The Notes: Week of November 4 - November 8, 2024

Hey, Neighbors!  Welcome to the wet days of November...

Yesterday was the council's annual Budget Saturday and all went off without a hitch.  Only one small amendment (to correct an error of projected expenses in the wrong account line in the proposed budget) was offered and passed.  

The most important thing on the calendar this week is Election Day - Tuesday, 11/05/2024!  I know I can count on you to VOTE! 

If you need to find out what you can expect on your ballot or find your polling place, see Wisconsin's MyVote site.  

And.. please thank a poll worker for spending his or her entire day to help facilitate elections in this city.  It is a long day of trying to be friendly, helpful, fair, and welcoming to all voters... so your friendliness, cooperation, and expressions of thanks are appreciated!  

  

This week -- a Full Council Week in City of Appleton government -- we will have a regular common council meeting preceded by a public hearing on the 2025 budget.  As I noted in last week's post, there are a couple more opportunities for you to share your opinions on the mayor's proposed budget publicly:

Wednesday, 11/06/2024 - Public Hearing on the 2025 Budget 

City Hall (6th Floor) - 6pm

Wednesday, 11/13/2024 - Official Adoption of the 2025 Budget

City Hall (6th Floor) - 6pm

Please feel free to review the proposed budget (here) and let me know if you have questions or concerns.  

This week's regular council meeting (Wednesday, 11/06/2024, 7pm) will include taking up the items sent forward from the last Committee Meetings Week (summarized here).  As per usual, the mayor will get the ball rolling in this meeting with a number of proclamations.  This week, there are seven of them!  Then there will be a public hearing regarding the text amendments that city staff have proposed for areas of the municipal code dealing with parking, special use permits, and zoning.  A summary of these proposed changes can be found in City Plan Commission and Community Development Committee sections of this blog post.  Let me know if you have any strong feelings on any of these proposed changes or show up and speak on them during this public hearing section of the meeting.

Other items on this agenda that might spark further discussion include the following:

• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  The proposed changes to the city's Special Events Policy will be up for final approval after coming forward from this committee with an approval recommendation.  (For more information, see this earlier blog post.)  While I do have a few concerns about the logistics of how the proposed changes will play out for future special events in the city, I do think that the changes are warranted.  I think that changes such as this will need to be made and then evaluated for future "tweaking" as unpredicted wrinkles will undoubtedly come up in "real life" implementation. 
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  As was mentioned in this earlier blog post, the full council will be asked to approve the spending of almost a million dollars of remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on "building upgrades" and consulting for the Fox Cities Exhibition Center.  In this case, I have concerns about "good money chasing bad."  But I do prefer using ARPA funds rather than local taxpayer general fund dollars on this project.  It's just very unfortunate that this much money needs to be spent to better sound-proof/echo-proof this relatively new facility and to have consultants tell the city (and its eventual new management) how to better run the place.  
  
  
• From the Utilities Committee:  Get ready to see a slight increase in the wastewater portion of your next water/sewer bill from the city.  A 9% wastewater rate increase is recommended by this committee for approval by the full council.  While I never like to see taxes and fees raised, this one is minimal -- a projected ~$6-$7/quarter increase for the average residential customer -- and is appropriate to fund the major maintenance required on the waste digesters in 2025.  The city's wastewater utility is self-funded, meaning that the fees we pay for the utility go directly to the costs of the service and no property taxes fund wastewater utility activities.  So it's important to remember that as this increase is directly due to the increased costs of running the utility. What are your thoughts on the proposed increase?    
  
  
• From the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee:  A workload study for the Appleton Police Department (APD) was approved by this committee and now is up for full council approval.  As I mentioned in an earlier post about this, I hope that the study shows us how the department can improve upon their already strong service in the community without a large increase in taxpayer dollars needed to fund police service. The proposal for the study calls out ARPA funds for payment; so again, we can be grateful that the funds won't come out of the general fund... even though infrastructure usage of ARPA funds would be much preferred by your alderman.  Let me know your thoughts on this.      
    
• And of course, as predicted, there is an agenda item specifically for a reconsideration of the vote taken in the last full council meeting regarding a proposed smoking ban on the entire block surrounding the Appleton Public Library.  Hopefully, most of you have already read my comments on this subject and my reasons for previously voting "no" on this broad over-step of local government.  (If not, see here, here, and -- most importantly -- here.)  I would appreciate more discussion on this item during this reconsideration and would likely vote to approve an amended, more selective approach by the city in imposing any smoking ban changes around the library.  Some of you have already contacted me with your opinions in this regard.  (Thank you so much for your feedback!!) But I would be happy to hear from more of you.  Tell me what you think. 
  

There is one other meeting on the schedule for this week -- a Library Board's Personnel and Policy sub-committee meeting -- but there is no agenda yet posted for the meeting and it's not marked as cancelled.  So one could, at this time, only speculate what could be discussed at this meeting.  If anything vital comes up as the week progresses, I'll share it with you.  

I wish you short waiting lines on Election Day, a warm and dry place to wait out these damp days of autumn, and an otherwise overall great week!  Thanks for reading... today and always!