The Notes from Last Week: Week of July 22 - July 26, 2024 (Fifth Week from July 29 - August 2, 2024)

After a week's break... HELLO AGAIN, Neighbors!  Last week was a rare week of your alderman being out of town and essentially out of range of wifi and cellular coverage (for the most part).  It was a Committee Meetings Week last week and is a Fifth Week with no local government meetings this week.  So today's blog post will be a recap of what happened in committee meetings while your alderman was in technological darkness.

On Monday, 07/22/2024, the Municipal Services Committee kicked things off with a rather quick meeting with very few questions and all unanimous voting to approve 1) a request for some lighting on the front of the 513 W College Avenue building which will overhang the public right of way by 5 inches at a height of 11 feet or greater, 2) a utility easement release of rights to allow the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) to pay the city to relocate a city water main which currently sits in the construction area of the expansion of I-41 at Ballard Road, 3) a state/city agreement for the design and construction of the Lawe Street Bridge over the navigational canal (see more about this below), and 4 and 5) ordinance changes for some street reconstruction projects on Summit Street. 

The state/city agreement for the Lawe Street bridge is a bit of a concern for me as the project is slated for 2027 construction and only a percentage of the project will be paid for by state and federal funding (80% with a maximum of $147,952 for design and a maximum of $1.24M for construction).  All else over and above that amount will be at the city's expense.  And we just don't know where costs will be in the next few years before that bridge design/construction.  I would like to know -- before voting to approve this in the next full council meeting -- what the city's "out" strategy will be should the project costs vastly exceed the amounts currently estimated.  Do you agree?

Next, the Finance Committee met.  The first item was a public presentation regarding the upcoming 2024 general obligation notes ($13.5M) and sewerage system revenue bonds ($12.9M) sales.  The good news in this presentation is that projections show that, after 2034, the city's combined debt service declines greatly.  The presentation showed projections based on the latest available information as of this past week.  But this committee and the full council will take up more exact numbers in early August before the bonds are out for sale by the city. 

The Finance Committee also took up and voted to unanimously approve 1) the reimbursement of $6,460 to Riverside Cemetery for the maintenance of 646 of the city's veterans' graves at Riverside, 2) an increase in the project cost (an additional $72,830) for the Lightning Drive extension in District 13 due to poor soils (too wet and sandy) requiring the importing of clay for the stormwater pond and the adding of drain tiles beneath the road surface to support construction traffic and continue construction in that area, 3) a transfer from a fire station fire alarm project which came in under bid to the Appleton Police Department (APD) gun range door project which is coming in slightly above budget (~$3,500), and 4) a contract amendment to add fall protection equipment to a AWWTP project already underway (which will eliminate the entire contingency on the project and require a few thousand dollars extra from elsewhere in the budget).

The following items were also rejected unanimously by the Finance  Committee based upon staff recommendations:

• A significantly over-budget bid for a recoating of Mead Pool.  The bid was over $800,000 and the budget for the project is $350,000.  The project will be "re-scoped" by city staff and sent back out for bid.  The expectation is that the new scope will include sealing with paint only and not the full plastering that was initially sent out for bids. 
• Two significantly over-budget bids for rehabilitation of clarifiers at the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP).  The lowest bid was ~$2.6M which is over $1M above the available budget for the project.  The plan here is to move this project into a future budget year and budget more closely to the bids received.  While I appreciate that this is the best option, it does not bode well for the budget year in which this project will eventually take place!     

A new resolution presented at the last council meeting regarding requiring a 2/3 majority for any future increases in the city's Wheel Tax was held until the next meeting of this committee since two of the committee members were absent this past week.  If you've not seen this resolution yet, please review it and let me know your thoughts.  I am all in favor of this resolution and would actually like to see it go further to include any and all fee and tax increases!  In my opinion, if at least 2/3 of the fifteen members of this city's common council cannot agree to increase a tax or fee in the city, then a proposed increase should not go into effect.  The latest 50% increase of the city's wheel tax passed by only one vote.  So, I believe that legislation limiting the power of the council to increase taxes is of utmost importance and should be enacted swiftly in Appleton!  What are your thoughts on this?  

The meetings on Tuesday, 07/23/2024, began with a brief meeting of the Fox Cities Transit  Commission.  Commissioners approved payments for Valley Transit for May and June 2024.  Also discussed were the awarding of two grants.  The US Department of Transportation (DOT) notified the city of a $12M grant to the Fox Cities Transit Commission for the the Whitman Avenue Facility remodel project (Phase 2).  An email message from the USDOT in this regard makes a special request that the city/commission publicize this grant "win" on their social media channels.  (Look, folks!  It's election season!)  The DOT also awarded the commission/city a RAISE grant award of $25M for a proposed Downtown Appleton Regional Transit Center (in the current downtown bus terminal area).  This project includes city grant money to allow the Center to be both a transit station and "affordable housing."  Receipt of both of the federal grants was approved unanimously by commissioners at this meeting. 

