The Notes: Week of June 5 - June 9, 2023

Happy Sunday once again to you all, Neighbors!  This first week of June is Full Council Week in City of Appleton government.  And this time, there are no other meetings scheduled.  So below I’ll provide a rundown of what to expect the council to be debating this week.  If you have any questions or concerns, please always feel free to reach out and let me know.  I am always here to listen and help!

Wednesday, 06/07/2023

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm

As usual, the mayor gets the ball rolling with the Mayor’s Business portion of the agenda.  At this meeting, he will introduce his newly hired Communications and Public Engagement Manager, discuss the upcoming library bid opening process (the construction bids for the reconstruction of the library are due to be publicly opened and reviewed soon!), and present five — count ‘em, five — proclamations. 

Then, the council will take up items which were discussed in the last Committee Meetings Week (which seems so long ago with Fifth Week last week!).  For a refresher, see this blog post.

Here are the highlights:

• From the Municipal Services Committee: Appleton Downtown, Inc (ADI) requests multiple street occupancy permits for sidewalk sales this summer (on the amenity strip/sidewalks of College Avenue).  Let the summer begin!
• From the Safety and Licensing Committee: The council will be asked to affirm the denial of a special event permit for a potential event (called Smoshfest) in Jones Park this summer.  There were a multitude of issues, unpaid fees, and unanswered questions (from city staff to the organizer) regarding the plan for this event.  The event organizer just did not have all of his t’s crossed and i’s dotted in his application and he was unable to clearly articulate and communicate with the city staff (including the police department) what exactly was to take place and what city accommodations would be needed.  There’s a long checklist for event organizers to follow for events such as this in the city.  And not many of the items on that list were checked off by this event organizers.  As such, the city really has no choice but to deny this application… no matter how much we would like all kinds of special events to take place in Appleton. 
• From the City Plan Commission: A new axe-throwing establishment and a new bar and grill are looking for approval of their special use permit requests.  It’s good to see new businesses wanting to operate in the city.  There can never be enough axe throwing in Appleton, right?
• From the Finance Committee: In order to save the city issuing some bonds for short-term financing in the city’s Wastewater Utility, the city’s Stormwater Utility Fund is looking to short-term advance the needed funds to the Wastewater Utility Fund. I believe this to be a wise way to manage funds in the city and is this move to interdepartmentally loan the funds is expected to save taxpayers some money (and city staff a lot of time and paperwork).  
• From the Community and Economic Development Committee:  This committee brings us is an important item which I believe needs more time and contemplation.  A development agreement for the redevelopment of the City Center Plaza (the old downtown mall where Oneida Street was closed way back when) is up for approval (mentioned earlier here).  There are many as-yet unanswered questions regarding this project.  It seems to me that the public deserves more transparency from the developer and the city before we are prepared to fund this project with pay-as-you-go TIF funding (in the amount of nearly $4.4M).  We still do not know or have a good understanding of the “housing” that is proposed in this city center mall area and we have yet to have full clarification on the non-profit/tax exempt organization slated to fill a large portion of this proposed development and how their tax status affects the overall property taxes the city can expect from this development in the short and the long terms.  I wish to have more of those questions answered before I am comfortable voting to move this TIF-funded project forward.  What are your questions and thoughts on it?  I suspect that this item might still pass with the current makeup of the council… but I am opposed to it until we have further information in this regard and hope that the council can move this item back to the committee for further discussion before a full council vote.

There are, of course, a few other more mundane items on the agenda but those above should be the topics of most discussion on Wednesday night.  If you have any concerns or want more information on any of these items (or anything else regarding City of Appleton government), I’d love to hear from you!  Please reach out and connect with me. 

A few of you have asked about the latest on the Vosters Park redevelopment since the removal of the ash trees in the wooded area.  I don’t have more to share with you besides what I shared back in early May.  The contractors should now be done with all of the invasives removal and light grading that was to be completed by the end of May.  The black silt fence surrounding the area will remain in place until the fast-growing temporary grasses are planted in the open-ground area (to limit soil erosion in the area).  I believe that this is the point at which it looks like nothing is happening but really… we are literally waiting to watch grass grow there.  In the fall, there will be a planting of the permanent wild no-mow grasses in that area.   At that time as well, the reforestation effort will also take place.  (Summertime is not a good time for tree planting; but the autumn is.)

The post linked above tells more about the plans for the pathway through the wooded area.  I am still awaiting some rough estimates from the Parks and Recreation staff regarding the options for the pathway and the added costs that might require neighborhood fundraising to cover.  If you are interested in the options that would require private funding above and beyond the city’s budget for this pathway, please reach out to me to let me know your preferred pathway solution — the options are, in order from least to most expensive: asphalt, concrete, raised wooden boardwalk — and how you can contribute to the fundraising efforts (not yet formally begun).  We will need folks to head up a fundraising effort and get others on board to contribute if one of the partially privately funded options is the option neighbors choose!

Until next week… I wish you all the best in the week to come.