The Notes: Week of August 7 - August 11, 2023

Hello, Neighbors!  Thanks for waiting a day for the week's post.  It is Committee Week again this week and we have a bit of a paired down schedule again as well.  This week, the following committees have cancelled their meetings due to lack of agenda items:

• Parks and Recreation Committee
• Fox Cities Transit Commission
• Board of Health (Awwwww!  No crack-of-dawn meeting this week!)
• Appleton Redevelopment Authority (which really only meets on demand but had a scheduled but now cancelled meeting for this week)

So without further ado... the meetings that will be held this week will go like this...

Monday, 08/07/2023

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm  The first action item on this meeting's agenda is a big one -- a presentation from the city's street guide planning consultants regarding their work thus far.  This work was contracted a year or so ago and the goal was/is to create a comprehensive policy for the city to follow for the safest and best maintained streets.  I'll be interested to see what the consultants bring us for an early policy framework and how a proper infrastructure budget fits into this framework.    

Committee members will also consider an application from a property owner on Badger Avenue for a permit to have a 4-foot fence, pavers, and tall plantings in the street terrace.  City staff are expressing concerns about the vision occlusion these items cause on the affected lot corner so that is, of course, the concern when council members are asked to allow terrace plantings.  

The Appleton Police Department (APD) is also asking this committee to consider a shortened time restriction (15 minutes) on parking on the south side of the 400 and 500 blocks of College Avenue due to not enough space for rideshare pickups of patrons of the bars in that area and the Performing Arts Center (PAC).  Appleton Downtown, Inc (ADI) is asking that the APD-proposed parking restriction be revised to Thursday through Saturday nights only so that "regular" parking will be allowed there Sundays through Wednesdays.  

Rounding out action items for this meeting are a request for a sidewalk closure on Oneida Street during the Appleton Public Library construction project and a request for OB's Brau House to place tables in the College Avenue amenity strip for the remainder of this year's outdoor dining season.  

Finance Committee - 5:30pm  This committee will hear a presentation about and then consider a vote to allow the Finance Director to sell 2023 General Obligation Promissory Notes in the amount of $20.2M for the following: 2023 Capital Improvement Plan ~ $6.2M, Library Construction ~ $9.9M, Tax Incremental Finance District #11 ~ $4M.  These would be notes through 2033 that, according to the presentation document, do not seem to have an excessively negative impact on the city's projected combined debt service over the next couple of decades. 

Committee members will also vote to award a construction bid to Vinton Construction for development of Lundgaard Park.  The bid potentially to be awarded is just over $1M (including a contingency) and will go towards construction of two pickleball courts, a basketball court, playground, court lighting, a fire department memorial plaza, walking paths, utilities, and landscaping.  This bid is within the 2023 Capital Improvement Project funding for the park's development.  Neighbors can expect to see this development begin soon -- yay! -- and it is expected to be completed by June 2024. 

Next on the docket is a request by the city's assessor that the city issue a partial property tax refund of $21,326 (for tax years 2021 and 2022) to a property owner (Dental Associates) who sued the city for a too-high assessment value on their property.  Mediation on the lawsuit led to this request and the city will be able to recoup some of that $21,326 since that amount includes tax dollars for other taxing entities (the county, the school district, etc).  The City of Appleton portion only is just over $9k.  The assessor suggests that this mediation solution will be less costly to the city than taking the suit to court... so it's likely that this partial refund will be granted the taxpayer. 

In the information portion of this meeting agenda are presentations of the mid-year reports for Facilities and Construction Management and Risk Management in the city and an update on the city's usage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds (see below):

Tuesday, 08/08/2023

Utilities Committee - 4:30pm  There is one action item for this committee's consideration: the potential awarding of a consulting services contract for an Appleton Wastewater Treatment Facility (AWTF) project.  

Wednesday, 08/09/2023

City Plan Commission - 3:30pm  After a public hearing regarding the item, commissioners will take up the rezoning of some northside land from agricultural to residential.  This land is north of CTH JJ and just west of Haymeadow Avenue and would be a fourth addition to the subdivision that already exists in that area.  Assuming the rezoning goes through, there is also an action item on the table to approve the plat map for this new subdivision addition.  A number of municipal code amendments will also be reviewed by commissioners in the information items portion of their meeting agenda. 

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 4:30pm  Two city departments are requesting table of organization (TO) changes of this committee.  The Department of Public Works intends to slightly modify their traffic engineering group to upgrade a position from "specialist" to "engineer" (with a commensurate pay increase).  Valley Transit would like to add a full-time maintenance position (a union position) to their TO.  The cost to the City of Appleton for this Valley Transit added position is anticipated to be less than $5,000 per year due to state and federal grants and funding.  The added position would ideally also lessen the current costs of overtime for Valley Transit mechanics to do the work of the chronically unfilled part-time maintenance positions.

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm  The first item on this committee's agenda is the potential 10-day suspension of the liquor license for Speakeasy Ultra Lounge on College Avenue for a "nude or semi-nude entertainer on premises" violation (back in late 2022).  Then committee members will again revisit the pending service agreement between the Appleton Fire Department (AFD) and Gold Cross Ambulance for ambulance service within the city.  This item has been pending for some time as it was discussed and approved by the committee and then referred back to the committee during a full council meeting so that additional questions could be asked of those who worked to put the agreement together.  I'll be interested to see whether the item finally does get back on track to be approved by the full council or is delayed again with council member questions or concerns.

Community and Economic Development Committee - 6:30pm  Back in June, some council members (Del Toro, Meltzer, and Schultz) presented a resolution to add "bird safe glass" requirements to the municipal code in Appleton.  There are numerous issues with this resolution and, of course, costs to the city and to other building owners in the city for compliance with any such ordinance.  A memo from the mayor and a subsequent memo from the city attorney's office outline the concerns and issues with the resolution.  Take a look at the resolution and the memos for more information. 

The resolution was based upon similar legislation in the City of Madison which is now seeing legal challenges to their "bird safe glass" code changes.  Both the mayor and the city attorney recommend pausing any action on this resolution in Appleton until the legal challenges in Madison are resolved.  When and if it reaches full council consideration, I intend to move to deny this resolution entirely and take it completely off the table for the city at this time.  There are too many questions in this regard, too much anticipated cost to the city (and therefore taxpayers) for compliance with it if it should pass, too much added burden and cost to other property owners in the City of Appleton, and -- I think most importantly -- not enough concrete evidence that the City of Appleton has a real issue with bird strikes and bird deaths due to the quality or quantity of glass in the city's buildings.  What are your thoughts on this?    

I just noticed... and this is strange... that I just asked for your thoughts and feedback on any of the above items once!  Yikes!  That's a faux pa on my part.  As you no doubt already know, I am interested in *all* of your thoughts, concerns, questions on *any and all* items up for consideration in City of Appleton government!  Please do share with me your feedback on the above information, now or any time you have questions or concerns.   

This wraps up the week for us as far as government meetings go.  I look forward to presenting to you what items above are headed to the full council for consideration in next week's Full Council Week blog post.  Until then... I hope you have a great week!  See you here again soon!