The Notes: Week of September 19 - September 23, 2022

Hello, Neighbors!  Welcome back to a Full Council Week.  We have two other meetings besides "the main event" this week:

Tuesday, 09/20/2022

Library Board - 4:30pm: This board will be meeting at an undisclosed location as the public opening and recording of contractor bids for the entire library project -- bids for all 37 areas for which bids have been requested! -- will take place at 2pm in council chambers (6th floor of City Hall).  I suspect that bid opening will be concluded before the scheduled meeting time... but as of yet, the meeting location has not been posted on the city's meeting website.  I intend to attend the opening of the project bids so that I have a clear understanding of whether the bids for this project are anywhere near keeping the budget for this project in line.  

The board's meeting agenda includes review and potential approval of a few inter-library agreements, a employee policy update, and the latest library board subcommittee assignments.  They will then hear a library project update (which may or may not include some news from the earlier bid opening), a president's report regarding a Trustee Essentials handbook, and several other library programs updates.

Wednesday, 09/21/2022

Joint Review Board (Outagamie County) - 2pm: The last time this board met was September of 2021.  The board will elect a chairman and a "public member" and then proceed to discussion of the annual reports of all of the Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) Districts of the city that are in Outagamie County. There will be no actions taken by this board at this time.

"The Main Event"
Appleton Common Council - 7pm

The mayor will get things rolling with a proclamation regarding the 100th anniversary of city planning in Appleton.  Our city's "City Planning Survey with Proposals for Future Development" was drafted in September 1922 and became Appleton's first comprehensive plan.  

Then, as per usual, most of those things discussed last week in Committee Week will come before the full council for discussion and potential approval.  Here is a rundown of last week's topics of discussion for your review.  

We do not see the following items from last week on the agenda this week as they have been held for further discussion: 

• The proposed terrace planting policy for the city: City staff will be reviewing, honing, and revising the originally proposed policy to better define what is acceptable and not acceptable for private plantings in terraces in the city.  I look forward to more discussion in this regard and hope for a very well defined (with pedestrian safety primarily in mind) revision.  We will wait for a month for these revisions; but that is perfectly acceptable as we are no longer in growing season and our city needs to get this done "right, not quickly."
  
  
• Alderman salaries (for those elected in 2024 and later): There were only three of the five members of the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee present for last week's committee meeting and the council has until 12/1/2022 to make any sort of decisions in this regard.  So this committee elected to hold this item for discussion following the city's initial budget discussions in October.  

I expect the main topic of conversation at the full council meeting to be the following:

• Ellen Kort Peace Park and city discussions for the proposed relocation of the Trout Museum in that location: As I mentioned last week, city staff has designed a process map that the interested parties will follow for proceeding (or not) with this potential relocation of the private party Trout Museum on city park land.  The committee (including your alderman) came up with a few revisions to this process map, including another chance for a "go/no-go" vote by the common council after presentations by the museum (to include a case for strategic alignment with the city).  Here is the proposed revised process map:
  
  
  
  

  I am encouraged by the updated map and the additional step that was added (3.5) with a full common council approval vote after the presentation.  If there is enough feedback by the community on this, the proper steps will be taken by the council and the city.  Please let me know how you feel about this issue at any time! 
  

Besides the above, what questions or concerns or comments do you have regarding city government goings-on in Appleton?  The council did approve funds for some city-wide Emerald Ash Borer "remediation" which specifically included mention of Vosters Park.  So I am now putting together plans for a neighborhood community input meeting in this regard (with our city forester and Parks and Recreation director).  I will have more on that when the date/time/plans are made firm! 

That's all the "news" for this week.  Please always feel free to contact me as I'm ready and willing to listen to any concerns you might have!  Have a wonderful week and... Go, Pack, Go!  (And... the Bears... well, you know...)