The Notes: Week of August 26 - August 30, 2024

Welcome back to another alderman blog post, Neighbors!  We are now in a Committee Meetings Week in City of Appleton government and there are quite a few things on the agendas.  We will be taking up the following items this week for their initial discussions:

Monday, 08/26/2024

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm  This committee meeting will begin with a discussion and perhaps the final committee approval of the plans for the reconstruction of Lawe Street from College Avenue to Spring Street.  The project is set for an approximate $4.4M price tag.  

Committee members will also consider allowing the city to apply for state grants to add a stoplight to control traffic at the intersection of Richmond Street and Ridgeview Drive (near Draft Gastropub).  The city is looking to cost-share its portion of the project with the Town of Grand Chute which is directly to the west of this intersection.  The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) will be implementing a temporary signal in this area when the Ballard Road/I-41 interchange is being reconstructed... so there would be some precedent for the permanency of this signal thereafter.  What do you think about this idea?  

There is also a request from a homeowner on Superior Street for this committee (and the full council) to waive a $160 fee for high weeds/grass in July.  The homeowner cut the grass just before the city crew arrived to do so (after numerous warnings/notices); but the administrative costs for the letters to the owner, the warrant to allow the city on premises to remedy the high weeds, and all of the coordination needed to get a city crew there remain expenses to the taxpayers in this city.  City staff is asking that this waiver not be granted... but this committee has been quite lenient with home/business owners who present good stories for non-compliance in the past.  So we shall see where this request goes.  

Finance Committee - 5:30pm  This committee will discuss and vote on the following:

• An underbudget contract for the replacement of an elevator at the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP) for ~$300,000
• A request to award a contract for the AWWTP Heat-to-Power generator project with a $200,000 budget amendment.  No memo accompanies this item so there's no explanation on why this budget amendment is needed.  (Note: This budget amendment requires a 2/3 vote of the full council when and if it gets to the next full council agenda.  Two-thirds votes are not unprecedented and rarely slow down the legislative process in the city.  They are important insofar as they help to regulate the financial burdens of the city and how they directly affect taxpayers.)
• Further discussion and a request for this committee's approval of the grant application for a permanent traffic signal at Richmond Street and Ridgeview Drive (see above).
• A request for Phase 2 work on a damaged concrete barrier in the city's Green Parking Ramp for ~$59,000.  Of note: Phase 3 is yet to come on this.  But this is turning out to be a costly repair for the city due to personal vehicle damage to this barrier.  The council has been assured that this work will be paid for by the vehicle owner/driver and his/her insurance carrier.  
• Numerous sole-source engineering services contracts for a number of AWWTP projects.  The justifications for using only one contractor for these services is that each contractor has prior experience with the AWWTP and the projects that are being addressed.  While I understand that, it is still of concern to me any time the city does not go out for competitive bids.  

Parks and Recreation Committee - 6:15pm  This committee meeting is cancelled due to lack of agenda items. 

Tuesday, 08/27/2024

Fox Cities Transit Commission - 2:50pm  After discussion and approval of the July 2024 payments for Valley Transit, this commission will discuss and potentially approve yet another sole-sourcing -- for the architects for Phase 2 of the Whitman Avenue construction project.  In this case, they would like to continue to work with the architects who worked on Phase 1 of this project and a reusing them for Phase 2 would likely save Valley Transit some money.  The commission will also review the July financial statements and ridership reports and the results of the recently completed 2023 audit.  Lastly, there will be a review of something called a "disadvantaged business enterprise program."  For more information on this program -- how Valley Transit must spend $66,900 of federal funding on supporting "disadvantaged businesses" -- see this memo.

Utilities Committee - 4:30pm  The city attorney's office is recommending that the city opt out of two class-action lawsuits regarding PFAS chemicals.  This committee will be asked to approve the opt-out and move that forward for full council approval.  The city has already opted out of one other similar lawsuit on this as well.  

A last item of interest -- a "final update" on the 12/26/2022 "Polymer Incident" at the AWWTP -- appears as an action item though I'm not certain what kind of vote might be needed on the topic since there is no memo or other information attached to this item on the agenda.  