Later that day, the Utilities Committee met for two minutes and twenty-six minutes (including the roll call of members and Pledge of Allegiance).  One action item -- the awarding of a stormwater pond outlet pipe repair contract -- was quickly approved unanimously. 

The busiest meeting day of the week -- Wednesday, 07/24/2024 -- started with a City Plan Commission meeting.  On this commission's agenda were the approval of changes to the Comprehensive Plan/Future Land Use, the Planned Development Overlay District, and the Rezoning of the land collectively known as the Thrivent Site.  Here is the latest from the folks at Thrivent on the project.  The current concept plan (found at the bottom of the page linked) was presented at the commission meeting.  However, this meeting was only to ask for the amending of the existing city's future land use maps, amending the old planned development overlay plan ("owned" by Thrivent and approved by the city plan commission and common council), and rezoning some portions of the current plat.  Should you have any questions in this regard, please let me know.  Please know that these changes are a "step one" of numerous steps that will need to be taken by Thrivent before the project moves forward.

Per Thrivent representatives, a traffic impact analysis is currently underway which will hopefully address one of the major concerns of those in District 13.  We all already know how busy the Ballard Road/I-41 area can get at certain times of the day.  It will be important to know that there is a plan to alleviate some of those traffic stressors as this Thrivent land is developed.  Traffic and proper stormwater drainage are the primary concerns of neighbors to this plat.  But I believe that those things will be (and I will push for these things to be) addressed as the plan comes to fruition in the next decade.

All three action items related to land use and zoning were approved by the commission and will be voted upon by the full council in September.  I have no issue with these three items and expect to vote to approve these changes.  But please do let me know if you have any questions or concerns related to these three land use and zoning items thus far.

The Safety and Licensing Committee met next and took up yet again the same request that has been on their agenda for at least two or three meetings prior to this.  The liquor license non-renewal for the Corner Pub which has been non-operational for over 1 year has been up for discussion since early June!  The pub was closed in early 2023 due to some flooding issues which rendered the pub unusable and the city's codes require that a liquor license must be actively used or would be considered "abandoned."  Thus, after more than one year of non-use of the license, the license holder was informed that the license would not be renewed.  This would return an unused liquor license to the city to be used by another open, ready, willing, and able restaurant or bar to use.  Knowing that there are limited numbers of these licenses available in the city, that is a fair and unbiased process.  Unless you get emotions involved, that is. 

The licensee apparently experienced many personal issues in the year since the flood of the establishment.  The licensee also many times reported to the committee that "the city" was responsible for the delays in getting the establishment back in working order and passing all city inspections.  City staff have refuted the latter... and the establishment is still not in operating order as of this week!  The licensee keeps asking for "just a couple more weeks."  While I understand and empathize with the situations that the licensee has experienced, I have a big problem with the city not fairly treating all applicants for liquor licenses.  A "just a couple more weeks" on top of the over one year during which no one has been actively using one of the city's limited liquor licenses is unfair to all those applying for these licenses.  Allowing "just a couple more weeks" for any license holder sets a precedent for allowing unevenly applied rules for all applicants for these licenses.  This is, in my opinion, dangerous.  This license should have long ago been surrendered and another applicant been given a license to actively participate as a business in this city.  The Corner Pub would then have the ability to later -- when their establishment is completely up and running after passing proper inspections -- for a liquor license to again actively participate in business in the city.  (According to the City Clerk, there are a few of these still available.)  

In my opinion, there was and has been no "good cause" for this extension to be offered just this one license holder in the city.  Empathy is appropriate here.  Uneven application of the legal process of licensing an establishment is not.  The majority of this committee voted (by a 3-2 vote) to allow this "just a couple more weeks" extension -- to August 15, 2024 -- for this establishment, which I do not support.  What are your thoughts?

Last to meet on this date was the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee.  They took up and unanimously approved one action item -- the movement of the city's staff away from standard desk phones to a software-as-a-service system called RingCentral.  The proposal to move to this and away from a standard office phone system would yield an estimated $56,000 per year and eliminate the city having to regularly replace outdated circuits, servers, and desk phone sets.  Sounds like a wise plan to me!    

In a bit of a change of pace, there were also two meetings scheduled for Thursday, 07/25/2024, and Friday, 07/26/2024.  Two library board sub-committees -- the Library Board Finance Committee and the Library Board Nominating Committee -- met and approved the preliminary 2025 ("working document") library budget amount of over $5M and the selection of the nominees for Library Board President (Margaret Mann) and Library Board Vice President (Jason Brozek).  

And as I mentioned, there are no meetings this Fifth Week.  So... there you have it!  A recap... as if you never missed last week's alderman blog post!

Thank you, as always, for your regular feedback, your questions, and for allowing me to represent our neighborhoods in these city government meetings.  I am always happy to hear from you.  Have a wonderful last week of July.  I'll be back next week with more on what to expect in City of Appleton government.