Hey, friends and neighbors! Thanks for joining me here again this week. We are heading into Committee Week with all new committee assignments for aldermen. I was honored to be assigned the committee chairmanship for the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee this term and was assigned a seat on the prestigious Finance Committee. I’m also pleased to serve another term as the alderman assigned to the city’s Parades Committee this year. I look forward to these assignments and will continue to use the committee seats I hold to help my District 13 neighbors and all Appletonians to the best of my ability.
Enough about that… let’s get to the week’s expected hot topics:
Monday, 04/24/2023
Municipal Services Committee – 4:30pm The first action item on this committee’s agenda is the potential awarding of a contract for the College Avenue “road diet” restriping project. I wish I had more information on this potential contract for us all… but there is no summary of the bids received or recommendation posted with the agenda. The agenda item notes “Memo will be distributed at meeting.” So… stay tuned for more on this! This committee discussion and vote is the first step of the “second vote” that aldermen will have in moving this project forward (or not). Now that you’ve had plenty of time to digest the proposed changes, please let me know if you have any other thoughts on the project. Since council members get a second vote on the project, there is a chance that it could be rejected and the city would not proceed. I suspect the chance is slim; but the project is, at this point, still unconfirmed.
Committee members will also review a new resolution that calls for a citywide review of the street light installation policy. I suspect that the author of the resolution is hoping that a review of this policy by city staff will affect the environmental impact of the city’s street lighting (through perhaps installing fewer street lights or using newer technologies for lower energy lighting) and perhaps save the city some money. But the city leases most of its street lights from the utility company and are, therefore, a bit beholden to them for lighting options available. Most of the street lighting in the city is slowly being converted to a lower-energy LED system so savings for the environment and on the city budget will come soon enough. I’m not sure why this resolution has come to the table at this time… so we’ll have to wait to hear the author’s rationale at this committee meeting.
Finance Committee – 5:30pm Committee members will discuss a couple of changes required by the upcoming proposed development at the City Center:
- The current Parks and Recreation dance classes at City Center will need to move to a new location so the committee will be asked to approve a new lease of some space at Northland Mall for these classes. The lease will be more expensive at Northland Mall (between $21,000 and $25,000 more per year for the five-year lease term) but a buyout of the current City Center lease will fund the first year’s lease and moving expenses. I hope to learn more about whether the current fees for the dance classes are or will be enough to cover increased lease expense so that the city does not lose significant amounts of money in this endeavor.
- City Center management has offered to provide the city some storage space (about 1,300 square feet) in the lower level of the building. The memo from the city’s facilities management group says that this space is offered to the city “at no charge” but then later notes that this change will increase the city’s annual condo fees by $7,753. I’m very confused by this conflicting information and hope to get some clarification at this meeting. While the storage space is welcome and would be useful, the additional annual fee for storage space seems a bit expensive.
Other action items for this committee include the potential approval for the city to apply for a federal grant for energy efficiency and conservation, for the acceptance of funds from Goodwill Industries for upgrading and maintenance at Miracle League Field at Memorial Park, and for a grant award of $200,000 of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to Greater Fox Cities Habitat for Humanity for the construction of four homes in the city.
Parks and Recreation Committee – 6:30pm This committee has only the standard “new committee makeup” action items like the election of a vice chairman for the committee and then they’ll move on to two information updates — one on Lundgaard Park and one on the dance studios (as mentioned above in the Finance Committee agenda review). I hope to hear more about how the Lundgaard Park plans are proceeding and share that information with you all.
Tuesday, 04/25/2023
Fox Cities Transit Commission – 3pm This meeting has been cancelled due to lack of agenda items.
Utilities Committee – 4:30pm This committee will meet primarily to elect a committee vice chairman. In the information items portion of this meeting, they will review the first three monthly reports of 2023 for the water plant and wastewater treatment plant and the March 2023 water main breaks report. (Spoiler alert: March was a good month with only one water main break at an estimated cost of ~$16,000!)
Wednesday, 04/26/2023
City Plan Commission – 3:30pm Commissioners will discuss and potentially approve the rezoning of some newly annexed city property at Ballard and Werner Roads after an open public hearing time for said rezoning. This ~39 acre property north of First English Lutheran Church is proposed to be rezoned from temporary agricultural to R-3 Multifamily. After this discussion, they will move on to a request to approve the annexation of some land for the future Providence Avenue and Baldeagle Drive street intersections with the future Lightning Drive. If you’re interested in either of these standard city plan initiatives on District 13 projects, please let me know and I can share more about them.
Community and Economic Development Committee – 4:30pm (scheduled)/6:30pm (to be rescheduled) (Note: This committee, which has in the past met at 4:30on Wednesdays of Committee Weeks will be rescheduled to meet at 6:30pm instead — switching time slots with the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee — due to time constraints of one of the committee members.) Committee members will be asked to approve the City of Appleton continuing as the fiscal agent (as it has been for years) for a housing grant through the Fox Cities Housing Coalition. (Being a fiscal agent for a grant means that the agent takes in and manages the allocation of grant funds.) There is also notice on this committee’s agenda that they may go into closed session (closed to the public) for “deliberating or discussing negotiations for a potential development agreement and investing of public funds in certain real property located in downtown Appleton.” When and if I hear more about this, I’ll be sure to share with you whatever I am legally allowed to, neighbors.
Safety and Licensing Committee – 5:30pm Committee members will conduct a hearing on the suspension of the alcohol license for Chadwick’s Bar (on College Avenue). It appears (in this complaint) that there have been three separate incidences of underage drinking at this bar since mid-2022. As such, the city could suspend the bar’s liquor license… and this committee’s hearing may be the first step in doing so.
Human Resources and Information Technology Committee – 6:30pm (scheduled)/4:30pm (to be rescheduled) (See schedule note above under Community and Economic Development Committee.) After taking up the standard “new committee” action items, members of this committee will discuss the potential award of network managed information technology (IT) services for the city. This is a costly change from in-house managed services and will include a one-time remediation charge of $126,200. Both the remediation costs and the contract service fees will be covered with currently budgeted dollars (with some money left to spare in the 2023 budget) and the IT Director has apparently done his homework and worked with vendors to get the city the most efficient and cost effective contract.
Then committee members will be asked to approve the addition of a Police Community Engagement Specialist for the Appleton Police Department. This would be a new civilian position in the department but is proposed alongside the elimination of one of the police department’s administrative support positions. The net of the two positions would be a 2023 salary savings for the department; but since the new position is proposed to be a higher paid one than the position being eliminated, the change would come with an added salary cost in 2024. I will need to hear more… but my initial thought is that this new position will be able to take on some more clerical duties that are currently being done by Lt Cash (the current APD public information officer) and therefore provide her more time for her other police duties. That seems like an overall positive move for the department. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this… or on anything else mentioned above!
And that will wrap up the week’s meetings, folks. In an upcoming post, I will give a short recap of the status of the Vosters Park Reconstruction Project to share where we are, what we’re still waiting for, and what budget remains for what’s left to do. So keep watching for blog updates on Nextdoor or your neighborhood Facebook page or wherever you get your regular alderman blog links!
In the meantime, please share with me any feedback you have for me… and have a GREAT week.
