Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for March 23, 2026

Just a week ago!

Greetings District 6 Neighbors,

I guess it was wishful thinking that the snow would be mostly gone by now, but surely, we are getting close to actual spring. I still think the roof will be closed for the Brewers opening week homestand. Sticking with sports, congratulations to the Badger women for their second straight (and ninth overall) NCAA hockey title! That takes a bit of the sting out of the men’s basketball team’s loss in the first round of the NCAA tournament. How are those brackets looking, by the way? Mine is toast, so I’m down to rooting against all the high seeds.

The Common Council meeting last week was uneventful – Council President Van Zeeland chaired the meeting as Mayor Woodford was in Washington D.C. at the National League of Cities conference. He did appear remotely to share his recommendation for the city’s new Finance Director.

The council approved the special events application for the No Kings event on Saturday afternoon. Be aware that College Avenue from Houdini Plaza to Durkee Street will be closed for the march that will end about 5:00 p.m. The only reason that the special event permit was required was for the street closure – previous events took place without such a permit. I’ve seen some comments about the organizers only paying 25% of the cost of police overtime, etc. Note that this is the policy for ALL special events, including Octoberfest, etc.

Most of the “other business” at the end of the council meeting consisted of alders voicing their appreciation of the Department of Public Works and Facilities teams for their tireless work in getting streets and city owned sidewalks and other facilities cleared after the record setting snow event. They worked long hours under tough conditions and I’m grateful for that work.

This week brings us a mostly full schedule of committee meetings – the Parks and Recreation and Human Resources & Information Technology committees will not be meeting.

Municipal Service Committee – Monday, March 23, 4:30 p.m.

The agenda is pretty light this week, with just a couple of contracts to approve. The first is for state-required bridge inspection services (Collins Engineers, Inc. - $50,000). Collins was the only bid submitted out of six requests for proposals, but the bid was within budget, and they have done work for the city before with a good track record. The second contract is for 2026 Construction Inspection Services (raSmith - $80,000 from 2025 budget carryover). Normally this work is done in-house by the Engineering Technician group, but staff vacancies and a high volume of new subdivision development projects involving public infrastructure, in addition to typical DPW construction projects, means that DPW doesn’t have in-house staff resources to keep pace with the anticipated rate of public infrastructure work. raSmith has familiarity with the city’s standards and has resource available for the work, so DPW staff has request the sole-source contract.

Finance Committee- Monday, March 23, 5:30 p.m.

The committee will vote on contracts for 2026 projects and ongoing services:

• Fire Protection Inspection Services five-year contract (Summit Fire Protection - $160,435). The contract covers inspection, testing, maintenance, and repair of fire protection systems across all municipal facilities. These systems include fire alarms, fire sprinkler systems, standpipes, and other life safety components critical to protecting occupants and public assets.
• C-26 Sidewalk Sawcutting (ASTI Sawing Inc. - $30,000)
• Change order to Unit W-26 Sewer and Water Reconstruction contract (Kruczek Construction - $92,515 for additional work required for the I-41/STH 47 project and additional storm drain inlets and storm sewer piping)

We’ll also take up the development agreement for Mission Ridge North Development. The final plat for Phase 1 was approved by the Common Council last week.

The Utilities Department is requesting approval for the purchase of a software package for compliance management (Klir Compliance Management Software through CDW-Government - $44,250). This would replace the current process of regulatory compliance reporting involving multiple systems, manual process and spreadsheets.

Finally, we’ll take up the annual budget carryover appropriations process. The majority of the carryover funds are for projects that began in 2025 and are continuing into 2026 but are not yet under contract. ($57,800,009, $41,800,000 of which is for the two Valley Transit projects – the new transit center and phase 2 of the Whitman facility remodeling project).

The “special consideration” carryover funds ($7,745,006) are situations where leftover project funds are used for another project. The majority of this funding is $3,880,880 from a cancelled stormwater pond land acquisition that would be used for the initial Northland-Bellaire flooding study recommendations.

There are also a few budget amendments to record additional community development block grant funds, wheel tax receipts, and receipt of funds from the Friends of Appleton Public Library for the library project.

Fox Cities Transit Commission – Tuesday, March 24, 2:50 p.m.

The only action item for the commission is the approval of February payments. They will review Valley Transit’s Transit Development Plan along with the financial report for February and the ridership reports for January and February as information items.

Utilities Committee – Tuesday, March 24, 4:30 p.m.

The committee’s sole action item is to vote on the contract for 2026C Stormwater Consulting Services for Northland Bellaire Preliminary Design (Brown and Caldwell - $390,000). This contract is for engineering, design and project management services for the initial recommendations from the Northland-Bellaire drainage study. The initially recommended improvements included the following major elements with an estimated implementation cost of $22 million:

· Veterans Memorial Park Pond South (VMPPS) Expansion

· Northland Avenue Storm Sewer Improvements and Inlet Capacity Enhancements East of Meade Street

· Local Sewer Improvements and Inlet Capacity Enhancements East of Meade Street and South of Northland Avenue

 

City Plan Commission – Wednesday, March 25, 3:30 p.m.

 

The plan commission also has a single action item – approval of the plat which would divide a 1.6673-acre parcel into four lots for Habitat for Humanity in the Town of Grand Chute. Appleton has plat approval of any development within our extraterritorial jurisdiction (within three miles of the city limits). Staff is recommending approval.

 

Community Development Committee – Wednesday, March 25, 4:30 p.m.

 

Another one-item agenda: the committee will vote on renewing the lease with Erv Van Camp to farm the undeveloped land at 110 and 210 W. Edgewood Drive, estimated to be approximately 21.14 acres, at the rental rate of $76.58 per acre. This would be a five-year lease with an increase of 5% each year.

 

Safety and Licensing Committee – Wednesday, March 25, 5:30 p.m.

 

Safety and Licensing has a number of items on the agenda, starting with what has become the usual demerit point appearances by establishments with alcohol license convictions. This week there are three businesses convicted for alcohol sales to minors scheduled to appear. We’ll also take up an appeal of the removal of a towing company from the Appleton Police Department's Towing Rotating Call List. APD notified Mac's Towing, LLC d/b/a Bob's Towing that they were removed from the list due to the number of declined calls in the fall of 2025 and a complaint of unprofessional conduct by one of the company’s drivers. The owner is appealing the removal on what appears to be administrative grounds.

 

We have a couple of applications for temporary alcohol licenses, and will then move to the information items, including a truancy presentation from AASD. AASD is reporting the lowest high school chronic absenteeism rate since 2018-2019 (22.3%).

The committee will also review the  Police and Fire departments’ annual reports for 2025.

 

That closes out the committee business for the week.

 

I want to remind everyone that early (officially “In-Person Absentee”) voting starts at City Hall tomorrow, March 24. If you haven’t done this before, it’s super easy. You basically get an absentee ballot that you fill out on the machine, which prints it out. You seal it and sign the envelope, which is witnessed by a member of the City Clerk’s staff.

 

 

During in-person absentee voting, voters requiring accommodation may request to vote absentee via curbside voting at City Hall.
This is best done by making an appointment with the City Clerk's Office.
Please call (920)832-6447 to inquire about curbside absentee voting.

You can theoretically request an absentee ballot until April 2, but I think it’s too late, given the mail situation lately. If you HAVE an absentee ballot already, either mail it soon or drop it in the drop box located in the Finance Department drive-through at City Hall.

Have a great week and enjoy the sunshine!

Denise