Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for June 17, 2026
Greetings District 6 Neighbors,
Whew! What a weekend! There was so much going on around town that it seems impossible to even list it all, much less to participate in all of the events.
I started my Saturday with the Bellin 10K in Green Bay. It was the 50th anniversary, so the field was large than normal – over 10,000 runners and walkers making their way through the streets of Green Bay and Allouez.
After that, it was home for a quick change and out to the Flag Day Parade. The sheer number of entries made the new shorter route a little strange – those of us at the start of the parade were finished long before the later entries even left the staging area. I have heard some questions about the route change. There were a number of reasons that the difficult decision was made. Security is always a consideration – with the number of activities happening on any given Saturday during the summer, APD is stretched pretty thin. Some of the veterans who participate in our parades are getting older and the longer route is difficult for them. Finally, we haven’t been able to get buy-in from the railroad, which would prevent a train from stopping the parade on the old route.
Once the parade was done, I dashed down to Jones Park for Fox Valley Pride. After getting forced inside by rain in 2024 and enduring brutal heat last year, it had to have been a relief for the organizers to get sunshine with moderate temps this year. From what I saw, the event was well-organized and safe, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
I was (jokingly, I think) asked by a constituent why Appleton approves all of these events on the same day and I (also jokingly) replied that it was for the same reason that we have so many bars on College Avenue – we can’t deny the permits if everything is in order. However, I had a brief conversation with Police Chief Olson about the number of events happening at the same time (farm market, Pride Promenade, Flag Day Parade, Pride festival) and she expressed concern about being able to secure such a large number of events going forward.
After a fun weekend, it was back to work this week. On Monday, the Appleton Police Department held a use of force discussion for alderpersons. You may have seen stories about a particular event outside a downtown bar earlier in the year. There were two women involved in a fight on College Avenue after bar closing time and videos of the police intervening circulated widely on social media. Without context, these videos really did look bad – showing a female officer punching one of the women fighting (while that woman was still holding the other woman by the hair). APD released the body camera videos of all the officers on the scene a few days later (the chief noted that it took almost a day for the videos to be put together). Those videos presented a broader picture of what happened. In the two-hour meeting, Lieutenant Krieg, who is one of the two officers in charge of professional development, reviewed the training that officers receive on “situational analysis” regarding the use of force. Some alders also had the opportunity to experience the virtual reality training that is used in teaching situational awareness.
Something Lt. Krieg emphasized that I had not really thought about before is the fact that a large, physically very strong officer might be able to subdue someone using different techniques than a smaller person. He compared himself, a large man who is an expert at Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other martial arts, to Chief Olson, a petite woman. APD’s policy is that “Officers shall use only the amount of force that is objectively reasonable to control a situation, affect a seizure, or control a person. “This policy is based on the Defense and Arrest Tactics (DAAT) program of the State of Wisconsin. The situational analysis training is based on the diagram below:
The use of force policy can also be found on the APD page: https://appletonwi.gov/Documents/Police/Use_of_Force.pdf
This seems like a good place to encourage you to fill out the police department’s community survey: APD Community Survey. It took me just a few minutes. The survey is open through July 17.
On Tuesday, I attended my first Library Board meeting (one alder is selected to be part of the Library Board each year). The main thing that struck me during this meeting was the presentation of the first quarter summary of the programs enabled or enhanced by Friends of the Library grant funding. It was eight pages! https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=62c36b36-ef41-4aa2-96fd-acedcead5ffa.pdf
Thanks to everyone who is an active member or who contributes to the Friends!
