The Notes: Week of September 23 - September 27, 2024

While no one is certain yet if summer weather is now officially over for the year... welcome to cooler days, Neighbors!  This week is a Committee Meetings Week again so there are lots of meetings scheduled.  Here is this week's rundown of what you can expect:

Monday, 09/23/2024

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm This meeting will begin with a public hearing regarding the planned reconstruction of a few streets in the downtown area (portions of Alexander Street, Melrose Avenue, Bell Avenue, and Bellaire Court).  Each of these streets will be slightly narrowed in an attempt to save many of the mature terrace trees along them.  The planned narrowing will also save the city money in construction costs.  After that hearing, this committee will discuss and potentially approve a few other items and then finally get to discussing again an appeal by a property owner along North Ballard Road for a "turnaround" paved space in his front yard.  This was mentioned here and was initially denied by this committee.  I hope the same holds true after this revisiting of this request as variances should only be granted for very narrow criteria specific to irregularly shaped or otherwise unique/rare properties (which this property is not).     

Finance Committee - 5:30pm  The first action item for this committee is the potential approval of yet another sole-sourced contract, this one for a variable frequency drive for pumps at the Appleton Water Treatment Facility.  I've mentioned many times in past blog posts that I am concerned by too many sole-sourcings by the city because having or asking only one supplier for anything leads to a lack of competitive bidding to ensure that the city gets the best pricing available.  In this case, though, there is logic behind the sole-sourcing: for the part required, there is only one local authorized dealer.     

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

Tuesday, 09/24/2024

Fox Cities Transit Commission - 2:50pm  The only action item for this commission this week is the approval of the August 2024 payments for Valley Transit.  There will be information items also presented including the August 2024 financials and ridership reports and updates on staffing and the recently modified service hours.  

Utilities Committee - 4:30pm  The city's Department of Public Works (DPW) is requesting that this committee approve an increase in the annual contract amount for stormwater management plan reviews (engineering) for 2024.  The requested increase is $38,000 to bring the total annual contract to $113,000 and is due to a larger than expected number of plans submitted to the city already this year.  And after a bit of a delay since it was first on an agenda, committee members will finally hear the final update regarding the December 2022 "polymer incident" the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP).  

Wednesday, 09/25/2024

City Plan Commission - 3:30pm  There are no action items on the agenda for this commission this week.  Instead, commissioners will review and discuss proposed changes ("clean-ups," and not substantial changes) to the municipal code for the following: 

• driveways, driveway extensions, parking pads, and outdoor parking
• streets, sidewalks, and zoning map amendments
  
• special use permitting in zoned commercial properties

I see little of grave concern in the proposed changes, but if you are interested in reviewing them, please find links to these informational items here.  Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Community Development Committee - 4:30pm This meeting is cancelled due to lack of agenda items.

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm  Committee members will be asked to deny an operator (bartender) license for a recent applicant with a fourth conviction (a felony) for Operating While Intoxicated (which occurred in January 2024).  That felony conviction renders the applicant statutorily ineligible to obtain a bartender's license in the city.  I expect that the denial will be upheld by this committee... but stranger things have happened and habitual offenders have been granted bartender's licenses in the city in the past.  There is no guarantee that this applicant won't make an emotional appeal of the members of this committee and be approved for this license.  However this committee votes this week will be a recommendation for the eventual vote by the full council.  Let me know your thoughts on this and I will share with you the results of this committee's decision in an upcoming blog post. 

The committee will also review a small change to the fire code portion of the municipal code, a liquor license, and a few temporary liquor licenses for upcoming events.  To round out this week's meeting of this committee, both the police chief and fire chief will provide hiring updates for their departments. 

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 6:30pm  When this committee last met, they voted to hold the discussion on alderman salaries (for those elected after April 2026) so that more committee members would be present.  The discussion is back on the table this week.  I mentioned this topic and some of the questions surrounding past aldermanic salary changes here.  What do you think about this subject and the past inconsistencies in council approvals for increases?  What would you suggest as a change, if any, for the salary for the next slate of aldermen?  I am not inclined to support any increase in aldermanic salaries at this time as Appleton's is one of the higher comparatively and keeping the past overpayment issues (mentioned here) in mind.

And that exciting discussion will wrap up this week's committee discussions.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about any of the above-mentioned items or anything else city-government-related, please reach out to me.  I'd be more than happy to hear from you!  

Until next week's alderman blog post... have a wonderful last full week of September 2024!