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

 

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

What I did NOT want to wake up to this morning is another snow-covered lawn and more snow flying. Glad I got my long walk in yesterday when it was sunny and relatively calm. The rest of the week looks better, though, so we just have to get through today.

At the council meeting last week, the two items I had predicted were separated for individual discussion. The carryover request from Facilities ($107,625 for consulting for a sustainability and climate action plan for the City of Appleton and $20,006 for the city’s share of building wayfinding for City Center after the new development) was referred back to the Finance Committee – more on that below.

There was robust discussion on the parking strategic planning study, including an attempt to amend the item to exclude most of the items included. (That amendment failed 2-12). There was a ton of discussion about EV charging stations in city parking ramps, although the study proposal just includes “evaluation of and recommendations for” those charging stations. I am emphasizing again that the study ($200,000) is to be funded by the parking utility, which gets revenue from monthly parking passes, daily ramp and meter parking and enforcement (tickets), not from property taxes. The parking utility charges for a service, and while I don’t have any details about what EV charging stations would entail, I’m thinking that it might be something that the parking utility would charge for, bringing in additional revenue. The contract for the study was eventually approved 10-4 with Alders Croatt, Doran, Hartzheim and Hayden voting nay.

This is the last week for committees with their current makeup as the new alders will be sworn in next week and committees will be reset for the new council term. I went into this term as chair of the Municipal Services Committee not really knowing what to expect, but the Department of Public Works team has been extraordinary in helping me understand complicated engineering matters. I have been meeting with the Director and Deputy Director every other week, and those meetings have been invaluable for my understanding of the agenda items (and hopefully for being able to share them with you).

This last week has a pretty light schedule, with only four committees meeting.

Municipal Services Committee – Monday, April 7, 4:30 p.m.

We will take up a request to approve a contract for design and construction engineering for the permanent traffic signal at N. Richmond St. and W. Ridgeview Dr. (raSmith - $68,855). The temporary signal should be installed in the next few weeks. This contract is for the permanent signal, for which the city received a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation which will cover 90% of the cost, including this design contract. When I discussed this with the city Traffic Engineer, he explained that the cost is higher because of the amount of work that will go into installing the signal. There are both buried and overhead utility lines, and it is likely that we will need to acquire some property as well.

A note on the I-41 construction that is the reason for the temporary signal and the grant for making it permanent: The original plan was to close the Ballard interchange around May 1 (after the NFL Draft), but there have been some delays in moving some of the utilities along the right of way. The City of Appleton has completed the move of our water main, but some of the telecom companies still have buried fiber. I don’t have an exact date at this point. The DOT has a website for the project here.

We will also vote on the contract for parking ramp security (Star Protection and Patrol - $62,400). The contract would be for one year with available annual extensions for four more years. The extensions will have a $1.00 per hour increase in the rate. ($30 per hour for the first year). The city offered the RFP to three firms, with only Star providing a quote. Star has been providing this service to the city satisfactorily since 2023.

Finally, we’ll take up Trout Museum’s request for a two-stall loading zone on College Avenue in front of their new building, which was held at our last meeting. This is an item where I can honestly say that a lack of complete knowledge formed my original opinion. The city Traffic Engineer met with the DPW Deputy Director and me at our regular meeting last week and really cleared up a few things for me. He pointed out that the discussion of a loading zone occurred early in the site plan development process, with the plan to get approval before the building’s completion. It is likely that such requests will be included in site plan approval in the future. Some of the issues that were addressed in our meeting and in a later meeting between city staff, the Trout staff and LU staff were (from the Traffic Engineer’s recap to me – lightly edited):

• The only entrance on the back of the building is an overhead door (for freight deliveries) and a “back-of-house” entrance for LU security, etc., that leads into the back areas of the building.  This confirms the idea that non-freight deliveries need to happen on the College Ave side of the building.
• The only handicap-accessible entrances to the building are on the College Av side.  This is yet another reason why unloading seniors in the back of the building can’t work.
• The floor-by-floor breakdown is as follows:
• 1st floor:  Trout
• 2nd floor:  LU faculty offices, classrooms and multi-purpose rooms
• 3rd and 4th floors:  40 market rate apartments (36 one-bedroom and 4 two-bedroom)
• Besides all the other expected uses of the loading zone (see list below), the Trout will periodically have galas that bring in 200-300 visitors.  They plan to use the loading zone as a valet area, with the valets moving cars to the YMCA ramp to minimize the impact on the surface street parking in the area.
• Trout will have summer camps throughout the summer involving lots of young children.  The plan is to have parents drop the kids off in the loading zone, handing them off directly to the camp leaders at the front door.

The Traffic Engineer also showed me a graph of parking availability on a Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m., which showed pretty ample availability within 200-250 feet of the two retail locations next to the new building. He also pointed out that parking at the mall or any “big box” craft store (Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn-RIP) would be in the 200-to-250-foot range for closest parking to front door.

