The Notes: Week of January 16 - January 20, 2023

Hello, Neighbors.  Thanks for joining me for your regular alderman blog update.  This week is Full Council Week so we will of course revisit all of last week's committee meeting items as they show up on the full council agenda.  There are a couple of other highlights for the week so I'll cover them all below.  

Monday, 01/16/2023 

As Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, there are no city meetings scheduled.  I hope your day is filled with peace.

Tuesday, 01/17/2023

Library Board - 4:30pm Board members will review and look to approve the library's December 2022 bill register and financial reports and a small budget amendment for January 2023.  Later in the meeting, they will discuss an item of library board member development called "Inclusive, Enriched Experiences."  For more information, tune in on Monday to view the meeting using the city meeting calendar page. 

Wednesday, 01/18/2023

Municipal Service Committee (Special Meeting) - 6:30pm  In a one-item special session meeting of this committee, members will be asked to approve a sole-source purchase request for downtown streetscape elements such as benches, tree grates, and bike racks.  As I mentioned last week when we talked about "sole sourcing," this practice requires approval by this committee (and later the full council) because without competitive bidding, there is little to ensure that the city will not overpay for purchases.  In this case, in order for the city to comply with the already-approved Downtown Streetscape Design Guide, this sole-sourcing must be granted.  The streetscape items approved for use in the Guide, it seems, are only available from certain vendors and competitive pricing is not an option for these items.  This is a bit of an issue for me as the city seems to have painted itself into a corner with elements in the design guide being of such limited availability.  What are your thoughts on this?  Are you concerned that the city will overpay for items due to the relatively strict guidelines in the streetscape guide? 

Common Council - 7pm  Here we are with the meeting for which this week is named!  After two -- yes, just two -- proclamations by the mayor, a library project update will be presented.  I am hopeful that we will see some meaningful changes to the project which will bring it back into budget compliance when the project goes back out for bid next.  I will let you know if there is anything important in this regard presented at the meeting. 

There will then be two opportunities for comment from citizens in public hearings regarding the floodplain ordinance amendments for North Edgewood Estates and the potential rezoning of 1208 N Oneida Street from commercial to residential two-family.

And then we proceed to action items from committee work last week.  Here are the highlights of what will be voted on by the full council in the "meat" of the agenda:

• From the Municipal Service Committee: Two separate requests for sole-sourcing.  As I mentioned above, I think this is a trend about which we might need to be concerned. 
  
  
• From the Safety and Licensing Committee: The new polling place for District 12 -- which happens to be within the bounds of District 6 -- will likely be approved.  It is becoming more and more of an issue for the city to find workable public polling places.  While this situation is less than ideal, the staff in the city clerk's office has worked hard to manage the entire city's network of polling places.  I trust that what they are proposing and asking us to approve is the best available option for this city at this time.
  
  
• From the Finance Committee: The one item on last week's committee meeting agenda was approved by them without any committee members questioning why the contract came in at greater than $200k over budget and from where in the overall budget the overage will come.  I asked this question of DPW staff this past week (after the meeting in which the question was not asked) and heard that, though this item is over budget, a couple of other projects in the works are coming in under budget -- enough to "rebalance" the budget by the end of 2023.  In general, I'm satisfied with this answer, especially since it is so early in the budget year.  However, I am concerned that our budgeting is so "off" on some of these projects.  Can we continue through the entire 2023 budget year saying that "some come in lower and some come in higher so it all evens out"?  This will continue to be an item of concern for me and I will always inform you if this practice gets out of hand.     
  
  
• From the Utilities Committee: The committee last week approved both action items for contracts to aid in correcting the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP) issues with one of the two blended sludge pumps that failed before "the incident" during the Christmas holiday week.  (More information in last week's blog post.)  Though not much information regarding the additional costs of the incident came to light at the committee meeting, I expect that we will hear much more in this regard in the weeks to come.  
  

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the above items or anything mentioned in last week's blog post, please contact me so that we can discuss them. 

Friday, 01/20/2023

Library Board Planning Committee - 8am  To finish out the week's public meetings in the City of Appleton, this committee will meet to discuss their "core documents" -- the City of Appleton's Health in All Policies Ordinance and Racism as a Public Health Crisis Ordinance (2019), the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Inclusive Services Statement, and the library's Strategic Plan.  for more information on these items, please see this meeting's agenda. 

Again, please let me know if you have any questions on these or any other city-government-related issues.  I am always happy to listen and to help in whatever way possible!  In a very old-timey-radio way, I'll end with... "This concludes this week's installment of your alderman's blog.  I wish you all the best this week and hope you'll tune in again next week for another post."