The Notes: Week of May 23 - May 27, 2022

Thanks for tuning in a day later than usual this week, Neighbors.  It's once again Committee Meetings Week in City of Appleton government and I'll begin with the easiest summary of the week -- the cancelled meetings for this week.  Members of the following committees get this week off from meetings:

• Parks and Recreation Committee
• Utilities Committee (Side note: There will be a special joint meeting of this committee and the Finance Committee next week to discuss a special resolution.)
• City Plan Commission

We start the week off today with some interesting items at tonight's meetings:

Monday, 05/23/2022

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm:  The meeting will begin with a presentation on the transportation utility study that was conducted for the city by consultants.  This study was mentioned last in this blog post but also in previous posts (also referenced in the post that's linked here).  There will be no action taken at this meeting on a potential Transportation Utility for the city... but "next steps" will be discussed in the information items portion of the meeting. 

This committee will also revisit the Soldier's Square resolution that was recommended for denial by this committee the last time they met.  This resolution was referred back to committee at last week's full council meeting.  I'm not sure what, if any, new information or changes will be discussed.  But as I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I fully support the city honoring our veterans.  This resolution, however, is coming to us before any real substantial planning for Soldier's Square has been done and is, therefore, in my opinion not ready to be passed by the full council.  If you have any thoughts on either of these matters, please share them with me!

Finance Committee - 5:30pm: This committee has a fairly short agenda with only three action items to take up.  There are a couple of contract awards/changes to discuss and potentially approve and the discussion of a 2023 special assessments policy (an updated version of the current policy with some small verbiage changes).  In the informational items portion of their agenda are two items that will also be discussed at the Human Resources and Information Technologies Committee meeting on Wednesday.  These are two requests for "overhire" of two employee positions in city staff in the Finance Department.  Overhiring simply means that, for some period of time, both the incumbent and a new hire to a staff position will be paid for the same job/work.  Since both of the incumbent employees in these positions have been working for the city each for the past 20 years, this "overhiring" will be beneficial for training the new hires to these positions.  

Tuesday, 05/24/2022

Fox Cities Transit Commission - 3pm: Commissioners will review and approve the April 2022 payments and a Title VI (of the Civil Rights Act) Plan for Valley Transit.  As usual, they will also review financial and ridership reports.  (Of note: Since the easing of COVID restrictions and lifting of the mask mandates for public transportation, ridership seems to be on the rise in 2022.)

Wednesday, 05/25/2022

Community and Economic Development Committee - 4:30pm: Committee members will discuss and be asked to approve a revised 2022 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) allocation.  It seems that the City of Appleton received a smaller allocation of funds from the Federal HUD for the 2022.  As such, the originally approved CDBG allocation is to be amended to resolve the shortfall of $33,830.  Here is a snapshot of the staff-recommended revised allocation:

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm: This committee's agenda is filled with the usual slate of alcohol licensee renewals, a pet store license renewal, cigarette/tobacco license renewals, and an application for renewal of the commercial quadricycle license for Social Station.  And then they take up the seriously fun stuff: a temporary premises amendment for a parking lot party at Gingerootz (planned for 06/06/2022), a temporary liquor license for a car show/swap meet at Pierce Park (planned by the Kiwanis Club for 07/16/2022 - 07/17/2022), and a temporary liquor license for the Jaycees 4th of July community fireworks/concert for 07/03/2022 at Memorial Park.  It's so exciting to see Appleton "waking up" for the summer with outdoors events and concerts!   

Human Resources and Information Technologies - 6:30pm:  As mentioned earlier in the discussion of items on the Finance Committee agenda, this committee will talk about and look to approve two "overhires" in the Finance Department... and then a third "overhire" in the Community and Economic Development Department.  All three situations will require a bit of additional money to cover added wages and benefits for the employees for the overlapping periods of time; however, none would require a budget amendment as the added costs can be absorbed in the current departmental budgets.  Considering that latter fact and all that the seasoned incumbent employees of the city can offer in terms of training new employees to fill their vacancies, I have no issue with these requests and intend to vote in favor of them.  In informational items, the committee will also discuss a 2022 Compensation Study update and a bargaining with the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 257.

I will also be attending two meetings not specifically listed on the city's calendar -- a meeting of the Parade Committee (meeting on Tuesday, 05/24/2022) and the spring 2022 meeting of the city's Neighborhood Program (scheduled for Thursday, 05/26/2022.  Here is more information regarding the latter.  I'm interested to see what the program entails and how it could benefit some of the neighborhoods in District 13. There is one registered neighborhood group in District 13 already -- Windingbrook Watch.  But it would be great to see many more of these groups spring up in the newer neighborhoods on the northeast side of the city!  Please contact me if you are interested in this.  I will share more information from the meeting in future blog posts.  

Thanks again for granting me grace on getting this post out a bit later than usual.  I would like to say that I look forward to posting over the upcoming holiday weekend... but I think the sentiment will be  more like... "I'll be posting this holiday weekend from the Northwoods so I hope that the internet reception is good enough!"

Have a great pre-Memorial Day week!