Finally, he noted that without a loading zone, delivery drivers will likely double park in the bike lanes (and into the traffic lane), leading to traffic snarls. These deliveries wouldn’t just be for the apartment residents, but for all of the LU and Trout offices in the building – think office supplies, water, etc.

I’ve done a little bit of scouting of loading zones on my own over the weekend, and I’m going to take a more thorough look later today, but it seems that most of the large buildings downtown have some type of loading zone in the block.

Finance Committee – Monday, April 1, 5:30 p.m.

The committee is being asked to approve a sole source contract for temporary staffing (due to a combination of medical leaves and vacant positions) for the Finance Department (Truity Partners, Inc. - $40,000). The sole source request is for continuity of services as this is the firm that has provided temporary staff who are currently at work. The funding is from vacant salary dollars.

We’ll also be looking at a contract for site improvements at 3001 E. Glendale Ave. next to the yard waste site (MCC, Inc. - $161,858.96 with contingency – budgeted at $250,000).

Finally, we have the budget carryover request back on the agenda. I’ve already laid out my thoughts on this item and I continue to be in favor of the portion that would be used for consulting to create a sustainability and climate action plan for the city. When I reached out to Director Gazza for some more information, he indicated that staff would prefer that it be held for another two weeks to allow them more time to gather data. I hope that this data will include the actual and projected tax dollar savings from the various sustainability projects.

City Plan Commission – Wednesday, April 9, 3:30 p.m.

The commission will hold public hearings and take up the associated action items for a special use permit in District 6 and for a rezoning on West College Avenue between Perkins and Linwood.

The special use permit is for a landscaping business to be located at N. Locust and W. Weiland. The application states that the existing building that was formerly home to an air conditioning company would be used as office space and storage and the adjacent empty lot would be fenced and used for equipment storage. As a landscaping business, the work would take place at other locations; the only activity at the proposed site would be equipment moving and storage. Both parcels are already zoned for commercial use.

The rezoning on College Avenue would allow for parcels to be combined – all parcels have to have the same zoning to be combined. The applicant plans to develop a microbrewery on the site by remodeling and reusing the existing buildings. My understanding is that this is an existing business that is relocating to Appleton.

The two action items without a public hearing are a request for the City of Appleton to annex about 96 acres at 4700 N. Richmond St. (east of Richmond and south of JJ) from the Town of Grand Chute for subdivision development and a request to approve the location and architectural design of a pavilion at Lundgaard Park.

Safety and Licensing Committee – Wednesday, April 9, 5:30 p.m.

In addition to the usual license applications and renewals, the committee will be taking up two items that were held at the last meeting.

The first is an application for a change in agent for Tandem Wine Bar. The owner/license holder was recently convicted of a third OWI (with a cocaine possession charge that was dismissed). The only information about the new applicant is that they are “present at Tandem during operating hours.” I am hoping to have more information from our Legal Department on this item.

The second item is a request for a Class A beer and liquor license for Jai Sung Mah Pool Club at 122 W. Wisconsin Ave. We heard that this business has a history of complaints in years past – I will note that the license requested is for off-premises – like a gas station or other store. The applicant also has two convictions in 2017 – for public assistance fraud and for commercial gambling.

We had also asked the Legal Department to provide more information on our options in this matter.

The Fire Department is requesting approval (this is standard for these grants) to apply for a 2025 Elevate Communities grant from Capital Credit Union for $19,910.24. The funds would be used to purchase a fire extinguisher trainer to be used as part of a public education program.

Information items include the Fire Department Annual Report for 2024

There is an Age Free Appleton public listening session on Wednesday, April 9 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the Mary Beth Neinhaus Community Room at the Appleton Public Library. Age Free Appleton is dedicated to making the city more livable for people of ALL ages. Everyone is welcome. I plan to attend after the City Plan Commission meeting.

There have been quite a few discussions in committee meetings and at council, not to mention from social media pundits, about the city’s use of consultants for certain projects. Some people seem to believe that consultants are always a waste of money. There were many subjects which were new to me when I became a member of the Common Council, but this is an area where my forty years in information technology gives me some perspective.

The 2025 budget lists 652.81 full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees in the City of Appleton. The fractions are because we have a number of part time employees. APD has 140 FTE, the Fire Department has 96 and Valley Transit has 61.10  so we’re left with 355.71 FTE to handle all of the other responsibilities for a city of 75,000 people. Sometimes we need to use consultants because there is a particular area of expertise that we don’t have in-house and won’t need permanently. Some consulting is mandated – like independent auditors for the city’s financial reporting. Sometimes we need to use consultants because the work needs to be completed within a certain timeframe, and we just don’t have enough hours in the day for our in-house teams to complete it while still keeping up with their normal job requirements. Consultants can also give city leaders the benefit of a fresh perspective or knowing which approaches have worked better for other cities. When the city issues a request for proposals for a consulting contract, the departments evaluate those proposals just like they evaluate a construction bid, making sure that value per dollar spent is maximized.

If you made it this far, thank you.

Have a great week!

Denise