The Notes: Week of April 29 - May 3, 2024

Hello, Neighbors!  It's another Full Council Meeting Week here.  But we also have a couple short special meetings of a couple of committees scheduled before the full council meeting on Wednesday.  As you've already come to expect, a summary of what will likely be discussed is below.

Wednesday, 05/01/2024

Safety and Licensing Committee - Special Meeting - 6:30pm  This committee has only one action item on the agenda.  It should garner very little discussion even though it is an important item -- a "redistricting" of the city due to the new voting jurisdiction maps that were approved for the state.  The proposal is to leave all of the aldermanic districts as they are but just add some new voting wards within those districts.  You can view the proposed new wards in the memo that will be presented at the meeting.  

Community Development Committee - Special Meeting - 6:45pm  Since this committee had no action items last week and their meeting was cancelled, they have not yet voted for a vice chairman, a contact person, or to formally set their meeting day/time for the current council year.  Those housekeeping items are the only things on their agenda for this week's special meeting.  As I mentioned last week, this committee will be swapping times with the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee on Wednesday evenings in Committee Meeting Weeks going forward.  

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  The mayor will get the ball rolling for this meeting with six -- yes, SIX -- mayoral proclamations.  There is also one change to the makeup of one of the standing committees (the Comm Dev Committee) that will have to be approved by the council.  The action items from last week's committee meetings that might be separated for extra discussion are as follows:

• From the Municipal Services Committee:  The potential approval of the planned new roadways for the next addition to the Emerald Valley subdivision (in District 13).  It should be noted that the plans for some of these streets include one-side-only parking and wider sidewalks (10' instead of the standard 5').  The latter allows those sidewalks to be used more like trailways for two-way pedestrian and bike traffic (helping to keep bikes off of narrower/busier roadways).  Here are the details if you are interested in them.  Let me know if you have any questions.
  
  
• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  Once again, there will be discussion of the operator (bartender) license for an applicant who is a five-time Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offender.  This was discussed here, here, here, and here.  And there is a very good summary of the case here as well.  The new members of this committee voted last week to approve this license (3-1 with one member absent and the chairman of the committee voting in dissent). 
  
  This is a difficult case.  I cannot, in good conscience, vote to approve this license as it is not for the good of the overall community.  The Appleton Police Department (APD) still recommends denial of this license.  I hold the opinion of the APD very highly as they are the folks who are looking out for the broader safety of all Appletonians.  I understand and appreciate forgiving mistakes of the past and that rehabilitation efforts can be successful.  But I would not be able to rest easy knowing that the obvious past poor judgement of this applicant could rear its head once again and some overserved patron of his could injure or kill an innocent person.  What are your thoughts?
  
  
• From the City Plan Commission:  As I mentioned last week, a property owner would like to add a small tavern to the premises which already houses a gas station, using the small storage garage attached to the gas station as the tavern location.  The special use permit (one step in the process of this property owner trying to make this happen) was approved by the commission with the noted conditions (which you can view on pages 4 and 5 of this report) last week.  I do not believe that there is any way -- without a potential legal challenge -- that the council could deny the special use permit required by the city for this.  What would allow me to vote in favor of this permit are the conditions noted -- that the owner must acquire a liquor license for this proposed tavern (which not be allowed unless the bar area is totally physically separated from the gas station operations), that other municipal code standards will require that same physical separation, that enough parking spaces must be set aside for both operations and the living quarters above the gas station, and that the site must be kept free of litter and debris.  Do you have any thoughts on this?   Let me know.  
  

I have a hard time actually putting into writing something to the effect of "it might be a short meeting"... because whenever that is mentioned, the opposite tends to come true and we have a longer than expected meeting.  But as you can see by the above, there are few items of much contention on this week's agenda.  

Thank you to all those who have recently sent me feedback on the "new" council rules and potential changes as we start this new council year.  I always appreciate all feedback.  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns on any of the above items or regarding anything city-government-related.  

I hope your week ahead is full of May flowers (after these April rains)!  See you back here for another alderman blog post next week!