The Notes: The Christmas/New Years Week 2022

Hello, again, Neighbors!  I'm so glad that you've stopped in to read a blog post during the Christmas-to-New-Year's-Day holiday time.  I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season thus far and that your New Year's celebration -- no matter how you choose to celebrate -- will be safe.  I wish you all blessings for a great start to 2023.

Since it's still the holiday season as far as city government meetings are concerned, I'd like to use this blog post to recap a bit of what finally occurred with the alderman parking pass resolution (mentioned here last) that I worked with Alderman Chris Croatt (District 14) and Alderman Chad Doran (District 15) to put forth for Appleton taxpayers.  

As you will remember (or have just read about using the link above), we presented a resolution to remove the excess spending that has been budgeted for parking passes for aldermen in the city.  As it stands, the city's 2023 budget shows a total of $7,200 for parking passes for the city's fifteen aldermen.  You read that right -- $7,200 for fifteen people to park for downtown meetings at City Hall.  That's a cost of $480/year for each alderman.  Though $7,200 is small in the grand scheme of the entire 2023 city budget, it is outrageous when you learn that the actual cost of parking downtown for city meetings is virtually nil.  Most of the meetings which aldermen attend are held after parking meter enforcement hours so there is no charge during that time.  And if, for some reason, there is a meeting for an alderman to attend during parking meter enforcement hours, meter fees are much more reasonable than the $480/year/alderman budgeted for a parking pass.  

A side note of importance: Your alderman does not use this parking pass from the city and thus, the cost of the pass for District 13 gets removed from the Common Council budget and passes into the general fund as "excess funds" to be spent on debt reduction and other items recommended by the mayor (as per city policy regarding excess funds).  

The city's Finance Committee took up this item during our last Committee Meetings Week before the Christmas holiday and recommended the full denial of the resolution.  Then in the last full council meeting on 12/21/2022, discussions were revived and we authors of the resolution requested the rest of the council reconsider this item and work to get rid of this excess spending.  Some of the aldermen, though, it seems, want to maintain alderman parking pass privileges which come at this excessive cost.  As such, an amendment was presented during the meeting of the full council which changed the entire meaning of the resolution.  The resolution was meant to remove this cost entirely from the Common Council budget.  Instead, the amendment skirted the issue.  The amendment does nothing to stop the excess expenditure of parking passes for alderman.  Here's the amendment text:

Any money for unused 2023 parking permits from alders who choose not to take a parking pass for 2023 be added to the Police Department's budget to aid officers in assisting homeless persons with challenges caused by winter weather and related community safety expenses. The amount to be transferred will be equal to the full twelve month costs of parking passes from any even-numbered district's alderperson or any odd-numbered district's alderperson if that person is running for re-election unopposed, plus the costs of four months of parking passes for any other alder who chooses not to accept a parking pass in 2023. The funds will be made available to the Police Department after the first week of January 2023.

In other words, in 2023 individual aldermen will still be able to turn in their parking passes (which is no different than it was in 2022) but the same total amount -- $7,200 -- remains budgeted for this expense.  When and if an alderman turns in a parking pass for 2023, the funds budgeted for that parking pass will go to the police department to aid in "community safety expenses" rather than going to be spent as "excess funds" spending for debt reduction and as the mayor sees fit.  Again, this amendment does nothing to stop the excess budgeting of the funds or the charging of the taxpayer for this excess dollar amount.  As such, I voted against the amendment.  It passed nonetheless.  Then when the resolution as amended came up for a vote, I voted in favor of it... not because it solved the excess spending issue... but because this amended measure might encourage more aldermen who still use city parking passes to turn them in and we will be one step closer as a city to removing alderman parking passes altogether and not overspending at the taxpayer's expense.  The amended resolution passed.

It's not a win for the taxpayer in 2023 as you have still been charged for the full excess expense.  But the resolution did point out just one of the many places in which this city might be able to cut excess spending in the future.  I hope that does something to alert more Appleton taxpayers to the ways in which "little" over-expenditures by their aldermen can be trimmed back in budget years to come.  This just one example of how I am working to represent taxpayers in District 13, working to try to trim the city budget in whatever ways are possible without cutting services to you in the hopes of keeping tax increases like the one that just appeared on your recent property tax bill at bay. 

I am grateful to those who emailed me their thoughts on this issue and to all of you who have sent me feedback throughout 2022.  If you have anything you feel the need to share with me, please reach out at any time.

Again, I wish you a safe and happy ringing in of the new year.  I will continue, in 2023, to serve you relentlessly, District 13 Neighbors.  We'll be back to our regularly scheduled meetings soon so Sunday blog posts -- as per usual -- will resume then.  I look forward to seeing you, meeting you, working with you, continuing to keep you up-to-date on city government happenings in the weeks and months to come!