The Notes: Week of February 13 - February 17, 2023 + Special Note: Vosters Park Redevelopment Follow-Up

Hi Neighbors!  It was great to see many of you at last Thursday's follow-up meeting regarding the redevelopment of the wooded area in Vosters Park.  For those of you who are interested but did not attend, I'll conclude this week's blog post with an update on what was discussed and how the city will be proceeding (with neighborhood input!) in the coming weeks.

But let's begin with the scheduled meetings for this Full Council Week.  On Wednesday, 02/15/2023, the Personnel and Policy sub-Committee of the Library Board will meet at 1pm to discuss the establishing of 2023 performance goals for the library director.  They may go into closed session for some of this discussion as state statutes require.  

The full City of Appleton Common Council then meets later that day at 7pm.  The first two items on the mayor's business potion of the agenda to start off the meeting will be of interest to me and I'm sure to many of you as well.  

The mayor will begin by providing an update on the issues that occurred during Christmas week last year at the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP) and the downstream (literally and figuratively) effects this issue has caused.  If you are unfamiliar with what occurred, I wrote about it here.  I am concerned about the potential increased costs to the taxpayers as a result of what occurred and am also looking to hear more specifically about the root causes of the incident and how any policies and procedures at AWWTP have or will be changed to keep this same sort of incident from reoccurring in the future.  

Then the mayor will move on to an update on the potential plans for a relocation of the Trout Museum of Art on the Ellen Kort Peace Park grounds in the city.  This, as you know, has been a contentious issue with many of those who live in the downtown area, especially for many of those who live near the Peace Park.  If you are unfamiliar with this discussion, you can catch up with this post or by searching the web for articles in local press outlets in this regard.  Since things have been very quiet on this front for quite a while, it would not surprise me if the plans for this relocation will not be further explored.  But that's just a guess on my part.  The mayor will tell us more on Wednesday.  

There is a notice on the agenda regarding a 03/15/2023 6:30pm presentation in council chambers of a PBS show entitled Hometown Stories.  There is no indication on the Wisconsin PBS website regarding upcoming episodes of this show but I suspect that we will be treated to an episode regarding our fair city!  The Parks and Recreation Director indicated at last week's committee meeting that PBS did take some footage of the city's Vulcan Street Power Plant (which is often "operated" and shown to the public by members of the Appleton Historical Society).  Mark your calendars for this presentation if you are available for it!  I will share more when I know more but let me know if you're interested so I can email you directly with more details. 

What follows the mayor's business is what was discussed in last week's committee meetings.  Here are some highlights:

• From the Municipal Services Committee: Committee approval of a state/city agreement for grant funds for the reconstruction of Lawe Street from College Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue) is up for full council approval.  When I mentioned this last week, I was unaware that the 80% that the state shows as their maximum grant portion of the project will not really be 80% of the full project.  Instead, after I further reviewed the project with the Department of Public Works Director, it seems the state funds will truly only fund 66% of the construction project.  You can see more of the exact details of the funding here.  I'm disappointed that 80% state funding was indicated but will not truly come to fruition and that none of the members of the committee asked for clarification in this regard; however, I am still grateful that there is state funding available for this infrastructure project and have no problem voting to approve this agreement.
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  The sole-sourcing for the epoxy flooring of Fire Station #1 was approved by the committee and will come up for full approval by the council.  While I am hesitant to continue to approve the rash of sole sourcing requests this council has recently seen, this one is at least understandable.  Since portion of the flooring in this station was already completed by the contractor requested as a sole source and this new section of flooring to be completed directly abuts that earlier portion, continuity of service and epoxy type, etc. is required.  This is one instance where it really makes sense to sole source.  But I hope that we begin seeing far fewer sole source requests in the future as competitive bidding is the city's best way to get the most bang for the taxpayers' buck. 
  
  
• From the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee:  This committee heard and approved a change to the Legal Services Department (which includes City Clerk's office and staff).  The changes recommended to be approved by the full council include (but are not limited to) 1) renaming the department the Legal and Administrative Services Department to fully recognize the clerk's office and staff and their contributions to the city and 2) changing the City Clerk title to City Clerk-Deputy Director of Administrative Services.  Since the clerk's position includes deputy director duties, I am supportive of this change.  There is only nominal cost involved with these changes as well.    

Neighbors to Vosters Park will note that this week's council agenda does not include any items regarding contracts for redevelopment in the wooded area of the park.  As I mentioned, the Finance Committee was again asked last week to hold the approval of a contract for this work until the neighbors and city Parks and Recreation folks got together for the follow-up meeting.  The committee did so... and here is a summary of the city's new plan for the redevelopment of the wooded area of Vosters Park that was presented at the follow-up meeting:

The above plan was met with relief and general agreement by all those in attendance at the follow-up meeting so plans will proceed in this direction!  I hope those of you who were unable to attend feel the same!  (Please share your feedback with me any time.)

The Finance Committee will look to approve the contract for this reconstruction plan on Monday, 02/20/2023, and it will move to approval by the full council on Wednesday, 03/01/2023.  Thereafter, work on the site will commence as quickly as possible. 

As per the drawing above, there will be safety barriers surrounding the site while the ash trees are felled and other hazardous work proceeds at the park.  Ideally, most of the work -- including planting of the new trees -- will be complete by the time the spring growing season commences.  There will be a planting of "wild grass" no-mow turf/ground cover (similar to what surrounds the Apple Creek trail) in the pink area marked for reforestation.  Planting early enough in the growing season will help those grasses to develop so that they can work against other weeds and invasives which might want to grow back up through that area.  City staff expects that the work will be complete but for the pathways formerly occupied by boardwalk by this summer and, by early autumn, the pathways, too, will be laid in either woodchips or gravel.  All of this is, of course, dependent upon what kind of late winter and spring weather we experience here.

It should be noted that the post-ash-removal interim pathways through the wooded area will not be Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) approved but that neighbors can raise funds to upgrade it to ADA standards or the city can add making these pathways ADA accessible to the 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) as a future addition for the park.

Let me know how you feel about the revised plans or if you have any other questions in this regard.  I am pleased that the neighbors' concerns and desires were met by city staff with great willingness to rethink their plans.  Since reforestation was the top desire of so many in the neighborhood, we were able to get the city to reverse course and save what can be saved of the wooded area of the park so that we didn't have to start from scratch on the project.  And nearly all of what's been asked and now newly proposed should be able to be completed within the excess funds budget that the project was allotted.

Thank you to all who provided constructive feedback on this project and thanks, too, for your willingness to civilly listen as the process moved forward.  That made things go much more smoothly and speaks well of this neighborhood and our neighbors.  As work moves forward on the reconstruction phase, please share with me any new concerns or questions you might have. 

That wraps up this week's blog post.  Thank you for tuning in and staying abreast of city government goings by reading.  I'm grateful to serve you, District 13 Neighbors! 

Until next week....!