Hello, Neighbors. Happy Sunday once again. Here we are back in a Full Council Meeting Week in City of Appleton government. There is one “sub-committee” meeting scheduled this week as well. The rundown of what you can look forward to hearing about can be found below (as per usual):
Wednesday, 02/19/2025
City of Appleton Common Council – 7pmThe mayor will start things off with a brief discussion of the upcoming I-41 project closures and detours which will affect Appleton. If you’ve not already heard about these changes — most significantly for District 13, the closure of the 41/Ballard Road interchange planned for this coming spring — please see this presentation and/or the information provided by the state Department of Transportation (DOT) found here.
Next, most of the items from last week’s discussions in committee meetings come forward for full council review and potential approval. The items most likely to be separated and discussed further are as follows:
- From the Municipal Services Committee: One hot-button topic from this past week is the potential for a sole-sourced contract for $88,000+ for replacement decorative streetlight poles for the College Avenue bridge. I am opposed to the city jumping into this for many reasons, not least of which is that there has not been proper competitive bidding for the project. Another reason for wishing to slow this down is that there are, as yet, a number of unknowns such as how long any new poles would be guaranteed (as the previous ones rusted out very quickly and the city had no recourse with the supplier). Without competitive bidding and without a firm warranty on any new poles, I do not think the city should proceed as there seems to be no immediate safety need for the replacement of these poles. I would like to see this item referred back to committee for further discussion in this regard. What are your thoughts?
- Also from the Municipal Services Committee: An $8,500 engineering consulting charge for the potential addition of an electric vehicle charging station (solely for city electric vehicle use) is also up for full approval by the council. I confirmed with the Department of Public Works (DPW) staff that this charge would be paid for out of the grant funds that the city has received for “energy efficiency.” However, I am still not convinced that this is a direction in which the city should move. The current proposed use of this grant was presented to committee members as “free money” for the city to use to investigate and learn about electric vehicles. Grant money is still taxpayer money even though it did not come directly to the city through property taxpayers. It is not “free.” As such, it should be spent wisely. Do you believe that spending over $134,000 on one (or maybe two) electric vehicles and a charging station for the city using funds wisely?
- And another from the Municipal Services Committee: At the committee meeting when discussion for the increase in garbage cart fees came up, DPW staff mentioned that this action would simply be an affirmation of the fee changes proposed in the 2025 budget. However, I do not recall specific budget discussions in council regarding this proposed increase back in October and November. So… how might taxpayers have been alerted to this change or informed about the rationale for the increased fees? I believe that this increase warrants further discussion and a firm rationale presented by DPW staff for why the fee increases are proposed. Are replacement carts costing more? Is this to offset increased tipping fees? Is the increase proposed simply for the City of Appleton to stay “on par” with garbage cart pricing of other local municipalities? Or… why else might this increase be necessary? Without those specific answers, I am reticent to approve any fee changes, even seemingly minor ones, and especially not just because the city can “get away with” incremental fee increases (insert frog boiling story here). Do you agree?
- From the Safety and Licensing Committee: After months of discussion, refer-backs, and police questioning of witnesses to the remodeling of the physical space for the proposed Delaire’s establishment on College Avenue, this committee has now voted to deny the applicant a liquor license. While I have all along given this applicant the benefit of the doubt as far as whether or not his intentions were to provide gambling machines with payouts (despite that being illegal activity) in his planned establishment, the newest information that came to light from police interviews convinced me that there is enough solid evidence to indicate that he was disingenuous in his application and presentations to this committee and council members (in which he indicated that gambling machines would not be a part of his business in Appleton). A new police memo regarding an interview with the part-owner of the building who was personally doing some electrical work for this establishment was included in last week’s committee agenda. This person testified to police that he understood that the intention of the Delaire’s owner was to have electric gambling machines on premises, despite the illegality of that practice. This part-owner/contractor had no reason to lie to the police in this regard and could, in fact, lose out if his tenant would not be able to proceed with the business plans. With that in mind, I believe that it is best for the city to deny a liquor license for this establishment. The preponderance of evidence makes it nearly impossible to believe that there would be no concern for illegal activities in this establishment. A liquor license on top of that would be a recipe for too much danger for citizens and neighbors.
