The Notes: Week of August 19 - August 23, 2024

Happy Monday, Neighbors!  We are now starting another Full Council Meeting Week so the following is a summary of what's most likely to garner extra discussion after last week's committee meetings votes.  There is also one other meeting scheduled for the week.

The Library Board will meet at 4:30pm on Tuesday, 08/20/2024.  Board members will look to review and potentially approve the bill register and cash flow statement for July 2024.  Then they'll look to review of some existing city policies, approve the 2025 Outagamie Waupaca Library System (OWLS) agreement, and discuss reports from the library's subcommittees on finance and nominations (for board positions).  There will also be a review of the July library construction project report which states that the Friends of the Library funding campaign has thus far raised $11.2M of the $12M needed in private donations.  That remains $800,000 short for a building that's slated to reopen in early 2025. 

Then on Wednesday, 08/21/2024, at 7pm, the City of Appleton Common Council will convene for their regular meeting.  We kick off with one proclamation and a request from the council for approval of a mayoral appointment in the mayor's portion of the agenda.  There is one special resolution on the agenda for the approval of the vacation (giving up of) a portion of what was once slated to be Sampson Street but was never built according to those originally recorded plans.  This item was discussed and approved last week by the City Plan Commission. 

Items likely to garner some extra discussion by the full council include the following:

• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  In what seems like the hundredth time this item has been taken up by a committee or been on a full council agenda only to be referred back to committee, the non-renewal of the liquor license for Corner Pub on Mason Street is now back up for a full council vote.  In the committee meeting last week, the pub owners came forward and stated that their premises repairs are now essentially completed and city inspectors affirmed that.  It is now over three months past one year of non-use of the liquor license for this license holder. 
  
  The vote this week will be to affirm a renewal of this liquor license now that the repairs are complete.  While I am pleased for these small business owners that they have come back from a lot of hardship to finally reopen, I am still very much of the mind that the proper and fairly applied liquor licensing process was long ago usurped in this case to allow a much longer time than the code-prescribed one year of license non-use.  As I've mentioned in all of the past blog posts regarding this item, I am very concerned about the precedent set here and about how other ready, willing, and able applicants to the city for liquor licenses were not fairly treated in this process.  I will be voting to deny the renewal with that in mind. 
  
  If other aldermen believe that the process should include a longer than one-year extension, then the process itself (and municipal code upon which it is based) should be changed instead of  special exceptions continually being made on a case-by-case basis (perhaps indicating or allowing for special treatment for some individuals and not others based on the applicants' pleas in their favor).  This denial vote will be nothing personal against this applicant but rather an expression of what I believe would be better for the city in the long run.  Let me know your thoughts on this one.  
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  As mentioned here and here, a resolution to require a 2/3 majority vote in the full council for any future increases in the Wheel Tax is up for final approval.  There are countless budgetary votes taken by this council which require a 2/3 majority due to how deeply the municipal budget impacts taxpayers.  The Wheel Tax should be no exception.  As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, I would like to see this higher threshold applied to many other items which directly impact taxpayers and your personal family budgets.  But this resolution is a small step in the right direction without going too far.  What are your thoughts on this?
  
  
• Also from the Finance Committee:  There are leftover dollars from a previous allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) federal dollars to update of the city's Comprehensive Plan and as such, city staff would like to "deallocate" and "reallocate" those funds ($45,000) to a Strategic Plan initiative for the city.  While I understand that the city would be at a disadvantage to give any overage back to the federal government and it would be hard to justify doing so for that relatively small amount, I am still uncomfortable with this proposal.  I just do not philosophically align with spending those dollars on talk of a "mission, vision, and guiding beliefs" for a city government.  There are many ways in which this funding could be spent to directly impact Appletonians and strategic plan consultants is not really near the top of the list for me.  I know how many people desire formal mission and vision statements for an organization... but this city already has them (as do many of the departments within city government).  How much could the mission and vision statements for a municipal government have changed since they were adopted or last amended?  I suppose it would be unwise for this to be an issue on which an alderman should make a stand.  But I can't shake the feeling that this would be wasteful spending.  If you disagree, please share with me your best arguments to approve this before Wednesday's meeting so that I can think about this further before voting.

With those items being the only ones most likely to be discussed further, I would expect a relatively short meeting full council meeting this week.  But you and I both know that once one says that, something else is bound to come up and extend the length of the meeting, right?!

I look forward to hearing from you regarding anything noted above or otherwise of concern to you.  Thanks to all of you who regularly zip quick notes off to me, sharing your thoughts.  Please join me again next week for another alderman blog post.  Have a great week!