I expect that there may be a number of people speaking during the public participation portion of tonight’s council meeting. We’ll be taking a vote on the S. Driscoll St. reconstruction. A group of residents has been very vocal in their opposition to the narrowing of the street by three feet and especially to the plan for adding sidewalks on both sides of the street. The item was held for several weeks by the Municipal Services Committee, and the committee asked the Department of Public Works for a repeat traffic count and parking utilization analysis. These additional studies, which cost taxpayers in personnel time and the outside processing of the traffic count data, placed the street in the same category used in the initial street reconstruction design. Appleton has had a policy of constructing sidewalks on reconstructed streets for years – even before the adoption of the Smart Streets policy in 2024. As I have noted several times, I believe that we need to look at other ways of funding sidewalks, either by pursuing grants or some other financing mechanism. However, I cannot support failing to add sidewalks, which are vital to pedestrian safety, particularly on a street where there are school aged children who catch a bus at the corner and either have to walk in the street or be driven two blocks. I plan to vote in favor of the design as proposed by the Department of Public Works and recommended for approval by the Municipal Services Committee.
We will also vote on and likely hear comment on a resolution submitted by Alder Croatt regarding the truancy ordinance. After unsuccessfully trying to amend the resolution to put an actual timeline on some kind of action, I voted against it because it really doesn’t do anything. We found out at the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting that no action by the council at this point would actually prevent the ordinance from expiring on June 30. Even if we had amended the resolution which only calls for reviewing the options available to actually extend the sunset date or enact a new ordinance and it passed tonight at council, ordinances are voted on in the meeting after the one in which the resolution is passed (to allow the legal department to draft the appropriate language). The next council meeting will be on July 15 since we already voted to cancel meetings the week of July 4. I see no point in passing a resolution that is now meaningless. If one of my colleagues wants to renew this ordinance, they should introduce that resolution. I am not willing to do so without seeing the data that AASD agreed to provide when we voted for this trial ordinance.
We will also take up a resolution that supports the Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel’s (ASAP) ongoing vegetation and invasive species analysis as a critical foundation for future land management decisions. This resolution has been held a couple of times since its introduction back in April and has had a number of alders wondering about the best way to handle it. The Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel was intended (from the resolution creating it in 2022) …”to act as an advisory group to the Mayor, City Department Directors, and the Common Council providing feedback and advice on a range of matters related to sustainability, climate action and resiliency.” I don’t really believe that we need to have a resolution for them to continue their projects. When I was asked to be sign on to this resolution, I proposed that this work be included in the ongoing sustainability master plan. I have had some concern that the work of this group (a talented group of professionals who donate their time and expertise) is invisible. Their meetings don’t appear on the Legistar page where all of the other meeting agendas and minutes appear, and because they don’t take place in council chambers, they are not livestreamed or recorded. After this resolution passed, I attended the next ASAP meeting, along with Alder Van Zeeland, who chairs the Parks and Recreation Committee, Alder Meltzer and Alder Schultz. We learned a great deal about how the panel operates and we have continued to discuss ways to make their work more visible to the council and the public. Alder Van Zeeland has requested that ASAP meeting minutes be included as information items on the Parks and Recreation meeting agenda after each ASAP meeting and that recommendations from the panel be taken up as action items. I expect that we will likely hold or refer back this resolution and take up the recommendations coming out of the vegetation analysis as future action items.
Even though this update is long for a council week, I want to put on my League of Women Voters hat for a second to plug our summer activity. With gratitude toward the History Museum at the Castle, which has donated the use of their lawn at the corner of College Avenue and Drew Street each Saturday of the summer, we are hosting “Constitution Square at the History Museum” from 9:00 to 12:00 starting June 27. Visitors will have the opportunity to sign our giant Constitution, walk through the rights and freedoms placards, get voter registration information, update their voter registration (or register for the first time!) or take a selfie with Lady Liberty. We are sticklers for fact, and we know that the Constitution wasn’t in effect until 1789, but the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year, established the self-evident truths that are the basis of our constitution. As an alderperson, I have taken an oath to support the constitution five times, so this is a project close to my heart. So, while you are out getting fresh produce or some treats at the Downtown Farm Market, stop in and celebrate 250 years of democracy with us.
Have a great week!
Denise
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