Happy sunny March Sunday, Neighbors! Thanks for stopping in for another alderman blog post. It is Full Council Meeting Week in City of Appleton government… so that meeting will be the “main event” for the week. There are two other meetings scheduled this week, though. Read on for the details!
Monday, 03/03/2025
Appleton Redevelopment Authority Exhibition Center Advisory Committee – 1pm This committee last met in November of 2023. So they have some catching up to do! There are no action items for this group. But they will begin with welcoming new members/appointees and move on to a bond discussion with the city’s representative from Baird. They will also hear from the current management of the facility — Hilton Paper Valley — and then hear about how the city has approved the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for consulting to help the Exhibition Center move on from that current management.
Wednesday, 03/05/2025
Appleton Public Arts Committee – 8am It has been a while since this committee last met as well (June, 2024) but they do have one action item on the agenda. They will look to potentially approve the Houdini Plaza placement of a new “selfie sculpture” based on the Appleton Downtown, Inc. logo. The 12-foot-long, 7-foot tall “sculpture” is intended as an interactive spot where visitors can take photos of themselves through the circles in the sculpture. What are your thoughts about this large proposed sculpture to be placed near the fountain at the corner of Houdini Plaza?
City of Appleton Common Council – 7pmThe mayor gets the ball rolling for this meeting with some board reappointments and a proclamation for MS Awareness Month. Then, as usual, all of the fun things that were discussed last week in committee meetings will come forward for full council discussion and potential approval. Here are the highlights:
- From the Municipal Services Committee: The committee heard and re-approved the increases in garbage cart fees for homeowners in the city. (This item was referred back due to little to no discussion of fee increases when this committee last took up this item.) After some real discussion, it seems that the proposed increases are a direct offset for increased tipping fees for the city’s garbage removal. For 2025, the tipping fee imposed on the city by the county rose 11%. The added revenue from this proposed garbage cart fee increase is anticipated to result in a direct offset for the increased tipping fees — a total amount of ~$115,000. After hearing that there is a rationale for this increase and it was not indeed an arbitrary increase, I believe that it is appropriate to move ahead with this fee increase (even though it pains me to pass fee and tax increases). Do you agree?
- Also from the Municipal Services Committee: The committee approved — and now the full council will be asked to do so as well — the downtown College Avenue “road diet” reconfiguration that was implemented last year. What are your thoughts on the reconfiguration? Are you satisfied with it? Is there cause to revert back to the original four-lane configuration? I feel as though the reconfiguration has worked well enough… though it seems there has not been appreciable change to the traffic noise over which downtown folks have long lamented. Accidents on this corridor are down from pre-reconfiguration. And that, I suppose, is reason enough to accept the changes… that and the fact that it would cost the city more money to return to the original configuration. I’m interested in your thoughts on this. So please let me know!
- From the Safety and Licensing Committee: The new owner of what used to be the College Avenue Speakeasy are applying for a liquor license there. It seems as though the new owners have a bit of a legal history in the state and locally… so I’m not sure it’s a great idea for the city to grant a liquor license to Luis Santiago Ledezma, agent (owner also of El Sabor), for the proposed Bunnies on the Ave establishment. Let me know what you think.
- There are a number of large contracts to be awarded for city work, all coming from the Finance Committee for full council approval. One of them is for the concrete work to be done throughout the city this construction season. Those who live on Cherryvale Avenue have asked when you can expect to hear from the city regarding the costs to the homeowners for the final concrete/curb/gutter work that will take place there. This week, the council will look to approve the preliminary resolution for this work and the assignment of costs to the homeowners. Next, there will be a public hearing regarding the special assessments on homeowners. That should take place on 03/19/2025 and affected homeowners should be receiving notice of this hearing. After the hearing, notices will be sent to affected homeowners regarding their official special assessments. This seems a long way off for most of you, though… so if you are interested in obtaining an earlier estimate of your potential costs for this work, please reach out directly to the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW).
As you can see, much was discussed this past week but we can expect few fireworks from those discussions once the items hit the full council floor. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about the proposed sculpture or any of the above items or if you have any other city-government-related questions. I’m always happy to hear from you.
Thanks for being here for this relatively short read this week. I hope that your first week of March is a great one and that spring really has sprung here! Please join me again next week for more…!
