building during exterior façade repair.

We will also discuss making parking changes on Durkee St. near Einstein Middle School permanent after a six-month trial. The change basically converts part of the no-parking zone in front of the school into a loading zone on school days. The Traffic Department advises that there were no complaints during the trial period.

The Trout Museum is requesting a loading zone on the south side of College Avenue in front of the new building. The loading zone, which would take up two parking stalls, would allow buses to unload and facilitate package delivery.

The Department of Public Works is requesting approval of an “easement release of rights” for the relocation of the water main and sanitary sewer line on the north side of I-41 near 3001 Enterprise Avenue. This is a requirement to complete forms required by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation allowing WISDOT to compensate the city for moving the water and sewer lines in the way of the I-41 expansion.

Finally, we’ll take up a request to approve the contract for a Parking Utility Strategic Planning and Marketing Study with Walker Consultants for $200,000. $100,000 was approved in the 2025 budget for a downtown parking strategic plan. The department would like to use an additional $100,000 in carryover funds from 2024 to expand the work to include a study of digital parking management ($40,000) and implementation support. The city received two qualified proposals but rated the Walker proposal much higher because of their deep understanding of the needs of the parking utility, likely due to their work on the 2015 parking study. The downtown environment has changed fairly dramatically since the 2015 study, with the pandemic essentially eliminating the demand for downtown parking as people transitioned to remote work, then the large number of residential units added, along with the expected addition of 650 monthly parking passes when U.S. Venture completes its move to the 222 building and a slow transition back to in-office work for some companies. I believe this justifies expanding the study when there are excess funds from a 2024 project to finance the expansion. Digital parking management is important as well – we finally got to a chip and tap credit card system in the ramps, but allowing people to pay via an app would make the process even more efficient. I assume that we will hear the same objections that we heard at budget time because we are not looking at the potential sale of the ramps and privatizing parking in the city. I believe that the parking utility, like the water and stormwater utilities, should support itself through generated revenue, but any private entity would need to make a profit, so I could not imagine any scenario where the price didn’t increase, and I think we could say goodbye to free meter parking on Sundays and free parking for special events such as Small Business Saturday.

Finance Committee – Monday, March 24, 5:30 p.m.

The committee will vote on approving the CEA Review Committee’s report from their March 10 meeting where they approved the 2025 Seasonal Vehicle Requests, the 2026 Equipment Replacement Plan and several individual purchase requests and a change order to an existing fire truck purchase order and a purchase request for a new fire truck to be delivered in 46 to 49 months.

We will then take up the 2024-2025 budget carryover requests. These are divided into two categories – items not under contract ($13,811,792) and items requesting special consideration ($1,143,133). The items not under contract are generally for work budgeted for the prior year but which will be completed in the current year. The items requesting special consideration are generally funds left over from projects that are being proposed for other projects. About half of the special consideration carryover ($572,956) would be used for the emergency replacement of chemical tanks at the water treatment plant. Another $107,625 remaining from the park pavilion replacement roof replacement project would be used “…for hiring a consultant

to create a sustainability and climate action plan for Appleton. The consultant will analyze

existing reports, update the reports, and create a masterplan document that will provide

a clear pathway for the City to achieve its sustainability and climate goals.”

The council passed the resolution last week committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over the next 10 years. I would assume/hope that the climate action plan created here would establish the actions that will be taken to achieve this goal.

 

The full list of carryover items in the two categories are linked below:

 

Not Under Contract

Special Consideration

We will be voting to accept a Department of Natural Resources Safe Drinking Water Loan Program loan ($618,975) for replacing private lead service lines. While the funds are defined as a loan, there is no interest and 100% of the principle is forgiven for these loans. In a related item, we will vote on a contract to replace lead/galvanized service lines (Scott Lamers Construction LLC - $486,212.08)

Other budgeted contracts for approval by the committee include:

• Unit C-25 Sidewalk Sawcutting (ASTI Sawing, Inc. - $30,000)
• Unit J-25 Mini Storm Sewer (M&E Construction LLC - $250,000)
• Unit S-25 Repair & Preventative Maintenance of Parking Structures (Restoration Systems, Inc. - $1,388,594.50 with contingency)
• Appleton Wastewater Treatment Hardscapes and Truck Scale Project (Vinton Construction Company - $1,575,627.56 with contingency)

We will also be voting on a change order to the 2025 water and sewer construction project to add the relocation of the water and sanitary sewer lines for the I-41 construction project. As noted above, WISDOT is funding the relocation as part of the I-41 project.

The final action item is a change order to the Appleton Water Treatment Facility Emergency Generator Control Equipment Project ($49,863) to replace some components that will soon become obsolete as it will be more efficient to replace them as part of the project.

Information items include some budget amendments to record contributions to the library, the police department and fire departments and the 2024-2025 budget carryover items for amounts under contract and non-lapsing funds which are not subject to council approval.

Fox Cities Transit Commission – Tuesday, March 25, 2:50 p.m.

