The Notes: Week of February 3 - February 7, 2024

Well, here we are on the first Sunday in February and it's Groundhog Day!  Apparently Jimmy the Groundhog (in Sun Prairie) predicts an early spring while the famous Punxsutawney Phil (way over there in Pennsylvania) has decided it will be a bit of a longer winter.  Either way... we all have to make it through this longest of short months yet!

The month starts out with a Full Council Meeting Week this week and there is one special meeting (just before the full council meeting) also scheduled.  Here are the details:

Wednesday, 02/05/2025

Finance Committee - Special Meeting - 6:45pm  Members of this committee will be asked to approve an emergency resolution to begin repairing and looking for replacements for three sodium hypochlorite tanks at the Appleton Water Treatment Facility.  Apparently, all three tanks are quickly deteriorating as they've all reached the end of their predicted lives at the same time.  This is disconcerting and the information that accompanies the meeting agenda for this item shows nothing by way of costs involved in replacing them all in an emergency situation.  I will be asking why the utility has not done a better job to this point of creating better redundancy in the system: Why are all three tanks in the same condition at the same time when at least two of them must continue to be usable to maintain a safe water supply for the water utility?  Why, when initial issues began arising, was at least one tank not immediately cued up for replacement so that redundancy could be achieved without pushing the city into this emergency replacement situation?  

It is my understanding that, while the term "emergency" is used, there is no immediate danger to water consumers... but that if the city does not act immediately to replace these tanks, water safety could be compromised  We should never have been put into this situation.  

While the committee -- and later, the full council -- will very likely approve the emergency actions needed, I think that these are important questions to ask.  And we need to know the costs of this emergency action as well.  When one needs something very important very quickly, it almost always means that it will cost more than it would under non-emergency circumstances.  So while we take action and spend who knows how much to fix the urgent issues, we must ask why we are in this emergency situation in the first place. 

What are your thoughts on this?   

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  This week's full council meeting begins with the usual -- business presented by the mayor.  There are no mayoral proclamations.  (We seem to be in a proclamation draught these days.)  But there are two mayoral appointments of citizens to boards -- the Appleton Public Arts Committee and the Sustainability and Climate Panel.  (Why does the latter still exist?)  Then we move on to the meat of the agenda with action items from the last Committee Meetings Week (two weeks ago).  Here are the most-likely-to-be-further-discussed items:

• From the Safety and Licensing Committee: The bartender's license for an applicant with a cocaine conviction and another cocaine possession charge yet to be litigated is now up for denial by the full council.  But the bartender's license for an applicant with three OWIs is up for approval.  The latter approval was apparently legally required as the applicant submitted paperwork that she believes demonstrates "rehabilitation."  I am always concerned about situations like this as the committee and the council is generally put into a position with no latitude -- that the license almost always has to be approved or the council could be found to have acted illegally in denying the licensure.  That seems a poor system in my opinion.  But it is the system on the books in State of Wisconsin law. 
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  Two budget amendments that were approved by the majority of this committee are up for full council approval.  The first is for a grant for $134,180 which is slated to be used for electric vehicles and an electric charging station for the city.  I find this to be a bit of a stretch as far as usefulness for the city.  But most consider it "free money" and therefore usable for whatever city staff seems to believe will fit the supposed purpose of the grant: "energy efficiency and conservation." 
  
  The second is for a grant for $274,000 for the library project.  You can read more about this here and here.  After a long committee discussion on this (you can view the meeting video here), I voted against this item.  While I do not think that the city should reject this grant money, I find it very concerning that this action item will not lower the amount of taxpayer investment in this project and instead will essentially increase the budget dollar figure for the library project.  I intend to bring this up for further discussion as I believe that it would be right to keep the library project budget where it stands and accept these grant fund while giving taxpayers a refund on their portion of contributions to the $40+M project.  What are your thoughts on this?  I believe that it is disingenuous of some members of the city council to say that accepting this grant without proportionally lowering the taxpayer amount contributed to the project is not "increasing the budget" on this project?  Please let me know.  
  
  
• There is a notice on the end of the full council meeting agenda for yet another closed session for council members.  I do not have much information on what might be discussed.  Unfortunately, I would not be able to share that with you yet even if I did.  The closed session information states that it involves "deliberating or negotiating purchasing of public properties, investing of public funds, or conducting other specific public business when competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session."  When I know more that I can share, I will certainly do so.  

And that will do it for this week.  If you have any questions or concerns about any of the above items, please reach out to me and let me know.  I am always happy to hear from you!  

I hope that your first full week of February is a good one and that the Wisconsin groundhog is right.  Come soon, Spring!