The Notes: Week of October 4 - October 8, 2021

Welcome back, District 13 Neighbors!  Here we are, starting out October 2021 in Full Council Week.  There are a few other meetings on the schedule before the full council meeting so I'll give you a brief run-down of those agendas first:

• Monday, 10/04/2021, 3pm - Joint Review Board (Calumet and Winnebago Counties) - This board will review the 2020 Annual Reports for TIF Districts #6 (in Calumet County) and #7 (in Winnebago County).  Here is a snapshot of both districts.  Though both have seen a percentage decrease in value over the last year, both do have a projected substantial TIF fund balance at close and no outstanding debt at this time.
  
  
  
  
• Wednesday, 10/06/2021, 8:30am - Appleton Public Arts Committee - This committee will review and decide on a selection process for new artwork for the Welcome Tower in Houdini Square.  The theme for this year is "Diversity in Appleton."  There are two options from which the committee will choose for updating the tower: 1) choose images from an assortment of photos taken by a professional photographer at the Appleton Downtown, Inc., Rhythms of the World event that took place in Houdini Square (on 09/18/2021) or 2) solicit images from city residents in the form of a photo contest.  The current photos on the tower were from a citizens' photo contest.  Which route do you think the committee should go with this?  If you want to share your input, there is a public participation portion on the meeting's agenda or you can let me know and I can share your thoughts with the committee members.  
  
  
• Wednesday, 10/06/2021, 6:45pm - Safety and Licensing Committee - This is a special meeting of this committee, to be held just before the full council meeting, for the purposes of getting one wine license application approved before an event on 10/07/2021.  Appleton Downtown, Inc. has arranged a "Ladies Night Out - Shop, Sip, Stroll" event on 10/07 with wine samples for those over age 21 at a few College Avenue retail locations... in case you are interested!  The wine portion of the event hinges on approval of this license by the committee, of course.  😉
  
  

And now for the meeting you've been waiting for.... the full Appleton Common Council meets at 7pm on Wednesday, 10/06/2021.  It's a "slim-pickings" agenda this week and I see very little in the way of controversy on the agenda.  The highlights:

• The mayor is presenting six proclamations.  Two of them hit me very close to home: Mental Health Day (10/10/2021) and Domestic Violence Awareness Month which are both especially important in this time of dealing with all of the mental health and domestic violence complications that lockdowns and social isolation during COVID19 have presented us all. 
  
  
• There will be a public hearing on the rezoning of 2121 S Schaefer Street which was approved by the City Plan Commission in early September.  Presumably, this will be approved by the council as there is very little change from the existing zoning code for the property and the desired zoning code but the change is required for the owner to proceed with development of the lot. 
  
  
• The full council will vote to approve the awarding of a Transportation Utility Fund (TUF) study for the city.  This study was discussed and approval recommended by the Finance Committee.  As I've mentioned, I look forward to the results of this study so that we can best determine what, if anything, should be done as far as a Transportation Utility in the City of Appleton.  I know you are likely concerned about recent legal challenge to the Town of Buchanan's recently enacted TUF.  I believe that this study will help Appleton to decide whether this is right for us and make sure that, if we choose to implement a TUF, it will be done in a legal manner so as to avoid issues that the Town of Buchanan is experiencing.  
  
  

That's it, folks.  Really!  Things are fairly quite on the homefront right now.  But I'm sure it will heat up again soon as late October will bring us Budget Saturday (10/30/2021) where the council will spend the day hammering out the city's budget for the coming year.

As far as redistricting of the city's wards and aldermanic districts, last week the Redistricting Committee chose the Option A map and asked city staff to move forward with the final rezoning map for the city using this option as the template.  You can view this option on last week's blog post.  District 13 will grow to the northwest and will lose our southwest neighborhood (south of Northland Avenue and west of Ballard Road).  But I believe this the best overall solution for the city's redistricting and am glad that we are moving in that direction.  More information will follow (here on this blog!) as we near committee approval of the final map and then full council approval of the same.    

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  I look forward to hearing from you!