The Commission will vote on the February payments and to issue a purchase order for a maintenance support vehicle ($64,649.50, funded 80% federal and 20% local).

They will also vote on approving contracts with Running, Inc. for the Northern Winnebago Dial-a-Ride service and the Outagamie County Rural service, and on the contract with Star Protection and Patrol for downtown transit center security.

Information items include the ridership and financial reports for February and an update on funding for capital projects (I’ll be watching this meeting to see if there is an update on the $25 million federal grant for the new transit center).

Utilities Committee – Tuesday, March 25, 4:30 p.m.

The committee has a single action item – the DNR safe drinking water award that will also be discussed in the Finance Committee agenda.

The information item is of interest to those of us in District 6 and our neighbors in District 14 – an update on the Northland-Bellaire Flood Study.

Completed Tasks

• Kickoff meeting held December 11, 2024.
• Reviewed location and description of July 2024 and historic flooding reports with DPW.
• Updated the previously developed system models to reflect current industry standard rainfall distributions and depths.
• Merged previously developed Northland model and Bellaire model into one combined model incorporating both watersheds.
• Performed field site visits to verify previously modeled existing conditions, including flow paths.

Ongoing Tasks

• Performing subwatershed-level inlet capacity calculations.
• Running sensitivity analyses for two different antecedent moisture conditions.
• Running sensitivity analyses for concept-level scenarios using 10-year and 100-year storm events to narrow down potential locations and types of practices for more detailed evaluation.

Future Tasks

• Evaluate individual storage and conveyance alternative components and present initial findings to DPW for initial feedback.
• For highest ranked components, evaluate potential conflicts with other utilities and develop preliminary cost estimates.
• Develop WinSLAMM water quality models to identify potential stormwater pollution reduction measures that could be incorporated into the alternatives under consideration.
• Group most highly ranked individual alternative components into three combined alternatives and present to Utilities Committee with recommendations for approval.
• Develop design refinements for selected combined alternative to facilitate resolution of utility conflicts in preparation of future design phases.
• Prepare a technical memorandum documenting the procedures, recommended improvements, and conclusions for all tasks under this project.

City Plan Commission – Wednesday, March 26, 3:30 p.m.

The commission will hold a public hearing and vote on the related action item to create a parking lot at 131 N. Appleton St. (behind the Chase Bank building on College Avenue). The drive through was removed in November of 2024, and the building owner would like to have a dedicated parking lot for new commercial and residential tenants in the building. The lot would have 67 spaces.

We will also have the “Selfie Sculpture” for Houdini Plaza back after the referral from the full council even after Appleton Downtown, Inc. stated their intention to withdraw the request. The action item now includes the official memo withdrawing the request. The item was referred back to the Parks and Recreation Committee, which is not meeting this week, and the Appleton Public Arts Committee, which has a meeting scheduled for April 2 for which there is not a published agenda as yet, in addition to the Plan Commission.

Safety and Licensing Committee – Wednesday, March 26, 5:30 p.m.

In addition to the normal license applications and renewals, we’ll be taking up a request from the Appleton Police Department for a sole source contract with Axon Air/DroneSense for “small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS)”  for APD. Axon was chosen as the sole source provider for integration with the other systems in use, including body cameras. The price of what appears to be a four-year contract would be $42,322.16. I will need to confirm if the contract includes any physical drones or what exactly is included.

Then, the biggie – the resolution introduced by Alder Siebers to reinstate a truancy ordinance. The “whereas” reiterate the statistics presented by AASD in the council meeting last week. The ask is here:

Therefore, be it resolved, that the City of Appleton enact an ordinance prohibiting a person under 18 years of age from being a habitual truant, and that this ordinance be for a trial period of four school semesters, starting in the fall of 2025, after which time, a review of the success of the ordinance will be made by the City of Appleton, Outagamie County, and AASD with suggested, needed and agreed on changes being made.

What is not included in this resolution is anything about enforcement or proposed penalties. I did some research on other communities in Wisconsin, focusing on those locally and on the cities about the same size as Appleton. Superintendent Hartjes was correct in stating that they all have some type of truancy ordinance. The City of Racine was the only one I saw that specifically mentioned a truancy court. Most of the local ordinances appear to closely align with the Wisconsin state statute, including the penalties, which can include fines, loss of driver’s licenses and even electronic monitoring. I believe that some of the provisions of the state statute and local ordinances modeled after that statute are overly punitive, particularly for a district where 47.91% of students are defined as economically disadvantaged.

I will not be voting for this resolution because of the lack of specific enforcement or penalties.

Don’t forget that early voting for the spring election is taking place at City Hall again this week. Hours are 8:00 – 4:30 Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 to 6:00 Wednesday and 8:00 to 12:00 on Friday. If you have an absentee ballot, there is a drobox in the drive-through for the Finance Department. DO NOT place absentee ballots in the Finance Department night drop slot. District 6 votes at the Scheig Center in Memorial Park on Election Day April 1.

Have a great week!

Denise