The Notes: Week of May 13 - May 17, 2024

Happy Mothers Day, Neighbors!  It's already a lovely day and looks to be one that will only be getting better as it goes.  

This coming week is a Full Council Week but there are also a couple of other meetings on the docket for the week as well.  Since it is Mothers Day, I'll make this a quick rundown so that I can spend some family time with my lovely daughter on this lovely day! 

Tuesday, 05/14/2024

Library Board - 1pm  After reviewing and approving the April expenses and financials, the board will move on to potentially approving the expenses for electronic equipment (~$214,000) and cabling ($341,300) for the new library, an updated city vehicle usage policy, and the nominations of some members for the Nominating sub-committee.  In informational items, there is a building project review (which states that the fundraising project has reached $11.1M of the $12M goal thus far -- that's still $900,000 short) and the first quarter library statistics. 

Wednesday, 05/15/2024

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - Special Meeting - 6:30pm  Due to some scheduling difficulties and committee member availability issues, this committee did not meet last week.  So before the full council meeting, they will look to review and approve a few couple of items: (1) a couple of vendor expenses to upgrade the fuel management services for Municipal Services and (2) a cost-neutral reorganization of a part of the table of organization for the Department of Public Works (DPW).      

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  This week's meeting will kick off with five mayoral proclamations and then move on to some Appleton Police Department (APD) civilian community service awards and a commemoration of the fallen firefighter, Mitch Lundgaard, for whom the city's newest park in District 13 is named.  The council business portion of the meeting will include the following items which will likely be separated for further discussion.

• From the Municipal Services Committee:  A resolution to change the city's overnight parking policies is up for denial by the full council.  While everyone seems to recognize that there are some overnight parking issues with the downtown area and other older, more densely populated areas in the city where there are narrower driveways and fewer and narrower garages, there is not yet a good solution to this issue that can be undertaken by the city without much more discussion and further delving into the problems and how to best solve them.  Due to the complexities of the issues, this resolution is being denied by the council with the hope that there will be other future discussions of potential solutions that will not cost city taxpayers but will help to alleviate the parking issues felt by some in the older neighborhoods in the city.  I support the denial of this resolution but do see that more conversations need to be had in this regard.    
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  The council will vote to officially approve receiving a ~$611,000 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Safe Drinking Water Loan Program to allow the city to help convert lead water service lines for private property owners. 
  
  
• Absent from discussions this week is the pending resolution to raise the city's Wheel Tax from $20/vehicle to $30/vehicle.  At last week's meeting of the Finance Committee, one of the authors of the resolution (who is also the chairman of the Finance Committee) was not present so discussion of the resolution was held until next week's Finance Committee Meeting.  While we await this discussion, please sound off on your thoughts about yet another proposed increase in fees for City of Appleton residents.  I, for one, am not convinced that simply raising this fee is the way to go.  There must be other options and solutions to the city's growing problem of not enough money for reconstruction of streets in this city.  We have to delve further into the shortfalls and other portions of the city budget to determine how to best work towards solving this problem, not just slap an additional $10/vehicle band aid on the problem!  Let me know your thoughts. 

Of course all of the other items that were discussed this past week in committee meetings will also come up at this meeting for full council approval.  But there were not many other items that garnered deep discussions or will likely do so at this meeting. 

So... thanks for reading this week's short episode of "this week in City of Appleton government."  I wish you a beautiful day and a lovely May week ahead.  Please always feel free to contact me with your thoughts and concerns about any of the above items and anything else city-government-related.