- From the Parks and Recreation Committee: A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city and an independent event organizer (Wisconsin Entertainment Group LLC) for the city’s Independence Day celebration at Memorial Park is up for approval by the full council. It sounds like this group is well organized and staffed. The plan is for a five-year agreement between the city and this organization. The city would not outlay cash for the event and the event organizer would follow all of the city’s special event policies. The event organizers would make their money by charging nominal fees for event entrance, parking, food, etc. and the city would not take on any of the costs of event organization or management (beyond what is called out already in existing city special events policies). The city would be able to terminate the contract with the event organizer should the city’s standards for the event not be met and there would be an annual review between city staff and the event organizers to evaluate successes and potential areas where improvement might be needed. It should work much like it did in the past when the Jaycees organized the event. I hope we will see great results this coming 4th of July!
- From the Finance Committee: The two items most likely to be discussed separately are 1) the movement of grant funds ($134,180) to the city’s vehicle fund to support an electric vehicle and charging station and 2) the approval of a fund set up separately to allow the city to take in $100,000 from Thrivent for consulting for the development of their property on the north side of Appleton. I am not in favor of the former (as mentioned above) and am leery about the latter because of its implications that it will go to the formation of a Tax Incremental District (TID) for TIF financing (“corporate welfare”) for Thrivent. I voted in favor of this latter item because I can see the need for some additional help for city staff for all that will go into the infrastructure planning for the proposed new neighborhood on the Thrivent property. But I am concerned of the slippery slope the city is on the precipice of with this approval.
- From the Community Development Committee: There are two Thrivent-related items on the agenda from this committee: 1) to allow the city to contract with a consultant for “TID creation services” and 2) to allow the acceptance of $100,000 from Thrivent for engineering-related and other consulting related to the development of the Thrivent lands in the city. I voted against both of these items in the committee meeting as I have grave concerns about the potential for taxpayer assistance to help an organization which, in 2023 had a total consolidated enterprise revenue of $10B (that’s B for BILLION). A vote for both of these items is a vote to allow for exploration of a potential TID for TIF (taxpayer) assistance for Thrivent. I understand fully that “exploration” does not necessarily mean that a TID and taxpayer assistance for Thrivent is a given… but it surely does get everyone one step closer to allowing that to happen. And I just cannot reconcile this kind of assistance from taxpayers for this development. What are your thoughts on this?
- From the Utilities Committee: Last week, I wrote about my concerns regarding a discrepancy between the amount of money in a contractor’s bid for ash tree removal in the city (~$277,000) and the action item’s proposed amount of money to be made available to this contractor ($425,000). After my questioning, I was informed that, while $425,000 would be made available to the contractor, it would only be available as a maximum amount for this year and would be subject to the per-unit pricing provided in the contractor’s bid. In other words, the full budgeted amount would be available for ash tree removal by this contractor if and only if they have the time, weather, etc., to remove more ash trees than they originally bid. Here is a quote from the DPW Director: “Awarding up to budgeted amount rather than the bid amount… does not provide any guarantee that additional work will occur, it simply provides staff the flexibility to be able to add additional tree removals (only with prior city forester permission) if feasible…. (T)he only way for the contractor to exceed bid amount would be if the city adds more physical tree removals.” Thanks to all of you who emailed me concurring with my initial assessment that this looked fishy at first. Now we all have a better understanding on this!
And for the first time in many weeks, there is no closed session on the agenda for the full council. That means that there will likely not be any big surprises (like the potential Thrivent TIF district) in the coming days and weeks. But… we should all have learned by now that, in city government, counting on no surprises usually means you’ll be surprised by something!
Thursday, 02/20/2025
Library Board – Personnel & Policy Sub-Committee – 2pm (Meeting Location: Appleton Public Library, Cornerstone Conference Room) In what looks to be a short meeting, these committee members of the larger full library board will be discussing and establishing the 2025 performance goals for the library director. No additional information is included in the agenda for this meeting.
And that’s that for another week’s alderman blog post. What items drew your attention? What questions do you have for me on any of these things? Let me know!
I wish you all the best this week… see you here again soon!