Wednesday, 08/28/2024

City Plan Commission - 3:30pm  There are two action items on this commission's agenda:

• Approval of a planned development rezoning for three commercial district parcels on South Schaefer Street.  The owner of these lots would like to combine them into one parcel and all lots intended to be combined need to be of the same zoning classification.  
• Review and approval of the 2025 Business Improvement District (BID) operating plan.  A new plan for the downtown Appleton BID is up for review and approval each year at this time.  

Community Development Committee - 4:30pm  There are two scheduled public hearings at the start of this committee's meeting this week, one for each of the following informational items.  (There are no action items on this committee's agenda for this week.)  

• The announcement of the city's 2025 Program Year for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.  The city will be using a portion of the CDBG funds received from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the following city initiatives -- Appleton's Housing Rehab Loan Program, the Neighborhood Grant Program, the Appleton Housing Authority, and to fund the city's new Community Resource Navigator position.  The balance of the federal funds granted to Appleton will be paid out to internal (city department) and external organizations through a competitive applications process later in the 2025 calendar year.  Click here for more information.
• The announcement of the next five-year plan (2025-2029) for the priorities of the city's CDBG funding.  The purpose of the hearing at this committee is to kick off the city's effort to seek public input on the formation of this next five-year plan and what areas of priority the city should include for use of these federal CDBG funds.  If you have any thoughts or ideas, please attend this meeting to share them!  You can also contact me and I will share your ideas at this meeting. 

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm  This committee will look to approve the latest joint-municipalities Outagamie County Hazard Mitigation Plan.  The interesting thing is that there is no copy of said plan to be adopted by the city in the agenda for this meeting!  I would be hesitant to vote to adopt any plan that I've not yet seen; so I hope that this full plan comes forward for inspection by council members before we are asked to approve it.  The committee will also be asked to approve some municipal code revisions related to emergency management in the city (and those are spelled out in the agenda), a new liquor license (which happens to be another of the $10,600 reserve licenses since all other "regular" liquor licenses in the city have already been issued), a number of premises amendments and temporary liquor licenses for upcoming special events, and numerous pet store and cigarette/vape shop licenses.  

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 6:30pm  And this final committee meeting of the week is likely to be one of the more interesting ones.  There will be discussion on the potential move from multiple water treatment plant and wastewater treatment plant operator positions to only one operator position to allow for greater flexibility in shift hours for these workers and a better redundancy in operators throughout that portion of the organization.  And there will be some discussion on the approval of the city's newest policy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology within city departments.  

But the mot interesting discussion will likely come with the review of and potential proposal for alderman salaries (effective April 2026, so that no sitting alderman can vote on his/her own salary unless he/she is reelected for another term).  Here is a table on how Appleton's aldermanic pay stacks up to neighboring and similarly-sized Wisconsin municipalities.  You can see that Appleton's are one of those most highly paid but for some outliers like Green Bay and La Crosse.  And here is the history of aldermanic salaries in the City of Appleton.  Note: There was an error discovered in this history and aldermen were overpaid without proper approval.  See this post from All Things Appleton for more information on the error(s).  This information will certainly require some heavy discussion!  I would like verification from city staff on whether all of the assertions of overpayment of aldermen are true!  If these assertions are indeed true and correct, I should think that there would be call for affirming the most recently correctly approved aldermanic salary level and leaving it at that for those who will be serving effective April 2026, right?  Wouldn't that be fair for the taxpayers of this city who have overspent on aldermen salaries for this many years?  What are your thoughts on this overpayment discovery and on the level of compensation the council should recommend for future council members?

As always, I will end this week's blog post with an additional solicitation of feedback from you, Neighbors.  I'm always looking to hear from you your thoughts and concerns about the issues coming up in the week's city government meetings.    

I hope that this last week of August 2024 is a good one for you.  Let's hope that the balance of this summer season treats us all well.  See you back here next week for another alderman blog post!