The Notes: Week of May 1 - May 5, 2023

• Thanks for waiting a day to read a blog post this week, neighbors!  Your update on what to expect in this first week of May Full Council Week will be a relatively short one as the council meeting is the only one on the calendar.

Wednesday, 05/03/2023

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm

The meeting will kick off with the Business Presented by the Mayor portion which, this week, includes 7 -- yes, seven -- proclamations.  

The remainder of the agenda includes, as usual, what went through committee meeting discussion last week.  (Check here if you need a refresher.)  It wasn't a terribly eventful or contentious week of discussions so here are the highlights of what the full council will look to pass this week:

From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  Chadwick's Bar in downtown Appleton has come to an agreement with the City to serve a 10-day suspension of their liquor license due to three underage drinking charges in their establishment in the last year and a half.  Council members will be voting to approve (or not) the stipulation agreement between the liquor license holders and the City.  While that may not seem like a large penalty for serving alcohol to minors, I believe it a fair agreement.  The owners have worked diligently with Appleton Police Department officers and leadership and have come forward to the Safety and Licensing Committee members with their plans to put an end to underage patrons in their establishment.  The problem that they have been dealing with is one of fake IDs.  Each of the underage drinking violations at their bar have come after visual checks of the IDs of their patrons... which turned out to be some very sophisticated fake IDs.  The bar owners' solution is an equally sophisticated scanning software that detects a great majority of these fake IDs, stopping the issue right at the establishment's front doors.  I believe that the continued utilization of this software (and hopefully other local bars coming to learn of it) will curtail underage drinking in downtown Appleton.  At least that is the hope...   

From the City Plan Commission:  City Plan Commissioners voted to approve the annexation of some land for new street right-of-ways in District 13.  Here is a review of the intersections coming soon to the north side of Appleton (assuming the full council approves this as well). 

From the Finance Department:  Due to some changes proposed in the downtown City Center (the center mall area), there are two proposals on the table for full council approval -- 1) the city leasing space in Northland Mall for future Parks and Recreation dance classes and 2) asking the city to pay more condo fees for some added storage space in the lower level of City Hall.  I am not opposed to either of these changes as the city really has little choice as renters and not owners of this City Center space.  However, it behooves us to remember that these will come at an added cost to future city budgets.  What do you think about these proposals? 

From the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee:  From the human resources side comes a request for the Appleton Police Department (APD) to exchange one administrative position for a Community Engagement Specialist.  I see plenty of positives with this proposed change.  The only negatives are that

1. It will likely be a bit more costly in next year's APD budget and 
2. The city already has a "community engagement" position in the mayor's office which is supposed to be available to all city departments.  So why is another needed? 

From the information technology (IT) side, council members will be asked to approve a rather large contract for some outside "managed services" for the city's IT networks.  There have been a lot of changes in the city's IT department since the new IT director came on board.  It seems that the city had been just making do before and these changes are desperately needed to help Appleton keep pace with -- and stay safe -- in today's IT environment.  The proposed contract includes a one-time charge for some mitigation of data errors and issues but the balance will be annually contracted.  Both portions have been budgeted for and, while the ongoing contract will affect future budgets, the department is aware of the need to budget for these fees on an ongoing basis. 

In Other Council Business:  There is a request by one committee -- the Parks and Recreation Committee -- to change their start time from something not on the half-hour.  They would like to move their Mondays of Committee Week meetings from a 6:30pm start time to a 6:15pm start time.  I understand their desire to move committee meetings closer together so that committee/council members will not have to wait long periods of time between short committee meetings.  But my concern is that, at least at the start, this will be confusing for the public (just one committee meeting changing a start time and no others... unless all eventually do...) and that this change is not as well thought out in all respects.  I would prefer that some research be done to verify how often committee meetings go over the scheduled one-hour mark and how often they fall under a half hour or 45-minute length.  What's most important is that the city's leadership -- common council members -- allow adequate time for full discussion of agenda items and aren't rushed to finish a meeting just to accommodate another meeting to follow in a too close schedule.  We owe this to the public!  We shall see if the full council agrees to this one committee's change request or if further information is needed before we proceed.  I will advocate for the latter.  What are your thoughts? 

And that will wrap up this week's meeting and blog post.  Well!  What I thought would be a rather short post turned out to be a bit long.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.  

I wish you a great first week of this month... which has not started out all that well, weather-wise.  Happy May!